REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

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Remembrance in Time
workshop, and after 1971 – in the framework of the Craftsmen Association from MSSR.
Nionila Manoli, Olga Leah, Vera Garştea, Mavra Limar etc. are worth mentioning among
the famous nuns specialized in manufacturing carpets at that time. The adornment of the
nuns’ present-day cottages stands for the most eloquent exemplification as regards the
role of the carpets in the fate of Tabăra convent.
During the liquidation of the church, the facilities of the monastic complex much
suffered, the two churches, the abbey, the refectory. The church dedicated to the
Assumption was transformed in club, and later in on – in granary, thereafter it remained
empty until 1989, which occasioned its unhindered devastation and destruction of original
architecture. In the other church, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, until 1989, the local
school had been installed. The State institutions being placed here, until the re-opening of
the nunnery, the churches benefited from some care.
The liquidation of the monastic congregation and the closing of the monastery also
caused an irreplaceable loss as regards the liturgical inventory and vestment. It is well
known that the fate of the religious ornaments was tragic. Their small dimensions at
enormous price, inversely proportional to size, led to numerous robberies of the churches
and monasteries in search of precious pieces. It was the case of the icons with silver
binding, of the various chalices, votive lights, censers, crowns, procession crosses, small
baptismal crosses, embroidered flags. As such, these ornaments took to some antiques
stores, were passed without reluctance across the borders with a view to being marketed.
Deprived of numerous religious ornaments, the monasteries were obliged, after their reopening,
to gradually gather and acquire another inventory; however the spiritual heritage
of yesteryear was no longer recovered.
In this context, the history of the Romanian heroes’ cemetery is worth pointing out.
It is accurately known that during the Soviet dominance, the nuns from Tabăra
convent secretly kept a list of the militaries from the Romanian Army buried in
Tabăra village. The teacher Raisa Bârnaz of the local school recounted: “The list with
the Romanian heroes buried in Tabăra graveyard is true. The front line being here, on
Dealul Culii, when they died, they were brought to the monastery for the funeral
service. They were all buried in a Christian way. Even if only parts of their bodies
were found, their identity was reconstituted from documents and they were buried
properly to a Christian. The known ones were registered in a list kept here, in the
convent, by the nuns. The list was kept in the monastery and comprises names of
Romanian soldiers who died in the 1944 withdrawal. “The nuns hid the list after the
monastery had been closed, in 1960, as those heroes were said to be fascists…”. Most
Romanian militaries were buried on the hill. The higher militaries, separately; the
others, in mass graves. Formerly, the cemetery had remnants of wooden crosses. By
1968, places for homes were given there. The local authorities offered the place of the
graveyard to those who wished to build homes, but no one dared to begin the
construction. Now, the crosses installed again in the graveyard only possess a
symbolic character, as the tomb site does no longer correspond. In the list drawn up
by the nuns, more than 70 dead persons from the nearby localities are registered.
Those from Romania, in general, are not known and lie in mass graves [37].
We notice that, during the dominance of the communist ideology, the nunnery with
independent living Tabăra had a tragic destiny, passing through a genuine Calvary. The
policy of the Soviet authorities, underlain by economic constraint and intimidation of the