REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

Liliana CONDRATICOVA: Tabăra Nunnery under the Soviet-Ideology Dominance 205
which were also methodically seized for the benefit of the newly formed kolkhozes. This
way, in 1945, Tabăra nunnery only possessed 20 ha arable land, 1 ha garden, 1 ha
vineyard, overall 28 ha land; the number of animals being reduced (two horses, a caw, 4
sheep) [16]. The nuns living in their houses possessed arable land between 0,5 and 2 ha,
gardens, orchards, some sheep and goats, some poultry.
Taxing and continuously diminishing the agricultural fields created discontent among
the clergy, discontent attested not only in the church from Moldavia, but also Ukraine and
Baltic Countries. Therefore, in order to calm the spirits and to attenuate the consequences
of its reforms, the Soviet State adopted, in 1948, a law liberating for a while the
monasteries from paying the construction tax and land rent [17].
The Soviets’ arms, along with the economic constraint, were completed through the
clergy calumniating, through disagreement, through instigating to envy, disobedience
towards the monastery administration etc. In this context, the letters and commentaries of
the abbess Mavra (Limari) in the management bodies are significant in order to clarify the
situation, which suited the authorities. This way, in 1948, she wrote a complaint wherein
she mentioned that a carpet-manufacturing workshop functioned in the monastery;
however, in the village, another such workshop was purposefully organized, named
„Pobeda”, where the village lasses worked; however 7 young obedient listeners were coopted.
She asked for a disposition for the nunnery inmates to work solely in the monastic
workshop; as a matter of fact, there were created numerous disciplinary issues etc. [18],
the abbess well noticing the intentions to open the workshop in the village.
It is easy to understand that the abbess’ complaints did not stop, in 1949, the first
attempt to close Tabăra nunnery. This way, as “the monasteries stand for the nucleus of
the religious fanaticism etc.”, CC of PC (b) from MSSR, in its address towards CC of PC
(b) of USSR, asked for the approval as regards the church-activity restriction and the
monastery-number reduction, inclusively Tabăra [19]. In the created situation, the Soviet
local organs forcedly occupied a few houses-monastic cells of Tabăra nunnery, provoking
disobedience, violence; supplementary taxes were levied; the villagers, the people in the
local kolkhoz were sent to feed from the monastic refectory [20].
In the beginning of the 1950s, during the abbacy of the nun Sepfora (Chiriacova), the
monastic congregation was still on the rise, reaching 207 persons, inclusively 81 nuns and
126 obedient sisters [21]. This positive dynamics is due to the cumbersome status of post-
War Moldavian economy, to the search for consolation in monasteries especially by
widows, but also to liquidating other monastic communities throughout the country, their
indwellers searching for refuge in the still functional sacred abodes. According to their
age, in the monastery was a minor, 25 dwellers between 18 and 30 years old, 32 inmates
beneath 40 years old, 35 nuns under 50 years old, 12 persons aged between 50-55 years
old, 13 persons under 60 years old, 34 dwellers under 70 years old and 36 persons above
70 years old, inclusively 11 inmates above 80 years old [22].
Since 1953 until the monastery abolishment (1960), the monastic community was
administered in turn by nun Raisa (Cebotari) and the nun Serafima [23]. It is the period of
the second wave on the church and monastery liquidation, the policy of the Soviet
authorities to reduce monastic fields, the taxing constraint and pressure taking an