Arona: The Orthodox Monastery in the North of Italy

Arona   

With only thirteen thousand residents, Arona is a small town by Italian standards. Cozily nestled on the banks of Lake Maggiore, it welcomes quite a few leisure travelers and tourists, especially during the warm months. Arona can be easily reached from Milan—the train will get you there in less than an hour and a half. If you walk northwards from the train station, in about fifteen minutes you’ll reach Via San Carlo; one of the few Orthodox monasteries in Italy is located there. Its entrance has an information sign in the Italian and Romanian languages, as well as the schedule of services. During the day, the monastery’s entrance is closed, but there is a doorbell to the right of the door for anyone wishing to step inside. The monastery accepts pilgrims if arranged in advance, including for longer stays—should someone wishe to pray and labor there for several weeks.

Arona, a small town, is the site of one of the few Orthodox monasteries in Italy

The monastery is canonically attached to the Archdiocese of Orthodox Churches of the Russian tradition in Western Europe, headed by His Eminence Metropolitan John (Renetto) who resides in Paris. The two-storied quadrangular building with an interior courtyard consists of a dozen monastic cells, hallways and staircases, and once inside, a newcomer may find it hard to find his way around. Previously, the monastery was operated by the Catholic order of the Visitation and had as many as one hundred nuns residing there—but that was a long time ago, at the beginning of the twentieth century. The former century brought not only a whirlwind of changes for the state of Italy but also the decline of Catholic monasticism. In 2017, the last nuns left the monastery—they were no longer able to maintain the huge building, and they had no new candidates willing to enter their order. But the will of God, as it turned out, was for this building to serve another purpose: Once the Catholics left, the building welcomed its new residents, this time—the Orthodox.

A view of the monastery of Christ Pantocrator   

Currently, the monastery of Christ Pantocrator in Arona has ten residents—six sisters and four brothers. Apart from the monastics, the monastery practically always has pilgrims, laborers, and those who come to pray there. It holds daily services: Vespers in the evening, with Matins and Liturgy in the morning (although Liturgies are not served every day). The Sixth Hour is read in the afternoon.

“We typically serve in Romanian,” remarked Igumen Victor Kretu, the abbot of the monastery. “We do use other languages as well: Italian, Church Slavonic, and sometimes Greek. We try to vary this depending on who is praying with us at the service. For example, if we have a group of Russian-speaking pilgrims from Germany, then in that case, we use predominantly Church Slavonic.”

More often than not, we serve in Romanian, but we also use Italian, Church Slavonic, and sometimes Greek

We are speaking with Father Victor in his cell on the second floor of the monastery. It feels chilly there—the monastery doesn’t have central heating; all they have is stoves in every cell, but this isn’t enough to heat this huge building. And it’s not at all cozy and warm during winter in northern Italy. They don’t have bitter frosts like we have back in Belarus, but there are cold winds blasting from the Alps and Lake Maggiore.

“We are working on adding a heating system in the monastery,” noted the abbot. “Even if it’s a pressing matter for us, we also realize its challenges and how investment-intensive it is.”

Bishop Symeon (Cossec), the spiritual adviser of the monastery, and Abbot Victor (Kretu) Father Victor has been residing in Italy since 2013. A native of Moldavia, he graduated from the seminary there as well. He later continued his studies at the Kiev Theological Academy. Having completed his first year there, he continued to study there by correspondence in order to further his academic learning in Milan. He successfully obtained a first-level degree (called laurea, or baccalaureate) from the University of Milan, later defending his master’s thesis there.

“My master’s thesis in Italy was written on the topic of pastoral ministry in the Diaspora,” says Father Victor. “And my thesis in Kiev is dedicated to the Holy Hierarch Eusebius of Vercelli, one of the fighters against Arianism. My thesis is already finished, but I haven’t defended it yet. Actually, when I was only beginning my thesis work, I didn’t know yet that I would go to the north of Italy. Interestingly, the Holy Hierarch Eusebius was a bishop here in the fourth century, and he is currently considered a heavenly patron of the Piedmont region, where Arona is located. He founded a monastery in the town of Vercelli, and even though his monastery hasn’t survived to this day, we can still see in Vercelli the tombstones (lapidas) with inscriptions about nuns that date back to the fourth century.”

After he was ordained in 2019, Father Victor served in the community of the Holy Hieromartyr Donato in the town of Como (Lombardy region in northern Italy).

During the service in the monastery “The community in Como of our Archdiocese has a rather interesting history,” Father says. “Originally, it was founded as a monastic community. There is an ancient monastery in Como dating back to the seventh century or so, and we formed a small monastic community there in 2015. This monastery was under private ownership, and about a year and a half later, its owners sold it. We wandered from one rented place to another for a long time, but then, praise the Lord, we were lucky to have found this monastery in Arona.

To tell the truth, it wasn’t such an easy thing to settle in this vacant monastery complex, as it still belonged to the Catholic Church. We needed to go through a long list of negotiations and approvals.”

