Rives Junction, Michigan, November 26, 2024
Mother Apolinaria is on the right of the now reposed Fr. Roman Braga. Photo: roea.org
One of the three founding nuns of the Orthodox Church in America’s Dormition of the Mother of God Monastery in Michigan reposed in the Lord on Friday, November 22.
Mother Apolinaria was 93 years old. She fell asleep in the Lord in her monastic cell.
She became a nun in her native Romania in 1949, and moved to America at the invitation of Mother Alexandra (Princess Ileana) of Transfiguration Monastery in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania, in 1981. She remained there until she helped found Dormition Monastery in Rives Junction, Michigan, in 1987.
Her funeral was served the day after her repose, and she was buried in the monastery cemetery, reports the OCA’s Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of America.
May Mother Apolinaria’s memory be eternal!
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Her biography from the Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of America reads:
She was born Alexandrina Tanasa in Romania on February 14, 1931. Her youth was marred by a tragic accident. As a result of the occupation of Romania during World War II, she suffered the loss of an eye and two fingers, as well as other bodily wounds that scarred her for life. However, her spirit always remained joyful and her body strong, despite her injuries.
She met her future spiritual mother, the late Mother Benedicta, in Iasi, Romania when she was a young teenager. She entered monastic life in Romania in 1949 at the age of 18, and in 1958, transferred to Varatec Monastery in Romania under the direct guidance of Mother Benedicta. She was tonsured a Rasaphore nun in 1959. Just before her 49th birthday, she professed final vows also at Varatec Monastery on January 12, 1980. At that time, communist civil law in Romania forbade final monastic profession until after the age of 48, hoping to dissuade young monastic vocations.
When Mother Benedicta and Mother Gabriella were invited by V. Rev. Mother Alexandra in 1978 to strengthen the foundation of the Orthodox Monastery of the Transfiguration in Ellwood City, PA, Mother Apolinaria remained in Romania. However, through the perseverance of the monastic community in Ellwood City and assistance from the local congressman, Eugene V. Atkinson, an immigration visa was eventually granted to her in March of 1981.
Mother was a diligent and faithful monastic and contributed to the growth of Orthodox monasticism in the US. She was blessed with a beautiful voice and sang ison or alto in the monastic choirs at both monasteries. She was also a very gifted semantron (toaca) player, calling the nuns and pilgrims to pray several times each day.
At the monastery in Ellwood City, she tilled, tended, and harvested a huge vegetable garden and continued that labor when the monastery in Rives Junction was founded. She was also known for her bread-baking skills and unusual physical strength. She was a dedicated Ecclesiarch, blessed to serve the altar, assisting the priests and preparing the church for each service.
In later years when her health failed she accepted her new limitations and dedicated her life completely to prayer, reading of the Psalter and Holy Scriptures, and the study of the teachings of the Holy Fathers and saints of the Church.
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