news

Faces from monastic life
2006.12.12

Faces from monastic life

New photographic album "Faces from monastic life" - photographer Dragos Lumpan (user: lumpan, homepage: www.lumpan.ro), edited by Monastery Sihastria Putnei, will be presented this Tuesday, 12th of December, 6 p.m. at Romanian Peasant's Museum in Bucharest. “If people who wish to live like monks would really know all the troubles that monastic life faces, nobody would ever go to the monastery....Nevertheless, if all people would know the happiness that awaits monks, they would all run to the monastery. – Elder Varsanufie from Optina. A theologian photographer arrives in the middle of monks and spends Great Lent together with them, becoming contaminated with their joy after the “Resurrection”. In the mean time he asks around, enters the places where monks work, pray and eat... Everything has been dealt with the highest discretion possible, without troubling anyone or desecrating anything. Reserved at the beginning, monks who were being photographed ended up with developing their day by day activities as natural as possible, without any disturb coming from the fact that they were looked through the objective. The result? An unique photo album. Without ancient walls, blossomed alleys, byzantine pictures and museum collections. Moreover an album with and about monks. With moments from their lives that we can only vaguely imagine. With wonderful glimps from a world not fully understood that arises question marks. Part of a universe of people just like us, who decided to live for different things other than to poses, to dominate... “The characters” of this album are the young monks of Sihastria Putnei Monastery, situated only few kilometers from the well-known Stefan’s Lavra. With each page a different perspective on monachism is being outlined. A bright and full of joy perspective. Braking down cliches and demolishing prejudices, but without sentencing the ones who created them, the world of this album is in the end an invitation. Or maybe a challenge... A virtual pre-opening can be found by accessing http://ochiuldeveghe.over-blog.com/article-4778882.html on of the text of Dragos Lumpan In small English-Romanian dictionaries the word “pitch” may be found with the following translations: 1. slope; level; flinging; tar; resin; 2. to (be) installed; to lift; to throw; to tie; to bow; If one goes further and looks up the word in broader dictionaries, the meaning “offer” can also be found. From time to time I am invited to these types of “pitches” to make offers for different commercial projects. Of a very atypical “pitch” I have found out from different persons in the same interval of time. At about the same time I was receiving an e-mail from the founders of the project and also 2 friends of mine, photographers, were calling to tell me that they had received an invitation for a pitch in a project of photos to be made in a monastery but they were both considering me more appropriate for it. It’s a rare thing to find out about a project in such a way… Truth be told, the project itself was a special one. The initiators desired to render a different perspective on monachism; I quote from their e-mail: “Up until now, monachism has been almost exclusively presented on the level of traditions, paintings and walls, thus loosing the essence of it: the monastic life and its purpose. The essence of the monastery is fully reflected in the monastic life, and the closeness is accomplished by God. The purpose of the project is to realize an art photo album that would catch the richness, light and joy of the monastic life of the monastery, which would inspire to spiritual growth.” A very beautiful project, maybe too daring but most surely fitted for my taste. Something similar to this project I have started few years ago in the Vatopedi Monastery, in Mount Athos. I have arrived to Sihastria Putnei Monastery during the Great Lent. As usual, the first days in a monastery I feel disoriented and I need few days to fit into the environment, to “integrate”. The same happened to the monks in Sihastria Putnei: it took them few days to get used to a stranger that was following them almost everywhere with the camera. Impossible to make natural photos in these terms… But things have gradually started to accommodate …by the end of the three weeks I have spent in Sihastria Putnei, the situation was completely different: I was feeling very comfortable and monks were not any longer troubled by me or my camera; they have started to see me as belonging to the place. At the Film Faculty, after few very beautiful courses of “Spirituality of the light”, the conclusion reached sounded like this: “Do not fool yourself thinking you will be able to catch the spirituality on the pellicle; the film skips such a height”. Still, I hope to have partially caught something of the richness, light and joy of the spiritual life of the monastery. Dragos Lumpan (translate: Teo Ion)

Mihaela Nedea & Teo Ion
change language:
БългарскиEnglishFrançaisGeorgianΕλληνικάPolskiRomânãРусскийСрпскиУкраїнськаShqip