Olympias of Văratec

Holy Venerable Olympias of Văratec (Schemanun Olympias, born in 1757 at Iași, reposed in 1842 at Văratec Monastery) was a Romanian nun and the founder of Văratec Monastery. She was canonized by the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church in its session of 1 July 2025, with the name Holy Venerable Olympias of Văratic. Her commemoration is on 17 August.

She was the daughter of a priest from the city of Iași. After the death of her husband she gave herself to monastic life, entering the community of the Topolița Monastery in Neamț county. There she was made a rassophore and received the name Olympias, in place of Bălașa. When she told Elder Paisius of her dissatisfaction with the state of the monastery, he ordered her to seek, together with the schemanun Nazaria, a place for a monastery where they could devote themselves more quietly to the religious life. The place was chosen in the forests of Văratec, on the advice of Venerable Joseph the Hermit (canonized by the Romanian Church as Joseph of Văratec). So in the year 1785 the building of a wooden church began and the convent skete of Văratec gradually came into being. In 1787 the nuns of the Topolița Monastery were also moved there, under the abbacy of the schemanun Nazaria of Durău.

Seeing that the community of nuns was growing and the wooden church was too small, Schemanun Olympias gathered funds and began the building of a much larger church. In 1808 the church of the Dormition of the Mother of God was finished. Also through the help of Mother Olympias, in 1817 a wooden church was built at the cemetery, dedicated to Saint John the Baptist, together with the enclosure wall and cells for the nuns.

Although she was often proposed as abbess, she refused, thinking herself unprepared for this service. In the end she accepted, in 1822, the post of abbess and spiritual mother of the community, which numbered over three hundred nuns. After six years, following the death of Venerable Joseph, Mother Olympias decided to withdraw from the abbacy. In 1834 she was elected abbess a second time of the Văratec Monastery, which she led until 1842, when she died at the age of eighty-⁠five.