The ageless youth of a nonagenarian nun – Mother Cleopatra

She is 90 years old and has lived in the monastery since childhood. She loves silence, humility, and prayer. It is a delight to watch her carefully working at the loom. Her skillful fingers weave the multicolored threads, and with every centimeter, delicate, vibrant rugs emerge, thoughtfully patterned after designs passed down from her predecessors. The beauty, liveliness, and serenity of the nun are the fruits of a pure life, woven with chosen virtues.

Nun Cleopatra Drăgănescu was born in Boroaia, Suceava County, in 1924, and was given the name Lucreția at baptism. From the age of five, she was raised at the monastery by her aunt, Mother Nimfodora Vicoveanu, a nun at Agapia Monastery. There, she learned both reading and handicrafts, combining prayer with making prayer ropes, weaving at the loom, and later knitting, at Văratec. “I was born to hardworking peasant parents who feared God. There were eight of us children; I was the second. My grandmother had 14 children, and her mother had 18. I began school in my native village, but I couldn’t detach myself from the monastery, so I continued my education at Agapia, completing seven grades. At 12, I entered the monastery workshop to learn a trade—carpet weaving,” begins her life story.

She permanently left worldly life at 17, when she joined the community of Văratec Monastery. From then on, nothing separated her from Christ the Bridegroom. In the 1960s, when most monastics were forced into exile following Decree 410, she felt she could not live outside the monastery. With her “soul torn by pain,” as she wrote in a 1961 petition to Patriarch Justinian Marina, she personally asked for permission to remain at Văratec. She listed all the reasons why she could not be separated from the monastery—and she received approval.

At Văratec, she was placed under the guidance of Mother Magdalena Dumitrache, living a life of obedience. “A very good nun. I loved her so much that I wished I could hold her in my arms when she fell ill. She had no temper. I would sometimes get upset when I had too much work and couldn’t keep up, but she would say, ‘What is this anger? I’ll set you straight!’ I worked a lot—on carpets, at home, and in the fields—especially after the decree, when there were no young people left in the monastery. If God judged me by my work, I would do well. But by my spiritual preparation, I fall short,” she says humbly, tears of repentance slowly falling from her eyes, which shine with joy.

Seated at the loom, she quickly moves her nimble fingers among the threads, weaving colorful rugs with ease. Her eyesight has not weakened, and she doesn’t even need glasses. “I used to work three centimeters a day on a rug. I’ve made only about a dozen large ones,” the nun tells us.

In addition to the obediences she modestly lists, she was also a member of the monastery’s spiritual council, served as sacristan, and was responsible for liturgical vestments. She has two disciples whom she loves, guides, and appreciates. For the younger one, a veterinarian, she composed “from the heart” a testament-like poem:

I have a daughter, a doctor,

Sweet as a carnation,

Always obedient,

She operates on animals.

In the evening when she comes home,

She doesn’t even need food.

When I see her entering the house,

All my illnesses leave me,

Because she is good and beautiful

And doesn’t even let me die.

And yet, when I shall die,

I ask you, my dear child,

To shed a tear for me

If you wish me to be well,

For while I lived,

I did not think of the end—

Such is man: while he lives,

He does not think of the end.

And I have one more wish:

I ask you, my dear child,

Do not forget that I loved you

From the day I met you.

When I go into the earth,

I will have no one anymore;

Whoever wishes may incense me

If their heart feels the pain.

As a child at Agapia, she was guided by the skilled spiritual father Vichentie Mălău, from whom she learned true humility, charity, non-judgment, and self-denial. “Father Vichentie never lifted his head from the ground—such humility he had. His possessions in his cell were just an epitrachelion hanging on a hook and a wooden plank to lie on,” the nun recalls. Following his example, she gives alms to all the poor who come to her door. She keeps a special wallet for them and cooks for them herself, as in the old days, on a simple outdoor stove—she does not have a modern one.

She met nuns of holy life and learned from their love, devotion, kindness, wisdom, faith, obedience, steadfastness, patience, and ascetic struggles. “Mother Epraxia, sister of Father Vichentie Mălău, Mothers Irina Leca and Nazaria Niță, who were abbesses, and Mother Iuliana Ivan—all very good nuns,” she remembers.

“She never judges anyone”

She is cheerful, lively, with a serene and radiant face. The secret of her ageless spirit is revealed by her disciple of the same name: “She never judges anyone. I go around the whole monastery village with my duties, but she never wants to know what others are doing. Once, when I was troubled, I came home upset to complain. My mother took a book and started reading to me. She kept reading and reading. At one point she asked, ‘Well, child, have you calmed down? Did it help? Did I find something that touches your pain, or should I read more?’ Another time, seeing that I still wanted to gossip, she told me sharply: ‘Listen, sister, as much as I love you—if you come to me with such things again, don’t come at all!’ She loves the monastery immensely and never leaves it—not even to the parking lot. From her I learned that if you hate your superior, you hate God.”

She teaches that the most important thing is to do God’s work first, then human concerns. She knows from experience that prayer with fasting is powerful, and that the Paraklesis (supplication service) to the Mother of God helps greatly. “When I came with my father to Văratec at 17, I didn’t know which nun to stay with. A nun advised me to fast and read the Paraklesis. That night I dreamed of Mother Magdalena dressed in white, leaving the house we now live in and going to church. What more could you want than that?” she says.

If she were to be born again, she would choose the monastery once more. Now she desires only salvation—this has always been her wish. When asked if she fears death, she answers without hesitation: “No. Only its eternity.” Article reproduced from: