The Monastic Life

Nowadays, over 100 men carry on the tradition of monastic life at Putna Monastery. For Christians, Putna has long been a stronghold of prayer and spirituality, where generations and generations of monks have endeavoured to attain spiritual fulfilment and the knowledge of God. The monks are called upon to pray for the whole world, and this is their main service to humanity. Thanks to them, prayer is never ended upon earth, and this is indeed a great service, for it is only through prayer that humanity endures. This is why the monks have always striven to carry out the Holy Liturgy and the Seven Glories each and every day.

For the monk, however, “Liturgy” is not only a matter of the services held in church; it is his whole life. Wherever he goes and whatever he does, his duty is always to keep God in his mind’s eye; thus it is said that: “prayerful obedience is Liturgy!”

To do one’s duty is to show obedience. Work, any monk’s duty in the monastery, is referred to as “obedience”.

In the monastery all the monks show obedience – from the Abbot to the most junior novice. But obedience to the abbot, whatever responsibilities it might involve, depends on his integration in the tradition of the place. Usually, one of the monks who has spent his entire life in the monastery is appointed to be abbot. If a young monk or some monk from another monastery is appointed abbot, then he has to integrate himself in the tradition of the place.

The community elects an Economic Council and a Spiritual Council. The abbot is responsible for co-ordinating the carrying out of the decisions of these two councils. At the meetings of the councils, the monks discuss issues on a basis of equality and decisions are taken unanimously.

The steward deals with administration, maintenance, work in the fields, and supplies. He shares out duties, whether temporary or long-term, among the monks.

The Ecclesiarch deals with the organisation of worship, the maintenance of the church itself, and the provision of religious services for the faithful. He also shares out duties among the monks.

Apart from the abbot and the Councils of the monastery, to whom everybody has to show obedience in matters of their common life, each lay brother and monk, including the abbot, has a confessor. The confessor’s directions concern only the monks’ personal life, their life of prayer and ascetic practice, and he should never, through his advice, contradict the abbot or the good order of monastery life.

The traditional occupations of the monks are still carried out today in the painting and wood carving workshops; but nowhere do the lay brothers and monks seem to learn humble obedience and prayer more easily than in the duties whereby they provide the whole community with its “daily bread”. In the bakery, kneading dough, in the stables, looking after the cows and horses of the monastery, or in the sheepfold, shepherding — in all these places the joy of serving others often blends with the yearning for God...

When a lay brother comes from the outside world to spend his life in the monastery, he goes through a period of trial, of adjustment to his new way of life. His presence at services, in daily work and in the refectory is mandatory, as it helps the novice to cleanse his mind from all worldly things. He enters a new dimension – that of the monastic life.

Thus, sharing together, in hay-making, harvesting grapes from the vineyard or potatoes from the fields, or picking apples from the orchard, helps to strengthen the sense of community and love among the brethren. Fulfilled in its own time, every “duty towards the community” is interwoven with its own ritual, from which springs the joy that is only known to those who unite work and prayer as a vivid presence of God in their lives.

The strong link between obedience and prayer is also seen in the fact that nobody in the monastery is “bound for life” to a particular duty; candle lighter or baker, lorry driver or car driver, cook or waiter, psalm reader, scribe or sculptor, the monk or lay brother must always be ready to carry out yet another task for the good of the community. In the monastery there are, in fact, no “duties”, but only “obedience” to the voice and the will of God!

As part of canon of daily duties, the Religious Services of the Church, in the often dogmatic, radical way of thinking of the monks, acquire the value of a condition of redemption, of Sacred Tradition, as important as Holy Scripture itself. The more so as the liturgical texts and melodies are very old, and the language has an archaic, churchly quality. Apart from being prayers, the services are also efforts, endeavours, and at the same time instruments of awakening. They keep the living awake. In the atmosphere of the religious services, the monk, and not only the monk, opens up, becoming a receptacle for the grace that overwhelms the heart and fills it with warmth.

