It was after my release from the Dunărea Canal that I first set foot in a monastery. Before the communists, I cared little for religion, not enough even to disregard it. Back then, during the trials of persecution, the monastic community up north was sullen and moribund. And in that silence, I grew restless and would trek the mists curling around the Putna Valley, the river foaming like a vein, the forest listening.
As I walked down into the vale, beside a little mad stream, foaming with its quiet, relentless fury, I heard a short and stout shadow speak in a loud voice, worn slow by time, to a lone hermit who had abandoned the schemes of this world centuries ago:
Is it my eye that falters in the light, or has my mind grown too infirm to see? The silence of bells that once tolled for a nation awoke me. Father Daniil, your holiness, you must know that when I felt unrest upon my country’s skin, I twisted in my grave at Putna’s gate and cast five centuries of soil to rise once more. For I have left Moldova’s border straight and firm, with the mountain men defending it and yet I find this land split in half.
At last, deep in the coal-black night, the ghostly hermit stirred, his eyes still dimmed by mysteries too deep to speak or name. With a weary grace, brittle and translucent, the monk’s shadow finally said:
Forgive this old fool, sire, I was deep in prayer. But do not hold in thy heart such bitter gloom, for our mountain men have not betrayed the land. They did not barter Moldova in history’s stock exchange, they did not trade its future for silver, nor did they place any options for gold. So do not carry such sminteala in thy heart, oh Stefan, for you wrong thy subjects even with your sorrow. They lie in chains now, cast near the maw of the sea, pulling the yokes laid on them by butchers, not by kin. And the hands that whip them are both alien and heathen.
One voice was moss. The other, a flame against snowfall.
Then, after a pause that felt older than the valley itself, the anchorite continued his tenebrous homily:
A deluge has come, yes, a dreadful tide of nations without cross, of men who gnash their teeth beneath your sign. But they cannot reach it. The cross stands too high and their hands cannot grasp it. Our archers have not forgotten the mark. They wait. They wait for the sacred command.
Ștefan the Great, Stephanus Magnus Sanctus Defensor Europae, who had stood so firm in life, looked frail in death. “So they will rise?” I felt his heart ask, I felt it not in my mine, but in the wind blowing through the trees, in the light of the starry sky, and I saw his inquiry in the foam of the river. It was not one of a voivode, but of a child. The hermit bowed his head, and I found myself bowing to my knees, bowing with all of my body like underneath a priestly stole.
Sire, they wait for the word to be given. And when they rise, the skulls of your enemies will burn with bloody flames and crackling smoke. No dam will hold their charge. Thunder shall be rolling on every road.
A hush settled between them. Somewhere in the dark, a bell should have tolled. It did not.
But then, Daniil The Anchorite spoke once more:
And we shall build a church beneath the sapphire sky. A house of prayer with no walls, where the whole nation shall kneel beneath the stole. And you shall receive them, Ștefan, home again. Communed.
I listened and believed those shadows, even during my second imprisonment in Jilava. When December '89 arrived, I must admit that I felt the prophecy of that ghostly monk was coming to fruition, but then I saw our new leaders. I saw them until I closed my earthly eyes. And now I watch the nation for my eye is the sapphire sky, but no one is kneeling under a stole. And communion is becoming a bad word once more.
Historical Notes
Beloved Netherwalkers,
This piece began life as a translation of Andrei Ciurunga’s Daniil Sihastrul, a poem that, in recent years, has been reborn as a monastic carol. Monastic carols are sung in cloisters, not market squares. They are songs of longing, humility, and memory, intoned by monks or nuns for otherworldly ears.
I first attempted the translation last December, but my skills at the time were too limited to fully bring the poem to life. They remain imperfect now, still, I discovered the cheat code that is adaptation. Recasting the poem into prose freed it from the constraints of form while preserving the music of its. I claim little credit: the imagery, the tone, even the ‘plot,’ belong to Ciurunga. You can hear the original poem here.
About the Shadows
I’m publishing this on July 2nd, the feast day of Ștefan cel Mare și Sfânt (in English: Stephen the Great and Holy) voivode of Moldavia from 1457 to 1504. "Voivode" is often rendered as “warlord.” Still, in the Romanian context, it carries more nuance, closer to “prince”.
As with all historical figures, Ștefan is too vast for simple praise or condemnation. He reigned longer than almost any Romanian prince, in a system where succession was elective and brutal. Anyone with os domnesc (literally, princely bones) had a legitimate claim to the throne, leading to betrayal, intrigue, and foreign interference. Ștefan himself watched his parents being murdered by his uncle when he was just a teenager.
He returned with an army lent by his cousin, Vlad Țepeș (yes, the very Dracula) and claimed the throne. Against the Ottoman Empire at its height, Ștefan held the line not only for Moldova but for all Christendom. He fought in 36 battles, most of which were against the Ottomans, and lost only two. Even the Pope took notice and bestowed on him the title Athlete for Christ, Defender of Europe.
His greatness is undeniable. His sainthood is more complex. Canonized in 1992, Ștefan’s sanctity is still debated. He built churches and held liturgy before battle. He refused to pay tribute to the sultan, choosing defiance over comfort. But he was also a known womanizer, and legend has it that his bastards populated entire villages. He is said to have slaughtered entire courts of boyars at the faintest scent of betrayal, along with their male heirs. As I said, complex.
And then there is Daniil Sihastrul (in English: Daniil the Anchorite) his spiritual father and one of Romania’s quieter saints. His feast day falls on December 14th. Daniil was a hermit, a miracle-worker from his youth, a man whose life could be summarized as one of fleeing away from the world in search of silence. Still, the world followed him, and even the overlord of his land sought his counsel. He lived in prayer and obscurity, and the Monastery of Putna was built around his hermitage. I like to believe that Daniil never spoke unless spoken to, but when he did, even princes listened.
About the Poet
Andrei Ciurunga (1920–2004) wrote verses that could survive a prison wall. Born Robert Eisenbraun in Cahul, he crossed the wreckage of the 20th century armed with nothing but language and a stubborn love for a homeland always on the verge of being sold.
Twice imprisoned by the communist regime, he endured forced labor at the Danube–Black Sea Canal and composed poems in his head, using ten-line forms (decastichs) as mnemonic scaffolds. He wrote them not to be published, but to be remembered. Later, they were smuggled out in books that became spiritual sustenance for hundreds of fellow prisoners.
His first arrest came in 1950 for a book of patriotic verse. His second, in 1958, for sharing the poems he wrote while locked away. The sentence: 18 years of hard labor. He was released in 1964 and returned to the world like a man thawed from ice.
Despite censorship, he resumed publishing and rejoined the Romanian Writers’ Union. His works “Vinovat pentru aceste cuvinte” (Guilty for These Words) and “Poemele cumplitului canal” (Poems of the Dreadful Canal) are testimonies of witness, not ideology. He wrote not to be remembered, but so we wouldn’t forget.
He died in Bucharest in 2004. In Cahul, a library bears his name. In his country’s soil, the words still smolder. If you want, you can read more tesimonies about Andrei Ciurunga here.
I’m not sure what to make of this piece as a whole—but I hope you enjoyed it. Yes, it’s a little self-indulgent, but it’s also a gift to myself on one of my two namedays. I’d love to know what you thought, so feel free to leave a comment and share your reflections.
Much love,
Fane