Three Newly Canonized Women Saints Honored at Văratec Monastery
Basilica News Agency reports that a new reliquary has been blessed in Bucharest for the relics of three nuns of Văratec Monastery, canonized last year among a larger group of sixteen Romanian holy women.
On August 4, Basilica News Agency — the official news portal of the Romanian Patriarchate — reported that His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel blessed a newly made silver reliquary at the St. George Chapel of the Patriarchal Residence in Bucharest. The reliquary, crafted in the workshops of Pasărea Monastery, was prepared to hold the relics of three schema-nuns of Văratec Monastery in Moldavia: Nazaria, Olympias, and Elizabeth (Safta) Brâncoveanu.
Their canonization itself dates back further than this week's ceremony — the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church approved it on July 1, 2025, as part of a larger group recognizing sixteen Romanian holy women together. According to Basilica's report, a local proclamation formally marking their public veneration is expected in the coming days at Văratec.
Patriarch Daniel connected the three nuns to the hesychast tradition of contemplative prayer that shaped Văratec's community, telling those gathered: "we are a hesychast people, a people with a hesychast vocation."
Read Basilica News Agency's full report, with photographs: Patriarch Daniel blesses reliquary for newly canonised nuns of Văratec Monastery.
A short glossary, for readers less familiar with these terms
- Schema-nun — a nun who has received the "Great Schema," the highest and strictest degree of Orthodox monastic life, marked by an intensified rule of prayer and asceticism.
- Hesychast / hesychasm — from the Greek for "stillness"; the Orthodox monastic tradition of inner, contemplative prayer (especially the Jesus Prayer), aimed at communion with God in silence of heart.
- Reliquary — the vessel or shrine built to hold and honor the physical relics (remains) of a saint.
- Canonization / glorification — the Church's formal recognition that a departed Christian is a saint, worthy of public veneration.
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