20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

The Romanian monks from Athos Mountain 837• The desire of many Romanian monks for Greek monasteries tobecome Romanian ones.• The history of Prodromu hermitage with many interesting elements.• The History of Lacu hermitage, with many interesting elements.• The presence at the holy mountain of Aromanian and Basarabeanmonks.The numerical situation of the Romanian monks and their grouping.Their total number varies in the documents. In 1936 a well known monk,Antipa Dinescu wrote that their total number was over 500, a figure whichis a little exaggerated. I am giving figures strictly for orientation, from 1906and 1938. In 1906, according to the writings of the prodromit monk IrinarhSisman, there were Romanian monks in many Greek monasteries, in thetwo hermitages Prodromu and Lacu, and in cells. 259 Romanian monkswere needed. Analytically there was one monk at Lavra, two at Karakalu,tree at Ivir, one at Pantokrator, two at Votaped, tree at Esfigmenu, two atHilandar, same as at Saint Pavel, six at Dionisiu, one at Grogoriu, same asat Simonopetra, two at Xiropotamu, 30 at Rosikon, same as at Xenofon, 3at Dohiariu, and 20 at Zografu. In all of them the Romanian monks livedalongside (a far greater number of) Greeks, or other nationalities (like inRosikon and Zografu). Regarding the hermitages the situation was thefollowing. At Prodromu lived 88 Romanians, at Lacu 64, at Serai seven,at Proorocul Ilie five. The rest were ascetics, living from their work. At thehermitage Saint Dumitru dependant on Vatoped, 12 monks were needed 3 .In 1938, according to the Romanian archives, there were 72 Romanianestablishments, with 52 churches, which needed 210 monks, on theterritory of the holy mountain. Moreover, in some monasteries, hermitages,and other places lived another 52 monks, so the total number was 262. Thisfigure seems far more accurate than Dinescu’s.In order to keep their rights, many Romanian monks who lived inhermitages organized themselves in Communities. This happened prettyearly. For example, in 1897 The Committee of the Romanian Brothers fromProvata was functioning under the chairmanship of the monk SerapionFrunza, and it comprised four hermitages – Saint Ioan Teologul, SaintJohn the Baptizer, Saint Ilie the Prophet, and Adormirea Maicii Domnului.Subsequently, the hermitages Saint Gheorghe Colciu and Saint Nicolasfrom Caries were added.3I have extracted these data from the volume of Irinarh: 21-23. I have extracted therest of the information from the two works mentioned earlier.