The Orthodox melodies and texts are deeply rooted in history. They bring with them the grace and fragrance of the saints that composed them, and this is felt by those who sing or listen to them. Through them, the monk participates in the holiness of the message and binds himself, as a new link, to the golden chain of communion with those before him, who prayed with the same words and songs. He prays for them and for himself, and he knows that one day, with the same prayers and feelings, others in generations to come will pray for him. The services thus ensure communion with the Church in its entirety, the Church on heaven and on earth, the Church of today and the Church of all time.

The Refectory is the monks’ second Church. After the blessing of the food, at every meal, the monks and novices take turns to read the “useful word” on which the whole community feeds spiritually. One of the old abbots of Putna Monastery (Father Iachint) used to say: “Brethren, let us not eat only with our mouths, but also with our ears”.

Although the food seems scarce and meagre during Advent, Lent and other periods of fasting, yet it is at these times that the greatest spiritual joys occur.

This is why it has become the custom of the monastery for new monks to receive the tonsure especially during Advent and Lent.

The ritual of the tonsure binds the monk to the monastery to which he agrees to dedicate his life, to the community whose brother he becomes, to the abbot who becomes his Father and who gives him a new name, as if at a second birth. It will also bind him to the religious services of the church, to every piece of the vestments that he receives, each with its own symbol, to the power to call on the name of Jesus, which is given to him together with the rosary beads and the teaching of their use. The tonsure ritual teaches the new monk humility; it teaches him what to eat, how to sleep, how to talk.

The ceremony is dramatic, and charged with grave solemnity. Like a baby about to be baptised, the novice who wants to join the community of monks has a godfather who symbolically hides him under his cloak from the wickedness of demons, and who – together with the abbot - will be his adviser and spiritual guide for the rest of his life. Even though he may choose someone else to be his confessor, his godfather remains so for ever. It is not necessary for him to be a priest; he may be a simple monk.

The tonsure ritual is a true mystery, the same for everyone, men and women alike. The ceremony usually takes place in the evening, at vespers, or at night, when the church is lit by the soft light of candles.

After the novice has vowed, in the presence of all, to observe poverty, chastity and obedience towards the whole community, four locks are cut from his hair, in the sign of the cross, symbolising that he has irrevocably discarded his old self, all bodily lusts and impure thoughts, and embarked on a struggle with himself, with the desires and the powers of darkness, a struggle which will end only with his last breath...

If the tonsure ritual marks the birth of the monk, in the monastic tradition his death is seen as his wedding. Far from being a time of mourning, the funeral service brings with it the hope of eternal bliss for the monk who has endeavoured throughout his life to hold God as his Father and the Church as his Mother. The procession out of the church and around it, the presence of the archpriests and the crowd of the faithful, the songs full of the hope of the Resurrection make the service for a monk’s funeral an occasion of spiritual celebration.

Other moments of joy for the whole community are the occasional visits of great fathers and confessors (such as Sofian Boghiu and Arsenie Papacioc), who offer spiritual service and advice, especially to the young monks and novices.

Every year on 15th August, the feast of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the dedication day of the monastery, and on 2nd July, the day on which St. Stephen Voivode is commemorated, crowds of pilgrims come to Putna to pray and receive blessing. Romanians gather from all around, including the Republic of Moldova and the Ukrainian part of Bukovina, and wherever the memory of St. Stephen Voivode the Great and Good continues to burn as a living flame in the hearts of those who live, think and speak in Romanian.

During the rest of the year, too, on Sundays and holy days, the faithful come to the monastery bearing gifts of fruit, oil, bread, and other offerings, either to be blessed for the living, after the pulpit prayer, or for the commemoration of the dead, which is performed both during the Holy Liturgy, and afterwards, in a special service called the Parastasis.

In 1871, Mihai Eminescu defined Putna as “The Jerusalem of the Romanian People,” and Stephen the Great’s tombstone as the “altar of our ancestral faith.” Ever since that time, year after year, presidents and kings, patriarchs and bishops, poets, actors and politicians have come to Putna to bend their knees in prayer at the tombstone of the Glorious Voivode, whose votive lamp is for ever kept burning by the monks who serve God, their People and their Country.


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