Elizabeth of Pasărea

Venerable Saint Elizabeth of Pasărea (in the world Rodica Lazăr) was a schemanun of Pasărea Monastery, born on 16 July 1970 and reposed on 5 June 2014. She was canonized by the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church at its meeting of 1 July 2025 and is celebrated on 5 June.

She was born in the village of Benia, in the commune of Moldova Sulița, into a family of eleven children, two of whom died young. Her parents were named Maria and Vasile Lazăr. She lived her first years in her native village. After finishing the ten compulsory classes, in September 1986, at 16, she went with two cousins on pilgrimage to several monasteries of the country and received counsel from the spiritual fathers of the monasteries. Arriving at Pasărea Monastery, she resolved to enter monastic life and sent her family a letter announcing her decision.

On 12 December 1990 she was tonsured a rasophore nun with the name Elizabeth by the confessor of Pasărea Monastery, Archimandrite Macarie Ioniță. In the monastery she worked in the chasing workshop of the Romanian Patriarchate. In 1996 she was transferred to the Romanian Settlement in Jerusalem, where she served as sacristan and as chanter at the choir stand. She fell gravely ill and passed through a spiritual experience resembling clinical death, in which she saw paradise and hell. With the intercession of Saint John Jacob the Hozevite she began a time of harsh hermit labours. She returned to Romania and withdrew to the Neamț Mountains and the Giumalău Mountains. On 19 April 2006 she was tonsured into the Great Schema, keeping the name Elizabeth.

Ill with cancer, she had to return to Pasărea Monastery, where she died on 5 June 2014. She was canonized together with other Romanian women, sixteen according to the source, by the Holy Synod on 1 July 2025, with the title Venerable Saint Elizabeth of Pasărea. Her relics were exhumed on 16 January 2026, to be placed for veneration in the church of Pasărea Monastery. Her troparion honours her as following the venerable ones in the depth of the wilderness, who lived in austerity, received the grace of the Spirit, awakened souls to repentance, comforted many in troubles and was a guide to monastics. The church of Valea Seacă Skete, at the foot of Mount Rarău, is the first church placed under the protection of Saint Elizabeth.