Mt. Athos, August 15, 2019
Photo: basilica.ro
The first church in honor of the great 21st-century elder St. Paisios the Athonite serving a Romanian community on Mt. Athos was festively consecrated last month, reports the Basilica News Agency.
Photo: basilica.ro
Construction on the church at the Annunciation Kellia of the Romanian Lacu Skete began in 2015, with the painting of the iconography beginning in 2017. Finally, on July 25, the feast day of St. Paisios on the unrevised Julian calendar, the church was consecrated by His Eminence Metropolitan Paul of Drama of the Greek Orthodox Church.
St. Paisios was not chosen as the patron of the new church by chance, Fr. Paisie of the Annunciation Kellia commented earlier. “The patron saint of the church was established especially because, in a spiritual line, we are the grandchildren of St. Paisios the Athonite. The abbot of the kellia, Hieromonk Ștefan Nuţescu is the spiritual son of the holy father Isaac of Lebanon, one of the closest disciples of St. Paisios,” he explained.
Photo: basilica.ro
The brotherhood of the Romanian cell is responsible for making the life and teachings of the great Athonite saint known to the Romanian public through the translation of about 20 volumes from Greek.
“This is, as far as we know, the third church erected on Mt. Athos in honor of St. Paisios the Athonite,” Fr. Paisie told the Basilica News Agency. The first church on Mt. Athos was consecrated earlier this year in the Kapsala area by His Eminence Metropolitan Panteleimon of Xanthi.
