Țigănești, Strășeni District, Moldova, October 31, 2022
Photo: mitropolia.md
The Holy Dormition Monastery in the village of Țigănești in central Moldova festively celebrated the 30th anniversary of the revival of monastic life on Sunday.
The Divine Liturgy was led by His Eminence Metropolitan Vladimir of Chișinău and All Moldova (Moscow Patriarchate), who also celebrated three decades of the revived St. Parascheva-Hîncu Monastery in Nisporeni just three days prior.
Photo: mitropolia.md
The service was celebrated yesterday in the monastery’s winter church, dedicated to St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. Met. Vladimir was joined by two other Moldovan hierarchs and a number of local and visiting clergy, reports the Moldovan Orthodox Church.
The church proved to be small for the large number of pilgrims “who came to offer prayers of praise and thanksgiving to the Most Merciful God for all the blessings showered on the holy Monastery and the monastic community that worships here,” the Church press service writes.
At the Little Entrance, Archimandrite Irinarch, who has served as abbot of the monastery for more than 15 years, was decorated with the Order of St. Gabriel of Bănulescu and Bodoni. Met. Vladimir also ordained Monk Ignatie (Blinov) as a hierodeacon during the service.
Photo: mitropolia.md
After the Liturgy, His Eminence served a Te Deum of thanksgiving to God, and expressed his hope that the Dormition Monastery will remain a spiritual center for educating the faithful in the spirit of traditional Christian values.
Several benefactors of the monastery were also decorated with medals and Church orders for their hard work for the benefit of the monastery.
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The Țigănești Monastery was founded around 1725 by the nobleman Lupu Dencu, who built a wooden church to hide the local Christians from the invasions of the Tatars. The second church, of St. Nicholas, was built in 1840, and the original wooden church was replaced by a stone church in 1846.
The size and influence of the monastery grew over the years. During the Second World War, hundreds of fallen Romanian, German, and Russian soldiers were buried there.
After the war, the authorities tried several times to close the holy habitation. In 1945, soldiers were sent to the close it, but upon seeing the common life of the monks and their work, they decided to leave them in peace.
But in 1959, the local authorities began to persecute and expel the monks. All the icons and books were burned and the monastery cemetery was leveled. The only icon that has been preserved is the wonderworking icon of St. Panteleimon with a particle of his holy relics, donated by St. Seraphim (Chichagov) in 1909.
After the closure of the monastery, a psychiatric hospital was opened within its walls, which operated until July 1992.
The monastery was reestablished on September 8, 1992. The hospital workers, who were left without work, stole everything they could from the monastery, which was already in a state of disrepair.
The repair work on the Holy Dormition Church was finished in 1998. The monastery is currently home to three churches, with the third being built in 2009, in honor of the Lifegiving Spring.
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