Strada Mănăstirilor, Neamț County, Romania, August 8, 2025
Photo: pentrusuflet.ro
The local proclamation of the canonization of Sts. Cleopa (Ilie) and Paisie (Olaru) took place yesterday, August 7, at Sihăstria Monastery where they labored and were buried.
They are among the 16 martyrs, confessors and ascetics of the 20th century who were canonized by the Romanian Synod in 2024. St. Cleopa in particular is perhaps the most beloved Romanian elder of the period of communist persecution and is the most well-known in the English-speaking Orthodox world.
The event, which coincided with the feast of St. Theodore of Sihla, gathered 24 hierarchs, a host of clerics, and 20,000 pilgrims from Romania and abroad. The service was led by His Eminence Metropolitan Teofan of Moldavia and Bukovina, reports the Basilica News Agency.
After the reading of the Holy Gospel, His Eminence Metropolitan Andrei of Cluj, Maramureș and Sălaj, shared his own spiritual experience with the two saints.
“Fr. Paisie (Olaru) had a holy life. He healed spiritual wounds for very, very many people, including me. I tell you that when he read me the prayer of absolution, I felt that the Holy Spirit was actually working. He was God’s man, a saint! The things he told you were simple but profound,” the Metropolitan said.
Regarding Fr. Cleopa, he noted: “He was a perfect pedagogue, a perfect catechist. There were two rows of small benches in front of Father Cleopa’s cell. People would sit on them and he’d speak to them for hours, and they’d go home enlightened.”
At the end of the Liturgy, His Grace Bishop Ignatie of Huși, read the Synodal Tomos of the local proclamation of the canonization of Sts. Paisie and Cleopa of Sihăstria.
During the proclamation, His Grace Bishop Varlaam of Ploiești read the message from His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel, titled “Two Pillars of Light Between Mountains and Sky, Sts. Paisie and Cleopa of Sihăstria.”
Metropolitan Teofan’s message expressed gratitude to God for the gift of the two saints, emphasizing their inner transformation through grace, which elevated them from human nature to sainthood and a life of unceasing prayer.
“They acquired spiritual vision over things, people and events. They penetrated the nature of things, sensing the truth, scrutinizing depths that ordinary human logic cannot perceive. They acquired the grace to pray for the entire world, no longer making distinctions between friends and enemies,” His Eminence stated.
Abbot Arsenie (Popa) of Sihăstria Monastery emphasized that their holy life and grace-filled words inspired and formed generations of monks, keeping alive the hesychast tradition of Romanian Orthodoxy.
“During the period of communist dictatorship, when many monasteries were closed, monks and nuns were expelled from their monasteries, and faith was constantly attacked through all the propagandistic means of the time, these two saints not only remained unwavering in their faith, but reorganized entire monasteries, which then became fortresses of faith and monastic endeavor,” he said.
The abbot noted that they refreshed the tradition of monastic life both through profound and authentic living and through God-inspired words spoken with great courage, especially by St. Cleopa, and with humility and simplicity by St. Paisie.
He concluded by expressing gratitude that the monastery community owes to these saints for forming generations of monks and leaving a tradition of monastic life transmitted from ancient times and continued to the present.
After the Divine Liturgy, believers venerated the specially arranged canopy containing the relics of Sts. Paisie and Cleopa, which were uncovered in April.
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