Assertions of awareness…

Everything’s wondrous if you live in Bucovina. If it’s a sacred edifice we’re talking about, then the description is surely hyperbolical. Sometimes it’s best not to approach the myth too carefully, and surely not critically… I went to the Humor Monastery, but to my surprise it was locked, although the wall’s door was open. Seeing me trying to enter the monastery, one of the nuns says to me: ‘It’s closed, but this one’s open’, pointing to a smaller church nearby. Seeing me falter, she said, as if she were advertising on TV: ‘Go in, we’ve got holy relics too’. I was expecting some offers and discounts – ‘Buy three candles, get one free!’ or ‘Pictures with the saint’s bones’, but none was presented. The Church needs to work on its marketing…

This happened several years ago. I was inside the famous, cliché-interred Voronet Monastery. While I was kneeling in front of the altar, the Mother Superior walks by me towards the stacidia where the choir would normally sit. I watched her surreptitiously slip her hand under the cushion on one of the armchairs. I didn’t quite get the gist of the gesture, as nothing seemed to be concealed by that pillow. Yet she had such a certain hand I was assured the divine empowered her. To my greatest awe and praise of the Lord, the nun drew from underneath the latest Metro catalog… Hallowed be cash&carry’s name…