Prislop Monastery, Transilvania

Prislop Monastery - details and images

Prislop monastery is situated at an altitude of 640 m and a distance of about 15 km from Hateg 500 years old, houses the miracle working icon of Our Lady, and icons painted Boca Arsenie father, whose name is renaissance connects the monastery.

Prislop Monastery was built by Father Nicodemus Triconc style, then anctificat, considered today as reorganizatorul and director Romanian monasticism in the early Middle Ages.

This hermitage, the Parang Mountains and Prislop lap is counted among the oldest and most famous monastic settlements in Transylvania. Hermitage first settled in the woods at the end Silvas XIII century and early fourteenth century. They came either from the Apuseni Mountains Ramet Monastery, where he was a famous hermit living tradition, or the Monastery Hodos Bodrog the Mures Valley, both existing in the thirteenth century.

Silvas Hermitage of forests is needed in wooden huts and communal prayers are done in a small wooden church dedicated to St. John the Theologian ", which have raised their hands in a river valley Prislop. This small settlement was known at the beginning sihasta as the Hermitage or Hermitage Prislop St. John the Theologian. The choice of mirror work and dedication to the spiritual life as tending of Parang and Prislop Hermitage. Undoubtedly, the monks of the Hermitage were skilled workers and knowledge of Jesus' prayer monastic life of the Romanian Country and Mount Athos. It is believed that some of them would have had a long and Athos, where they met the Sanctified Nicodim.

With the foundation of the monastery Tismana (1377-1378), come under the supervision of spiritual Prislop Hermitage of St. Nicodemus, himself a great teacher of peace and hermit. Jiu Valley as a direct bridge link between small hermitage and Tismana Hategului Country. In here climb to Prislop pious monks and explore the mountains, then returned again in Lavra. These views were also connected to the Monastery Pumpkin, founded by St. Nicodemus upper Jiu Valley.

By the year 1400, for reasons unknown, is determined Nicodim Prislop for several years. This renews the church and the cells with the aid of Mircea the Old, gather around or over 30 solitary, except for those who need alone in mountain meadows, and introduces a communal life. in 1405 is still great Prislop abbot, as is apparent from the notes of the Gospel or "The Holy Gospel of Nicodemus priest wrote in 6913 in the Hungarian Country (1404-1405)."

Under direct and personal influence of St. Nicodemus, Hermitage Prislop experienced the highest spiritual feeling of history, situating himself head of all Hermitage in Transylvania. Also Prislop becomes subdued for long Tismana the monastery.

By the mid-sixteenth century, reaching almost ruined Prislop Hermitage, built in 1564 was "the cornerstone" of Zamfir, daughter of Moses Prince of the Romanian Country. From this date Prislop Hermitage monastery and became known for a while as "Silvas", named after the nearby village. The two abbots, John and Theodore, increase more spiritual life and encourage Prislop hesychast labors in the forests and mountains around the monastery, where the need is famous hermits. They increase the congregation of monks and founded the church Prislop teaching school for youths who were to become priests in the villages. In 1585 John Abbot metropolitan reach of Alba Iulia (Balgrad) and became in 1615 Bishop Theophilus Vad.

He lives here in the seventeenth century St. John of Prislop. In the eighteenth century was a Greek Catholic monastery. He received a final fresco garment of Pitesti Simon's signature. Of this only a few fragments are preserved. He was deeply involved in religious fights of the eighteenth century, the Greek Catholics and Orthodox. In the nineteenth century was almost deserted and run by parish priests. Soon after it was passed to the Orthodox (1948), was disbanded and assigned to destinations secular.

He rebuilt the monastic sanctuary after 1975, with a community of nuns. In 1948 the abbot of the monastery is Fr Arsenie Boca, and after dwelling was converted into a monastery for nuns, remained as a father, until 1959, when communists were scattered congregation and the parents have established Boca Arsenie house arrest in Bucharest. Since 1976, Prislop is convent for nuns.

In 1991 the monastery was founded in St. Catherine Monastic Theological Seminary, a school term of five years. In the first half of XVII century Monastery Prislop was forced around a holy hermit, namely John, the place of the neighboring village of Upper Silvas. This devout, taking Christ's yoke in his youth and wanting to follow exertion Tismana St. Nicodemus, became a monk in the monastery Prislop. Then, digging in a rock cave in the mountains, like other hermits, had there been one to death with unknown heavy labors. St. John the Hermit bineplacand God and filled with the gift of the Holy Spirit, was committed in that cave in the last decades of the seventeenth century, after extolling the miraculous death.

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