“Initially, when we were searching for the premises, we had difficulty getting an approval from the Catholic bishop (from a certain diocese) to open an Orthodox monastery,” recalls Father Victor. “Without this approval, we couldn’t lay claim to the vacant buildings. To change such a situation, we were advised to act differently: to first find a bishop who would agree to accept the Orthodox monks in his diocese. With help from a former abbot of the Chevetogne monastery (Belgium) and monks from Bose, we were able to meet the bishop of Novara who was favorably disposed toward the idea of opening an Orthodox monastery in his diocese. However, he told us right away that we would have to resolve any further questions regarding the buildings with the local Catholic orders who own them. We spoke to the nuns in Arona, and they weren’t against letting us use the vacant building, but only with the blessing of their bishop.”

“A vicious circle?”

“That’s right, and so we had to go back to the bishop. He approved it but added that the matter at hand must be confirmed with the head of the Catholic parish in Arona.”

“In other words, the bishop’s word of consent wasn’t enough?”

“No, what’s important for them is to have a collegial decision, taking into account the local Catholic clergy. The problem was that we had a hard time getting in touch with the local priest in Arona. That’s when I remembered that I knew a student in Milan who became a priest, and he seemed to be serving somewhere in Piedmont. It turned out that he was a vice-rector in Arona. So I called him, and he told me: “It’s good you called me, because we’ve got some strange Orthodox monks here who are vying with you to occupy our monastery…” Of course, I laid out the whole situation before him, we met the rector, and our problem was settled. If not for this contact of mine, who knows how much time would have been lost; besides, I am not sure if we could have ever achieved our goal at all.”

Inside the monastery   

“Did you lease the monastery complex?”

“Yes, for twenty years. It’s a standard practice, the so-called trial period. If everything goes well, the lease will be extended for ninety-nine years. The three of us—Hieromonk Christophor (also from Moldavia), Hieromonk Nestor (from Kiev), and me—came here in 2020. Father Nestor no longer lives here—he was appointed an abbot in Sardinia, so he moved there.”

“When did you happen to receive nuns in your community?”

Our monastics work in the icon-painting workshop. It is one of the sources of income for the monastery

“Our first tonsure took place in 2021—we tonsured a lady named Olympiada, an eighty-year-old widow. She had actually dreamed about becoming a nun since childhood, but her parents didn’t allow her. However, Olympiada grieved much at a later time for not becoming a nun. So, after her husband had died, she made up her mind to fulfill her life-long dream… After tonsure, she lived one more year and departed to the Lord… Then, more sisters came. There are six of them now, but not all of them have taken monastic vows yet. One of them is a Ukrainian, and one of our brothers is a Romanian. The rest are Moldovan. They didn’t come from Moldavia specifically to enter the monastery. Our monastics have lived for many years in Italy, and their decision to join the monastery was taken here, in the land of Italy.”

According to the abbot, they have common obediences in the monastery, and they mostly have to do with its maintenance and repairs. The monastics also work in the icon-painting workshop. As a matter of fact, it is one of the sources of income for the monastery, since they have no financial support from the state and receive no major donor funding either.

“We are supported by the faithful and our pilgrims,” says Father Victor. “We host large groups in the monastery. Even if we never ask for anything, they leave donations. It is enough for us to get by.

A view at the monastery’s bell tower   

We also have Italians staying with us, sometimes even for several months. They like Orthodoxy, and they are eager to learn more about it, specifically, about the experience with Jesus Prayer

We currently have Italians who are preparing to become Orthodox

“Many Orthodox writers were translated to Italian,” says Father Victor. “I typically recommend that the Italians wishing to learn about Orthodoxy begin with the reading of “The Orthodox Church” by Met. Kallistos Ware. It is also useful to learn from the works by Vladimir Lossky, Clement, and St. Sophrony (Sakharov)

“Father Victor, have the events of the year of 2022 ever affected the life of your monastery, including a mass influx of refugees from Ukraine?”

“We took in thirty Ukrainian families at the time; some have stayed in the monastery for about a year and a half. They all later found their own places to live, jobs, signed up for state assistance, and began to study the language. The locals also responded with enthusiasm; they brought food, clothing, and money to the monastery for the refugees. During the cold season (we have no heating system), these people invited refugees in their homes to spend the night… As for our parishioners, luckily, we haven’t had conflicts or ethnic divisions (between the Russians and Ukrainians). At the same time, there were such problems in a few areas of Italy—the parishes were broken apart, with part of the parishioners leaving. The disruption of canonical communion between Moscow and Constantinople is also felt here, because after all, our churches are sometimes located each other or situated in one town. The conflicts complicate our mission. Italians can’t comprehend why they, for example, are advised in one Orthodox church against attending services in another. We are trying our best to explain the situation to them… So, in this regard, and to our regret, we also suffer from the schism that is taking place on a global scale.”