Durău, Neamț County, Romania, May 5, 2026
The Romanian Orthodox Church celebrated the local proclamation of the canonization of St. Maura of Mount Ceahlău at at Durău Monastery in Neamț County yesterday.
St. Maura is a 17th–18th-century hesychast who was canonized by the Romanian Holy Synod along with 15 other holy women in July 2025.
The Divine Liturgy for her feast and glorification was celebrated by His Eminence Metropolitan Teofan of Moldova and Bukovina and five brother hierarchs from the Romanian Church and a host of clergy, reports the Basilica News Agency.
“Can those of today, living in the tumult of life, in continuous inner and outer motion, aspire for something of the fullness of grace present in the heart of St. Maura, of her longing for God, to descend into our hearts as well?” Met. Teofan said during the service.
“We can fulfill this, even if according to the measure of our smallness and weaknesses, in two places: in the Divine Liturgy and in the prayer room—in the monastic cell or in the prayer corner of every family home in the world,” His Eminence explained.
Following the service, the Synodal tomos of canonization was read out. “Blessed and worthy of all praise is it to honor the memory of those who have reposed in holiness, who have gained boldness before God because of their lives full of piety and good deeds,” the tomos states.
“The Most Holy Trinity ordained from eternity to make them worthy of likeness to God, imparting to them the light of the grace of the Holy Spirit and placing them in the Church of the righteous, in the company of the saints.”
Then a message from His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel was read out.
“The highest and most sacred work of the Holy and Venerable Maura was the prayer of the heart or hesychastic prayer,” the Romanian primate conveyed. “This prayer, which has the gift of gathering all the powers of the soul into a single inner movement, through the incessant remembrance of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, ignited the purifying light of Divine love in the heart of the pious woman.”
The second fundamental feature of her life, according to Pat. Daniel, was her profound humility, which coupled with her unceasing prayer, manifested in the gift of clairvoyance, healings, and guidance.
Moreover, St. Maura was also the guide of hesychast nuns throughout the region, thus leaving a lasting spiritual legacy.
At the send of the service, the icon of St. Maura was presented to the faithful, then carried in procession and placed for veneration in the courtyard of the Durău Monastery.
Watch the Liturgy and glorification of St. Maura:
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