20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

Manuscripts from the works of Saint Vasile the Great ... 195Mount Athos. Even under the hypothesis of coming and reorganizing ofthis monastery at the end of the 16 th century by followers of Saint Nicodimfrom Tismana – Sofronie, Pimen and Silvan – the principles remained thesame, and passed through the teachings of Athos 2 . What is more, collectivelife was strictly organized on the “fundamental code”, made from the rulesof Saint Vasile the Great, updated at the time by Saint Teodor Studitul 3 . Inthe 18 th century, Paisie Velicicovschi, by coming to the Neamt Monastery,was not bringing anything new or unknown for the inhabitants living here,as he did not bring anything new to Dragomirna or Secu. Living in Athosuntil 1763 made Paisie even more attentive to the “typicality of Saint Vasilethe Great and of other Holy Fathers living as a group”. 4 We kept in mind thefact that, before going to Athos, Paisie lived in Treistieni, Carnul and PoianaMarului hermitages in Tara Romaneasca, “getting rapidly used to monachalrules and Romanian monk life” 5 , which were anciently established on thelines of vasilian rules.Paisie’s “establishment”, introduced in Dragomirna after 1763, inSecu after 1775, in Neamt after 1779 and in New Neamt after 1858, is anestablishment based on the essential principles of Saint Vasile the Great. Theguiding lines of this establishment were as fallows: living in common orcollective life; a life of severe discipline in the spirit of the old hermits; thepursuit of different crafts; concerning with the enrichment of the theologicalculture for each monk 6 ; praying, reading the Holy Scripture and the HolyFathers; caring for those bodily and spiritually suffering. It seems that, ata careful reading and critical analysis, a shadow could be cast on Paisieand his apprentices because, in their effort to apply his “establishment”,the traces of some Romanian monasteries with a collective life have beenremoved and lost, as those from Dragomirna, of Anastasie Crimca, fromSecu, of Nestor Ureche, renewed by Varlaam, and from Neamt, that whichwas “ancient” 7 .2Pr. Prof. Mircea Păcurariu 1972, The history of Romanian Orthodosx Church,Sibiu: 72.3Ierodiac. Nestor Vornicescu (1960), Manual labor in monahism afterSaintVasile the Great, in M.M.S., no. 7-8, 508.4Pr. Paul Mihail (1962), Paisie the Abbot from Neamţ the renewer of monachism,in M.M.S., XXXVIII, no. 5-6, 412.5Diac. P.I. David 1975, The Pious Paisie the Great (Velicicovschi) a perfectromanian monach. New questions and hypotises, Bucharest: 7, (Extracted from “TheOrthodox Romanian Church”magazine, XCIII (1975), no. 1-2, 162-193).6I.D. Lăudat 1968, The history of ancient romanian literature, Bucharest, 92.7Narcis Creţulescu 1889, The History of the Holy Monastery New Neamt...,from 1858 until 1880, Neamt Monastery, Manuscript no. 164, in Neamt Monastery Library,147-150.