Săpânța-Peri Monastery revived thanks to the “stubbornness” of the priest Grigore Luțai, who managed to instill this “stubbornness” to the villagers, too. Many people were skeptical about this project at first; others maybe didn’t even understand the purpose of restoring a monastery which they knew nothing about.
Why should there be a monastery in their village? Maybe because it was God’s will. Everything happens for a reason. But now, no one says that the monastery doesn’t deserve a place in the life of Săpânța people.
The history of the old monastery is quite remote and goes back to the 18th century when the Orthodox Church was considered illegal by the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The aristocrats from back then, Stan Matei, Catuna Maria, Stan Mihai each bought and donated a holy book thinking that one day there will be a monastery in their village. But it didn’t happen until the 20th century when the parish priest Grigore Luțai took the initiative to fulfill a wish of over two hundred years old. At the same time he “bound” a wound that Romanian people over Tisa had, by naming the monastery – Peri.
