20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

Manuscripts from the works of Saint Vasile the Greatfrom the Library of Neamt MonasteryAurel Florin TuscanuArchiprêtre de Roman2009 – The honorary-commemorative year of SaintVasile the Great and of all the Cappadocian saintsPreliminariesSaint Vasile the Great’s principles of life applied in Neamt Monastery.Our country’s monachism has developed through strong connectionswith oriental monachism from Egypt, Palestine, Byzantium and Athos.Saint Vasile the Great was known through north-danubian parts evenfrom when he lived, which means from the fourth century, when he wasinterested in the spiritual life of Scythia Minor and from when he asked forthe relics of some martyrs to be sent to Cappadocia, among which those ofSaint Sava the Goth, martyrized in Buzau river 1 .Neamt Monastery appears in the history of Romanian monachismas the eldest and widest monachal unity. Setting out as a modest form ofmonachal living and settlement, it is subscribed as a spiritual and domesticestablishment in the middle of the 14 th century and, at the beginning of the15 th century (1407), it is united with Bistrita Monastery, under the sameguiding priest, Domentian, through the decision of the metropolitan IosifI. The principles that have guided the coordinators of Neamt Monasteryfrom its very beginning were not improvised, but were principles thatguided the entire orthodox monachism and, especially, those from the Saint1Wladimir Guetteé, Histoire de L’ Eglise depuis la naissance de N.S. Jésus Chistjusqu’á nos jour. Tome quatriéme, Paris-Bruxelles, (without the year): 4; cf. Arhim.Epifanie Norocel, 1600 years from the martyric death of Saint Sava the Goth, in M.M.S.(Mitropolia Moldovei şi Sucevei), XLVIII (1972), No. 3-4, 146-158.