Because he did not want to renounce his faith in Christ, he was thrown into the arena and was torn to death by lions, around 110, during Trajan’s reign (98-117). Parts of his relics are found in the Bishopric in Galati, at the Darvari Skete in Bucharest, and at Tismana Monastery (all in Romania).

Unfortunately, what everyone retains today is solely the pig slaughtering. I don’t know what the origin of that custom is. Some researchers say that this ritual of pig stabbing wasn’t done for the purpose of feeding one’s family, since it reminded of the sacrifices to the gods, who would be “born” and would “die” again during the periods of renewal of the calendar. Which is why on Ignatius’ day, each member of the family would be marked with a cross out of the pig’s blood and it was said that it was good to see blood on that day…

Given the fact that today people do not mark themselves with pig blood any more, nothing else remains from this day except filling one’s stomach. What is certain is that the Church cannot recommend nor encourage slaughtering pigs during a fasting period. To Christians, Christmas is not only the sight of sausages, sarmale, ham, salami, or buns on one’s table. To them, what is important is that the Son of God is born within them. But today’s man finds it easier to slaughter the pig, to spice up sausages, and eat them without any hold-backs. In fact, he says to himself that it’s quite difficult to explain even how the Son of God, who was begotten in eternity by the Father, is born by Virgin Mary. So he chooses to do what requires him the least effort.

The faith of the people of yore was so great that they would respect the fasting time strictly. Thus slaughtering the pigs was done after Christmas, lest that any cooking bowl should be tainted with pork – non-fasting food. Today, it is generally believed that the pig should be slaughtered on Ignat’s day because from this day on the animal will no longer gain weight and will stop eating, because “it has dreamt about his slaughter”…

What remains is for me to remind you that life does not mean living exclusively for our own bodies – that is, for filling up one’s stomach and impoverish one’s heart.

Adrian Cocosilă

Source: http://www.crestinortodox.ro/editoriale/sfantul-ignatie-taierea-porcilor-98418.html    

The question of God’s existence and work is not a speculative one, but one based on living, ascesis, and love. The measure of our partaking in the Lord is proportionate with our efforts to clean our passions off more and more and work upon our virtues ever more completely. And a person’s union with God is done in a state of ceaseless prayer and “supra-mindfulness”, in the midst of light and love. Which is why theology does not imply intelligence, but wisdom; neither does it imply a surplus of rationality, but a surplus of prayer.

Fr. Ioan C. Tesu

Excerpt from: http://www.crestinortodox.ro/credinta/prin-stiinta-spre-credinta-96167.html

“There is in man a multiplicity of tendencies, of appetites that are more or less concerted or divergent, a «poly-psychism» that has been likened to as a large «nation» governed by reason and will, in which one finds both submissive and disciplined citizens, and recalcitrant and dissident ones. What has been called ascesis and spiritual combat is nothing but the manifestation and method that can be applied in this inner «history», in this «militia hominis adversus et propter semet ipsum». (…) Because any definite and determined position will be faced (out of a spirit of contradiction) with the «party» of the displeased. (…) Any of our initial efforts is like a war declaration against the softness and shallowness of the living energies, which they, too, have an instinct of conservation and independence”. This awakens within us an “alien or hostile awareness and new wishes that rise against one’s will.” (L’Action, vol. II, pp. 194-196I).

The really tough fight starts only within those who have decided to lead a life that is more compliant with the godly commands.”

Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae, Note #1 re: “St. Maximus the Confessor” (Philokalia (III), Humanitas, Bucharest, 2004, p. 182) 

Propensity for Haughtiness

They are more readily inclined to give lessons, rather than to receive them. They condemn within their heart those who do not understand faith as they do and they manifest that condemnation – at first, secretly held in their hearts – through their words – and that is when you feel like you hear the Pharisee who thought he was worshipping God when he was vaunting himself for his own deeds, while despising the tax-payer. That sort of attitude is to please the devil. All of these things drive one’s soul to pride and haughtiness. They are of no use whatsoever to the beginners (on the contrary, they change whatever else they have good in them, into sins), as they cease bearing with one another and if anyone comes up to belittle their fellowman, that pleases them. They will see the straw in their brother’s eye yet will fail to notice the beam in their own eye; they will make a big deal out of the other’s minor deeds and will efface their own – greater – faults.

They don’t like confessor Fathers who do not praise them for their actions and don’t appreciate their good behaviour – because such spiritual sons’ sole pursuit is to be praised and commended in everything they do.

