Four monasteries in one night

[topum]

We are leaving our third monastery tonight and are going to the fourth, which will be our final one for the night. They are five to fifteen minutes drive from each other (Moldovans are big on monasteries!), just enough for a quick post. Everyone we meet greets us with "Hristos a inviat!" which means "Christ is risen!" and our hosts reply "Adevarat a inviat" ("Truly risen"). This is the monastery we are leaving.



This is how the service here sounded:

Comments

[bunn.livejournal.com]

That's a lovely chant. Very otherworldly.

Any particular reason to do all four in the one night, is that a thing?

[topum.livejournal.com]

Apparently it is a thing only for the cluster of villages we are visiting because they have four monasteries very close to each other (two for monks and two for nuns). The service is very long, can be close to seven hours. No seating either, it is all done standing up holding a candle between one's fingers such that the wax drops into one's palm and not on the floor. Many people are not standing through the whole thing in one place, they know when are the key parts of the service they have to be in for and between them many choose to move between the monasteries, greet the friends from the neighbouring villages, etc. The youth run between the villages through the forrest in complete darkness, I have no idea how they see where to go.