In this video, Elder Cleopas of Romania (✝1998) recounts his time in the wilderness among hermits and saints. Elder Cleopas shares powerful stories of faith and devotion from those who lived in solitude for decades, highlighting the lives of nuns and hermits who possessed divine knowledge, and emphasizing the true power of prayer and fasting in the pursuit of spiritual growth. Fr. Cleopa Ilie was forced to live as a hermit in the mountains for nine years during the oppressive Communist regime in Romania
The Romanian Orthodox Church has approved the canonization of 16 new saints during the synodal sessions held on July 11-12th 2024. Venerable Cleopa of Sihastria Monastery is one of them. They will be officially recognized as saints in 2025.
Video sources (full video recordings from around 1994-1996): https://youtu.be/I-MXPKbGnj4
Sihastria Monastery, Neamt, Romania & Fundatia Anastasia Bucharest
Fr. Cleopa:
When I came here, into the wilderness, into the mountains, there were 50 hermits. When you would visit them, they would call you by name [they were clairvoyant]. There were also 27 nuns, among them Mother Zenovia, the daughter of a minister from Bucharest, who had documents from [King] Carol I that allowed her to stay in all the state’s forests—60 years in the wilderness, and she had 10 disciples. The color of her face was as white as that shirt… fasting. She asked me, ‘Do you know the Psalter by heart?’ I was with the monastery’s sheep. If you were to go into the mountains, you would see many traces of huts and caves where saints lived. How many hermits we found… there was one, Magdalena, she had 10 disciples here at Mount Parlitura. There was Mother Isidora in the wilderness for 50 years, Mother Zenovia, Mother Cleomida… so many nuns… but monks too… how many hermits there were… I met a Russian bishop, Ioan, with an elderly hierodeacon from Bessarabia. The sheep would stand and look at him… he fled from Russia during the time of [anti-Christian] persecution. And the sheep would look, and the dogs wouldn’t bark at him. He told us our names [without knowing us beforehand] and said to my brother Vasile, ‘Brother Vasile, prepare yourself because by spring you will depart to the Lord!’ And my brother died in May. Such saints lived around here. Have you heard what St. John of the Ladder says? ‘The power of the emperor lies in a great army, the power of the one in the wilderness lies in much prayer. The fall of the one in the monastery is disobedience, while the fall of the one in solitude [wilderness] is if he diminishes prayer.’ If you prayed day and night, you would feel as if you were in the Holy of Holies, and a single potato and a few nettles boiled with water would be enough for you… the power of the Holy Spirit would strengthen you. Fasting is the mother of health and longevity, my brother!
May Paradise consume you!
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