They even try to convince others that they have an accomplished spirit and harbor true piety.

They even go as far as not confess their sins anymore, lest they should downplay themselves in the process and they avoid mentioning their mistakes in order to render them lighter. They will avoid by all means praising others, but they do not like not being praised by others. Sometimes they will go as far as to ask others to praise them. Beginners very seldom escape such weaknesses.

Propensity for Spiritual Stinginess

They complain whenever they don’t receive the comfort they expected from their spiritual Fathers or their fellowman. They always look to filling up their minds with spiritual advice and teachings. They dedicate all their time to reading and have no more of it left for the spiritual work, which should be their first and foremost duty.

Propensity for Anger

They are always in a bad mood.

They do their duty sloppily.

They get upset for the slightest thing and end up being unbearable to the ones around them.

They blame others.

They badmouth others.

They give moral lectures in a bitter and high voice, as if they were the only ones who would have access to being virtuous.

Propensity for Spiritual Greed

They exhaust themselves carrying out prayer rules.

They apply themselves to fasting without limits.

They keep away from people who would invite them to take bodily food.

They lack discernment.

They work against the commandments.

They want bodily canons (rules) rather than mind-based canons.

They don’t listen to their spiritual Fathers.

They take pride in making various efforts without discernment.

Such spiritual “sons” are encouraged by the devil to behave this way.

They always look for pulling out counsels that suit them, from their spiritual Fathers.

In case one rejects their ideas, they sulk like children.

Whatever they do, they do superficially, because they are convinced that they do nothing good before God, whenever He doesn’t work [in their life] as they would like Him to.

They take the Eucharist many times, without their spiritual Father’s approval.

Propensity for Envy and Worldliness

Their fellowman’s spiritual wellness always gets into their eyes.

They suffer when they hear someone else being praised.

Another person’s virtue makes them sad and if given the chance, they will belittle and persecute it, in order to break off all praise for that person.

They want to be the first in everything.

Excerpt from CĂRAREA ÎMPĂRĂTIEI – ”The Way to the Kingdom” – by Fr. Arsenie BOCA

A friend is a person who helps you without placing a direct object of time, place, or manner after the verb.

It is not the political or economic system that matters, but the tone of the relations among people: that is, whether good will reigns, or threat. The rest doesn’t matter.

The liberation event is nigh and may happen any moment now.

In my small prison cell in Zarca, I kneel down and make an inventory of myself.
I entered prison as a blind man, who used to have some vague, self-produced glimpses in the dark, which split through it without clearing it up – and I am coming out with my eyes wide open.

I went in as a spoilt, pampered person.
I am coming out healed of all whims, airs, and fastidiousness.

I went in unhappy.
I come out knowing happiness.

I went in as a grumpy, irritable, fussy person.
I come out with no care for it all.

The sun and life didn’t use to tell me much.
Today, I know how to enjoy the smallest slice of bread.

I come out admiring courage, dignity, honour, and heroism more than anything else.

I come out feeling at peace. At peace with the ones I have wronged – friends and enemies – and even with myself.

Anyone can do evil, no matter how weak s/he can be. The good, however, is for the strong souls and the tried natures.

As long as we do not come out of the “possible” realm, of our accountant-like thinking, we can neither conceive, nor claim Paradise.

No one should force his neighbour, not even to do him good. God does not step in uninvited, either.

A Christian is one who neither lives in the past, nor in the future, but only in the present. The past does not burden him and the future does not worry him.

We want to be forgiven, yet we are not willing to forgive in our turn. We want people to give us attention and take into account all our rights, wishes, if not our whims, too; however, we take very superficial heed of the others’ needs, requests, and demands. We are in fact under the impression that everyone around us has obligations towards us and we don’t have any, towards anyone. We are owed everything, everything we do is good and entitled, and we are always the ones who are always right.

Never more dizzying words have been uttered than:

“I believe, Lord, help my unbelief”. Words which I think that if they were the only ones left from the whole Bible, they would be enough…

On the Cross, the Divinity joined humanity.

Rights without duties – it’s like wanting light without darkness. Right and duty – here is the best example of an invariable pair.

What Christianity offers us is not some miraculous way to escape sufferance, but the miraculous means to endure it.

Only God exists – everything else is mere hypothesis.

By giving the light that you do not have you will acquire it, too.

The only chance Eastern Christianity has is a war of words.

- I would also like to ask you, whilst remaining in the area of our discussion so far: what were those existential experiences that made you become a monk?

- Usually, people who have gone through atheism expect or think that one must have had some sentimental breakdown prior to going into monasticism as well as before any common conversion to Christianity. The reality is different. Usually, one assumes that he or she has had some disappointments [in love]. I have recently received a letter from a friend of mine, a poet who lives in Iaşi and with whom I used to go to the same literary club, who wrote to me: “You know, I, too, read the Holy Fathers, I like their writings; I go to church. I have also thought many times about taking the step you have – but you see, I still believe in love”. And I could not help smiling there, because… I believe in love, too; don’t I? And I believe even in the love between a man and a woman. But I have come to understand that the difference between the love poems I used to write – albeit very sincerely – and true love is like the difference between the dead Lazarus and the resurrected Lazarus.
Usually, people ask me: “What made you become a monk? Because I see you are so and so… etc?” So then I ask them, too: “What made you not become a monk/nun?”

- Is it difficult to be a monk?

- What is difficult is the encounter with yourself. What is difficult is to part with people and absolutely everything else. What is difficult is to die a slow death and allow yourself to be buried all your life by the people you loved. I am a sentimental person; one can see that in my poems. I am a person in love. Yet when I was left all alone with my sins, in a cell lit only by candlelight and where it smells an unusual amount of incense – then THAT was difficult. Try to figure this: my loneliness was so ironic. Do you know what ironic loneliness is like? It’s when loneliness, like a naughty classmate, makes a fool of you. I was living all by myself in the seminary building – I wasn’t living in the brethren’s quarters yet – and below my cell was a room with a piano. Every night around midnight, a seminarian would come in and play The Moon Sonata. You know I went to the music and art high-school in Iaşi. Well, I had learnt to play this sonata from a girl, for whom I had written all my poems. So there’s one existential experience, if you wish. So at that point I would just lie down on the floor and would cry as I had never cried before, until I would fall asleep with exhaustion. This is how I also gave up poetry.

Maybe some postmodernist poet would like to make this into a poem, but I don’t know how to do this any more; I don’t have enough talent left for that. All my poetry today could be summarized in one verse: “I have known feelings which one cannot describe in poems.”

What is difficult in all this is the thought. I have even written a series of short rhyming texts, called “The Thought”:… “The thought that lies heavily on the palm of your soul and weighs as much as mercury”. The moment when one comes face to face with the thought is very difficult, and then God puts things in order – that is, God’s mercy and love will step in; you come to feel them personally and that is what gives you impetus.

When, in pains like “the labors of the one who gives birth”, as David says [in his psalms], you end up by being reborn from your own grave and when out of the death’s “hump” that held you encapsulated you emerge outward, much to your own wonderment, and when the worm of “the former man” spreads its wings out into his spiritual birth – then none of these things for which people commit suicide touches you any more.  

 (“Ortodoxia pentru postmodernişti“/”Orthodoxy for Postmodernists”)

In the Wilderness with Fr. Cleopa – Fr. Arsenie Papacioc Remembers

Let me tell you what obedience means. This heavy rainfall came upon us once while we were in a forest with not so tall trees; the trees were not higher than a regular house. Father Cleopa was sitting in one spot, I was in a different spot – looking for thicker shrubs for us to take shelter under. However, Fr. Cleopa kept calling me from under the branches to come sit next to him in that spot. There were about 30 meters between the two of us. I kept telling him that my spot was better and saying “No!” But upon a second thought, I said to myself: Wait a minute. Why don’t I just listen to Father Cleopa! So I just ran out from there and the instant I left it, lightning struck down that exact spot – where I had been sitting a second before. I was SO impressed. Obedience is SUCH a precious thing.

***

- When we got back from the wilderness, in 1954, Patriarch Justinian shared this view that he had in our regard: to send us to all monasteries in Romania at least twice a year, to confess and provide spiritual advice to all fathers there. Yet, I told him that I felt differently, because monasteries have their own Confessor Fathers and it just wasn’t right to barge in on them, lest you should create some antagonism: “Who are these? What are they? Some desert-dwellers? Now, I wouldn’t call THOSE any sort of great saints!” and the like.

So I told our Patriarch that we should keep our own monastery, Slatina, open for everyone who would want to come and get spiritual profit. And that’s exactly how it happened.

After I was arrested in Suceava, we were taken by car to Bucharest, to be tried. The investigation lasted 90 days and was very bad. Beatings, physical aggression, they would pull my beard in all possible ways… In the end, the investigator himself got scared, too. He was a very aggressive captain. He cut my beard in half (and my beard remained just as long). And I said to him: “You will answer for that before God!” You know what he told me? “That’s alright, it’s not the beard that makes one a monk!” When he said that, I told him: “It wasn’t you who spoke, but the Holy Spirit”. Only Holy Clement of Alexandria has a commentary about the beard; he says: “The beard has much spiritual influence over one’s way of thinking”.

Excerpt from: http://www.razbointrucuvant.ro/2011/08/04/parintele-arsenie-papacioc-si-parintele-cleopa-cand-se-intalnesc-batranii-sfinti-si-se-bucura-ingereste-unul-de-altul-maica-domnului-cum-de-l-ai-adus-aici/

- We know that you have great respect for the Theotokos, Father; would you please tell us a few words about her.

- Oh, the Mother of God! I’ll tell you this: a young girl, who led a good Christian life and was very earnest in her faith, once addressed herself to the Holy Theotokos: “Holy Mother of God, please show your mother’s love towards me.” – and the Theotokos replied to her: “Show your daughter’s love towards me”. That was her answer. So be the Mother of God’s sons and you will see the results.

Consider the Mother of God’s importance. The Lady of the heavens and earth! What God can do through His power, His Mother can do through her prayer. She stands by every Christian, for anyone who needs her.

There is no prayer, no matter how small – but said from the heart, of course – that the Mother of God does not lend her ear to, that she will not bow to hear.

You see – God sits in the glory of heavens, but He will enjoy dwelling in a Christian’s heart, by descending into it. Let alone the Mother of God! – who is a created being. Have unflinching faith in the Mother of God, every one of you.

Amen.    

Fr. Arsenie Papacioc

One of the most important confessor fathers in Orthodoxy, Father Arsenie Papacioc (August 15, 1914 – July 19, 2011), reposed in the Lord today, July 19, 2011, aged 97. He was the spiritual father at St. Mary’s Monastery in Techirghiol (Romania). For the past 35 years, it was there that believers would find Archimandrite Arsenie Papacioc.

Fr. Arsenie had been ill for some time and died a little before noon, in his monastery cell. Theologians say that Father Arsenie was a man a peace and a pastor of joy.

“- When they descend your casket into your tomb, if you could speak at that final moment, when you enter the darkness of the tomb… I lived that moment – in a dream or whatever it was; and as I was going down, I said:

How good it is if you can leave something behind you!” – Fr. Arsenie Papacioc

“Fr. Arsenie left behind him an example of wisdom that is not aggressive, which does not speak about itself, but heals and tends to wounds; a type of wisdom that comes from another world“. – Mihail Neamtu, Theologian

Fr. Arsenie Papacioc has gone to heaven, to meet with Jesus Christ, about Whom he would talk to children during the civic education classes that he taught during the communist times.

Fr. Arsenie upset the regime for having shared Christian faith to the little ones.

Followed by the Security, Fr. Arsenie hid among monks for a while. Yet he was eventually arrested and taken to Suceava and held up for investigations for 90 days, during which time he was beaten and tortured.

After heavy years of imprisonment in several communist prisons and forced labour camps, he was released and allowed to serve at St. Mary’s («Sfânta Maria») Monastery in Techirghiol, which he did, from 1976 to the present.

“This pains me very much… He would fill our hearts with joy, every time… and it was like we did not feel our pains and problems, any more.”

“I think he will be declared a Saint.”

“He already is a Saint, before God. All we need now is to canonize him, down here.”

“A humble person can make the stars move.” – Fr. Arsenie PAPACIOC

I followed my grandmother with my child eyes, trying to figure out how an ordinary piece of jewelry could change her so completely. Yet perhaps it wasn’t that ordinary after all. Or maybe my grandmother wasn’t. But from that day on, to me, she preserved the enchantment of that mysterious transformation, although it was a necklace that she would rarely wear, if at all.

I didn’t see her wear it later on any longer, as life carried me away from the events that my grandparents took part in, but I will always remember that wonderful ennoblement, with some of the thrill that Vermeer must have felt in his heart when he painted the “Girl with Pearl Earring”. The only jewel that my grandmother – now gone far away, in the country of the beyond – had, is now lying in a vintage box, as if peacefully waiting for its time, again. And for its Woman.

Laurentiu Dumitru