Putna, Romania, May 17, 2023
Photo: Facebook
A delegation from Romania’s famous Putna Monastery has departed for America, where it will bless St. Demetrios the New Romanian Orthodox Monastery in Middletown, New York, with a fragment of the relics of one of the great Putna saints.
Archimandrite Melchisedec (Velnic), the abbot of Putna, blessed a reliquary yesterday with a fragment from the relics of the Holy Hierarch Jacob of Putna (+1778) who was canonized in 2017, reports the Basilica News Agency.
After the blessing of the reliquary, the delegation, consisting of the abbot and four other Putna priests, left the monastery under the ringing of the bells.
Fr. Melchisedec and the delegation will accompany the relics in America from today, May 17, until June 1. They will take the relics to the Metropolitan Cathedral of Sts. Constantine and Helen in Chicago on Sunday, May 21.
The relics will then be officially handed over to the monastery in New York on the feast of the Ascension on Thursday, May 25. The abbot of St. Demetrios the New Monastery, Fr. Jeremiah (Berbec), was himself a monk of Putna.
Photo: Facebook
His Eminence Metropolitan Nicolae of the Americas will celebrate the Divine Liturgy at the monastery in the presence of the relics on Saturday, May 27, to which all are invited. Later that day, Abbot Melchisedec will hold a forum, “Talking with the Abbot of Putna: On Our Fathers in the Lord, On Being a Christian Today.”
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St. Jacob (1719-1778) was the most distinguished bishop and pastor of the Moldovan Church of the eighteenth century. In 1731 he entered into the monastic ranks at Putna Monastery, being elected abbot in 1744. He served as Bishop of Radauti from 1745 to 1750, and of Moldova from 1750 to 1760, during which time he labored tirelessly to increase the spiritual level of his flock, printing spiritual literature for all ages and establishing spiritual schools. In 1760 he retired again into monastic simplicity for the remaining eighteen years of his life.
The crypt of St. Jacob was opened on June 15, 2016. His bones were found to have a ruddy color, considered a sign of holiness and perfection in the Lord. St. Jacob was buried simply and humbly, wearing only his monastic garments and a simple silver cross, despite bearing the episcopal dignity of a metropolitan during his life. Thus he went to the grave in the same spirit of humility that characterized his entire life.
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