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The martyr of Christ Nun Heruvima
from Petru Voda Monastery, Romania
"The holy comemoration of the Martyrs sanctifies with the Holy Spirit all
those who sanctifies it with Orthodoxy" (Octoich, tone 6, Monday at Matins)
Because I read recently in one of the central newspapers that at the Central
University of Europe from Budapesta, founded in 1990, the largest number of
students from a single country was of romanians, 145 students from 1990 since
now, I have decided to write this material about what I have seen and heard.
In the Petru Voda cemetary rests, since more than 5 years, nun Heruvima,
whose name as a laywoman was Svetlana Mihaela Tanasa. Nun Heruvima was born in
1969 and graduated the university of classical languages from Iasi, and received
in 1995 a scholarship from Soros Foundation, for a mater in medieval history at
CEU, Budapesta. Her thesis for master was the research of a manuscript of the
Explanation to the Genesis wrote by St. John Chrysostom, and she proved, in that
thesis, that the text printed by the jesuits and assumed by J.P. Migne in
Patrologia Graeca has many interpolations and changes from the manuscript used
in research, which contained a truly chrysostomic text, full of spirit. The
conclusion was that a future critical edition of Explanation of Genesis will
find the ballast introduced with bad-will by the Jesuits. (...)
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Her teachers appreciated her work and proposed her to do apply for a doctor degree.
Her thesis was focused also on Genesis: she was supposed to prove that the Holy
Fathers followed in their explanation to Genesis the heretic Origene. Svetlana
started to work with trust, not being aware of the fact she was actually asked
to do. But, since she was reading from the Holy Fathers in cause, she were
realising the blasphemy she was asked to prove. I still have here, from her, the
Explanation of the Genesis of Blessed Augustine (in latin), the one of Origene
(in greek), the one of Blessed Theodoret of Kir (in greek), and the one of St.
Ephraim of Syria (in english), and even the commentary of the jew philosopher
Phylon of Alexandria (in greek), works she read in Budapesta, in original.
But as much she read, that much she understood that the Holy Fathers didn't followed
the heretic Origene in their works, but one of the reasons for their works was
to fight the heretic, and this could be seen from the way they approached to the
every single question.
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Svetlana Mihaela Tanasa
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It happend that, being there, she asked herself some questions about her
teachers and to find out that their vast majority are jews, and to see their
disdain for Orthodoxy and for Tradition, with all the universitary degrees. And
when she told them her conclusion from above, concerning the Holy Fathers, they
told her: "No, it's not like this. Think it over. We pay you to prove something,
and you must do it."
It followed several days of arguings and argumentations.
Returning to Romania to get more stuff, she felt ill and go to doctor
for an examination. So she find out that she has a skin cancer with a quick
evolution, in the area of the left shoulder. The explanation was only one: she
was irradiated. The doctor told her she has only a few months to live. She came
back to Budapeste to take her luggage. She argued with everyone, who told her: "Why
are you leaving? We have cures for your disease. There is nothing serious, we
can give you healing. Just be obedient and you'll stay alive" (It seems they
were right, because the doctors confirmed that it is practiced a method of
cancer induction which can be cured if it you don't wait too long, but with very
high medical expenses). She refused to abandon the Saints of God, so the Divine
grace didn't abandoned her, which strenghtened her until the end. She took all
that she could (although a great part of her books remained there) and she
returned here. She came to Father Justin and told him all the story, and the
Father told her to remain in our monastery (this was in august 1997).
It followed nearly a year and a half of sufferings. The disease evolved
quickly into metastasis. Slowly, slowly, she was melting as it could be seen with the eyes.
She accepted to be made a rassophore-nun, and a few weeks before her leaving from us,
she was made a nun by Father Justin.
She refused to take morphine, to purify through sufferings all her sins
commited in this world. Her passions gave word for what says the Octoich: "Your
Saints, O Lord, wearing the shield of faith, and strenghtening themselves with
the sign of the Cross, to the labours boldly they run, and the pride and the
wile of the devil they crumble". Her screams of pain announce until today, to
the ears of those who heard them, the torments of the hell she've been through.
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Fr. Justin Parvu
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Nun Heruvima
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God listened to her last will, that is to live until the feast of the Holy Archangels.
After the vigil of the patronage of our monastery, in the night of 7 to 8
november 1998, about 3 hours in the morning, Holy Martyr Heruvima left us with her
soul in peace, with a shiny face, to confess before the Holy Trinity the fight
of the Orthodox against the rulers of this age and to intercede for the lovers
of the Truth. If the world in which we live in it's, in totality, the face of
the Babylon, the great whore, the Saint Heruvima stands for what it is written
in the Book of Revelation: "And it was found in her the blood of the Prophets
and of the Saints and of all who were sacrificed on earth".
Coming here, nun Heruvima told us about the fact that from ECU, before her,
leaved for the same reason - skin cancer - a student from Bulgaria, a
woman-student from Georgia and another one from USA. I am sorry because I can't
give you their names. Maybe someone will find them out, sometime.
The greatest mockery was that after the leaving of nun Heruvima, her former
teachers established at CEU Svetlana Tanasa's Prize, for the best thesis of the year..
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The devil wanted to crumble in Gehena this pure soul, but God's mercy took her
out of his claws, for her love for the truth, because the Truth is Christ our
God. The Orthodoxy is alive and it flourishes into Truth, and the seed of the
faith is the blood of the martyrs. "Soon come to us before we are enslaved by
the enemies who blaspheme You and terrifies us, Christ our God. Waste with Your
Cross those who fight us, to know how powerful is the faith of the Orthodox, for
the prayers of the Holy Martyrs and of Theotokos, You One Lover of people".
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Nun Heruvima
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