Sœur Eleni

This article is the pilgrimage account of Sister Eléni Quintin, a French Greek-Catholic nun, who visits some fifteen Romanian Orthodox monasteries in September at the invitation of Bishop Séraphin of Făgăraș. In the form of a travel journal, the text successively describes the communities visited — Ghighiu, Sinaia, Moldovița, Sucevița, Voroneț, Agapia, Neamț, Secu, Sihastria, Rimet, Prislop — noting their history, their liturgical and material organization, as well as the personalities encountered. The main contribution of this testimony is to demonstrate the vitality of Romanian monasticism after decades of communist repression: a renewal of vocations, the founding of sketes, canonizations, and theological education. The text also illustrates the thesis of a "monastic civilization" in which hesychast spirituality permeates the entire body of the faithful, and addresses the ecumenical tensions between Orthodox and Greek-Catholics in post-1989 Romania.