The Cave and Fountain of the Saint Pious THEODORA from SIHLA (Neamt County, Moldova, Romania)

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Quite difficult to reach, at the top of the mountain, the Sihla Monastery is found at the base of a ridge with large rocks which we believe also give it its name, "szikla" (pronounced "sikla") in Hungarian meaning "rock". These rocks, surrounded by forests and ravines, constituted the ideal retreat environment for hermits, the history of monasticism going down to Sihla in the 15th century. Sihla is haloed by the memory of Teodora, the first Romanian passed among the saints in 1992, with a feast day on August 7. Her story, briefly reproduced in the subtitle of the video, is crowned by the period when after the death of her father confessor from Sihastria, a monastery located in the valley, left absolutely alone in the area of Sihla, unknown to anyone, the Pious Teodora acquires the graces of the fire prayer (in my opinion, recalling the hesychast practice) and of working miracles, overcoming the cold (he had ragged clothes), hunger (he ate only the fruits of the forest) and devilish temptations. The last years of her life (the she Pious was a hermit here at the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century) and she spent them in the grotto that is the subject of the video, near which the "fountain" of Saint Theodora is found, actually a hollow dug into the top of a rock and in which collected the raindrops. Visiting the fountain and the cave, now transformed into an altar with tens - hundreds of candles, is done on a route through the forest, among the rocks, several hundred meters long, somehow parallel to the monastery premises. Towards the end (or beginning) of the route is the "Church from a Fir Tree" built in 1763 and featured in the previous video ( • „Biserica Dintr-un Bra... )