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Via Peregrina

The Pilgrim’s Path: notes from a pilgrimage to the Holy Places — the Jordan, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Mount Tabor, Mount Sinai — in which descriptions of the places are interwoven with biblical geography, history and the traveller’s spiritual experience.

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2025 2 articles
Via Peregrina No. II (XX) / 2025 The Sinai Peninsula and Christian Egypt. St Catherine’s Monastery Theodora Videscu
St Catherine’s Monastery on the Sinai Peninsula, one of the oldest Orthodox monastic settlements in the world, is presented in the context of its biblical history, the role of Empress Helena and Emperor Justinian in its foundation, as well as its links with Romanian rulers such as Constantin Brâncoveanu and Metropolitan Antim Ivireanul, who was exiled to Sinai.
 Via Peregrina No. I (XIX) / 2025 Mount Tabor – The Mountain of God Theodora Videscu
Mount Tabor in Galilee, the site of the Transfiguration of the Lord, is presented through the lens of its biblical history, its annual pilgrimages and the two monasteries on its summit. A special place is reserved for the Romanian archimandrites Irinarh Rosetti and Nectarie Banul, who rebuilt the Orthodox monastery in the 19th century, leaving an exceptional Romanian chapter in the history of the Holy Mountain.
2024 1 article
Via Peregrina No. II (XVIII) / 2024 Via Dolorossa – the loneliness of Jerusalem Theodora Videscu

The Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem is followed step by step, from the Garden of Gethsemane and the Fortress of Antonia to Golgotha and the Holy Sepulchre, tracing the fourteen stations of the Way of the Cross of our Saviour Christ. Each site — the Pool of Bethesda, St Anne’s Church, the Ecce Homo Arch, the Chapel of the Crowning with Thorns — is presented through scriptural sources and historical tradition, offering the reader a meditation on the sacrifice and Resurrection of Christ.
2023 2 articles
Via Peregrina No. II (XVI) / 2023 Bethlehem – The House of Bread Theodora Videscu
Bethlehem, the city of the Nativity of the Lord Jesus Christ, is presented through its holy sites: the Basilica of the Nativity, founded by Empress Helena and Constantine the Great in 325; the Grotto of the Nativity with its silver star commissioned by Constantine Brâncoveanu; the icon of the Mother of God ‘Bethleemissa’, the Cave of St Jerome, as well as the neighbouring settlements of Beit Sahour and Al Khader.
 Via Peregrina No. I (XV) / 2023 The River Jordan – Our Epiphany Theodora Videscu

The article describes the geography and sacred history of the Jordan Valley, from the river’s source in northern Israel to the Dead Sea, with a focus on the original site of the Lord’s Baptism, Betabara, and the Jordan River Procession at Qasr al-Yahud. It explores monastic traditions, the Romanian Hermitage on the Jordan, the miracle of the river’s reversal, and the theological significance of the Epiphany.