Evoking the life of the saint celebrated in our Church on April 11 - St. Hierarch Calinic of Cernica - Father Patriarch reiterated that „he is one of the most representative Romanian saints, the most balanced in the connection between word and deed, between faith and culture, between love for God shown in prayer and love for others shown in good deeds; (...) a model to follow in terms of balance between building souls and building new altars of prayer.”. The saints, the feasts dedicated to the saints are reflections of God's love. And each feast is a new call to communion.
I have said it many times, I believe that the Names choose their people to first carry them through eternity and then to establish them in eternity.
It is the time of the liturgical season Saint Hierarch Calinic of Cernica, recognized „teacher of unceasing prayer”, elected spiritual patron of His Most Reverend Father Calinic, Archbishop of Suceava and Rădăuților.
I read, in Saints - our true friends (Doxologia Publishing House, 2020), a volume bearing the signature of our Father Archbishop, a „portrait in words” of the saint who was the Bishop of Ramnic, born in 1787, canonized in 1955, „inscribed - here on earth - in the diptychs of the Church of the nation, and there - Up in the choir of the Holy Hierarchs, with whom he will participate in the Archpastoral Liturgy of love, in the great cosmic cathedral of God”.
I read and re-read the portrait of this chosen of Heaven, so beautifully and wholly set in a medallion of prayer and words, and I cannot help thinking that I find so poignant notes of self-portrait of the Vlădicăi of today, from the Citadel of Suceava.
St. Calinic of Cernica „was a monk par excellence, dedicated to the spiritual life since childhood, showing himself in all things temperate, demanding with himself, but generous to others. He was the hierarch who never abdicated from the fundamental moral principles by which, moreover, he guided his life, whatever the mission entrusted to him. (...) He knew how to build both churches of the wall and of the soul. The architecture of his foundations breathes the architecture of his soul”. (pp. 73-75)
The Archpriest of Christ had a kindness springing from an authentic mystical experience and he distinguished himself both by his literary and spiritual - missionary and cultural - activity, as well as by his organizational activity.
A hieratic portrait is also the one put into words by Father Dumitru Stăniloae, in Sermon at the canonization Mass of Saint Calinic of Cernica, October 23, 1955: „It is astonishing how the contemplation of the divine world and the attentive look at the details of concrete life, the alertness that follows the subtlest thoughts of the mind and the attention that combines and realizes prudent and precise plans of building, organization and housekeeping, were able to fit together and harmonize in him. Unity is realized - perhaps - by seeing the lower in the light and under the impetus of the higher. In the beautiful harmony of divine reasoning, St. Callicicus contemplated the orderly scheme of the plans he had to realize below, and in those below he caught the rays of the light from above. If in the daytime he drew up plans for churches, he received his creative zeal and the images in which he accomplished these things, as from an unflowing spring, from his readings and night prayer. For St. Calinic loved books and was a man of prayer.”.
And, as I was saying, „they are looking for me” and they also find me, reconfirmations that each of these iridescences of a hieratic portrait is also found in the „architecture” of the soul of Father Archbishop Calinic, untiring in serving unceasingly and fully the High Heaven, bathed in the light of saints. I first come to mind countless testimonies from the hundreds of pages of the homage issue Theologica Pontica (no. 1/2021, „Ovidius” University of Constanta, Academy of Orthodox Theology - Chisinau), which was dedicated to him - a year ago -: „31 years of sacrificial service, ”more than 80 published works, (...), works that will endure in the soul, in history and in eternity - thousands of services performed, 400 churches built, more than 800 churches restored and painted, the construction of countless social establishments, as well as almost 1000 parish and social houses built from the ground up."
Then, just remembered from the rush of thought, in the first year, in Suceava, the consecration of the new Antimonies for the churches of the Archdiocese of Suceava and Rădăuților; the reopening of the Solca Monastery and the appointment of the first abbot after 236 years; the reopening of the Pătrăuți Monastery and the appointment of the first abbess after 200 years; the „No house without the New Testament” program; the establishment of the „Dimitrie Suceveanu” Psaltic Group, the reconfiguration and resizing of the church objects shop, which now includes the „St. Joseph of Arimathea” colportage, the „Arimathea - Joy to the Soul” pangar and the „Arimathea - Light to the Soul” candle holder.
Or, in the second, as the attention springs to mind from skimming just at a first glance the 456 pages of Activity Report - 2021, published by Crimca Publishing House: the anniversary events „Serbarea de la Putna -150. The Continuity of an Ideal”; 677 pastoral visits to parishes and filial parishes, 95 - to monasteries and hermitages, 55 visits to social, medical and cultural-educational establishments; 5 editorial projects, 5 books published, 175 articles and words of teaching written; reopening of three more monasteries (Ilișești, Ițcani, Bălinești) and establishment of the Arbore Monastery; coordination and support of 22 educational-cultural and philanthropic projects, at regional and national level, for children and young people; 7 campaigns and programs for people in need in the parish communities of Suceava County; the Ecclesiasaria „Saint Jacob Putneanul Metropolitan”; the Trapeza of the Communion „Saint John the Merciful Metropolitan”; the ongoing coordination of the works at the Eparchial Center „Dosoftei Episcopul” and at the Eparchial Center offices „Metropolitan Silvestru”; obtaining the approval of the government decision for the rehabilitation and consolidation project of the Monastery „Saint John the New”.
The processions with the relics of St. John the New, the Baldachin of the saint and the whole series of liturgical, ecclesial, cultural and patrimonial events organized by the feast of the Archiepiscopal Cathedral of Suceava are not to be associated with silence.
In the same way, the grateful and prayerful thought of peace kneels on one's knees at the mere utterance of words that would recall the impressive help offered by the Archdiocese of Suceava and Rădăuților to the Ukrainian people since the outbreak of war; over 450 tons of humanitarian aid, countless hours and days of volunteering, proven successive waves of humanity, tens of thousands of people helped, comforted, listened to, understood, supported, advised.
All the best to you, Your Eminence, Your Eminence, Archbishop!
Daniela Ceredeev, school inspector
photocredit: ziarullumina.ro
