The Resurrection of the St. John Jacob Romanian Orthodox Monastery

St. John Jacob Romanian Orthodox Monastery

St. John Jacob Romanian Orthodox Monastery – 22/4/21

“An amazing story of how fasting and praying really helps”

The absolutely incredible story of the Saint John Jacob Romanian Orthodox Monastery goes back one century ago. Around 1917, Constantin Corlățeanu, feeling sombre because he had no news from his son Ștefan, who was fighting in the war abroad, decided to live in fasting and prayer for 40 days with the hope that God would send him a message about his beloved son. And indeed, after those 40 days, as he was going to his sheepfold, he overheard a voice telling him: “Do not be sorrowful, as Ștefan is alive!” The very next day, he got a letter from his son, who returned home shortly afterwards, and who later became the mayor of the Pojorâta Commune.

On the exact spot where he heard that divine voice, the old reader, Constantin Corlățeanu wished to praise the Lord and therefore he erected an iron cross with a concrete foundation in 1925. Judging that this is not enough, he received the blessing of Metropolitan Nectarie Cotlarciuc to construct a wooden church. The church was consecrated by the Metropolitan in 1934, who brought a few monks to begin a cenobite monastic life. The new monastery remained active for almost 30 years.

In 1962, the monastery was disbanded by the communist regime. The hermitage was closed, and the church was dismantled and moved to the village of Voroneț, where it became a parish church, while some of the cult objects were moved to Putna Monastery. The only original icon (remaining in the Pojorata village church) is that of the Virgin Mary.

The population in the area was missing the hermitage and therefore, they built a chapel and a fence around Constantin’s cross, which had been unmoved from its place. Starting from the chapel, Ilie Țâmpău, a parishioner from the village, began restoring the church in 1970. The construction was completed within 17 years.

On 15th June 1990, Archbishop Pimen Suceveanul reconsecrated the church in the name of “The Holy Trinity” and agreed to the re-establishment of the hermitage. In 1995, priest-monk Visarion Breabăn (Abbot of the Monastery), with the support of more believers, built a beautiful church, which is dedicated to the Romanian Saint John Jacob from Hozeva (the Holy Land). The church was consecrated in the same year, on the 1st of October, by Archbishop Pimen. The congregation of the monastery comprises 15 monks. The monastery is located upon a Carpathian cliff, in a picturesque area, at an altitude of 1.100 m, on the “Obcina Florească” mountainside from Pojorâta, in Bucovina (in the northeast region of Romania).

Source:
St. John Jacob Monastery