Father Arsenie Boca was commemorated last Sunday at his resting place, Prislop Monastery, on the 32nd anniversary of his blessed repose.

A memorial service was held in the monastery church immediately after the Divine Liturgy, and additional prayers were offered at the elder’s tomb in the monastery’s cemetery.

The services were officiated by Metropolitan Laurenţiu of Transylvania, Bishop Andrei of Covasna and Harghita, Bishop Daniil of Dacia Felix, and the Assistant Bishop Nestor of Hunedoara (Diocese of Deva and Hunedoara).

Bishop Daniil, who had known Father Arsenie Boca for a decade, explained why he considers him a fixed star in the sky of Romania and the Romanian Orthodox Church.

“Our Father Arsenie Boca wants to continue the sacrifice of his holiness for our salvation as Romanian Orthodox believers, as the Orthodox Church, as a country.”

“That is why I have named, and I publicly call our father Arsenie Boca the fixed star in the sky of today’s Romania and in the sky of the Romanian Orthodox Church.”

“A fixed star is a star after which other stars are guided, after which those who walk at night through the desert are guided, those who sail or travel on the seas or oceans.”

“Father Arsenie Boca, in my vision, as a bishop who has known him for about ten years, is the fixed star of Romania,” Bishop Daniil underscored on Sunday, November 28, 2021.

Father Arsenie’s canonisation

Father Arsenie Boca reposed in the Lord on November 28, 1989, and his tomb became a place of pilgrimage for all who knew and cherished him.

The Synodal Subcommittee for the Canonisation of Romanian Saints has analysed the canonisation proposal submitted by the Metropolis of Transylvania at the end of 2019.

The Metropolitan of Transylvania was asked, during a conference on November 25, when Father Arsenie Boca will be canonised.

As Agerpres reports, the metropolitan replied: “God knows. I don’t have a premonition gift, and we cannot make predictions. I don’t know. God willing! When God wants it, it will happen, when the father wants it. We hope so.”

His Eminence Metropolitan Laurenţiu explained that evidence of the miracles performed by Father Arsenie Boca is still being gathered but pointed out that some of his words should not be exaggerated.

“The Father indeed said that it isn’t working much anymore, God doesn’t endure much anymore, but he never mentioned Ceausescu’s name, because he was cautious with people’s reaction, with the sensational.”

“At the moment, he does not need the mystifications of some. Some are so perplexing that one has seen him here and seen him beyond.”

“Some suppositions are amusing, simply funny, but they didn’t amuse us, they made us sad, so the committee of inquiry, of canonisation was simply amazed by some statements, but that’s how people are.”

“But the good ones always outweighed, overcome the others. This is how everything is sifted, and only the real and useful things remain,” the metropolitan explained.

The Metropolitan of Transylvania also noted that he knew Father Arsenie Boca personally, received advice from him and is convinced that he was “a man of God”, a great personality, this spiritual father who left deep traces in the spiritual life of believers from all over the country, not only from Transylvania but especially from Transylvania.”