Armed with tempera and brushes, they decorated their Martisor : the children of the Romanian Orthodox community of Olbia are busy preparing to celebrate Women's (and Mother's) Day, tomorrow, which concludes the week dedicated to paying homage to women, began on March 1st with the arrival of spring.
Recognized as an intangible heritage by UNESCO in 2017, the Martisor is a tradition that has been repeated for millennia in Eastern European countries and which the spiritual guide of the Romanian Orthodox Church of Olbia, Father Marian Gâinâ, wants to pass on to the youngest of his community , over two thousand faithful, including around eight hundred women and more than two hundred children.
«Today the children have maintained the tradition of giving their mothers the Martisor, a good luck amulet, reproducing the original coin that is given to women, hanging from a tangle of red and white threads, to greet spring», he said. said Father Marian, head of the Church, the only one in Sardinia.
“I opened the Church to these activities to ensure that the young generations preserve our culture, even far from our homes,” he added. A weave of two threads, white and red, to symbolize blood, purity and life, the Martisor is given as a gift by men to women, from March 1st to 8th, who wear it on their chest or wrist until they hang it on the branches of the first flowering tree they encounter. Built four years ago, in the San Nicola area, in an area of three thousand square meters donated by the municipal administration to the Romanian community, the Church dedicated to San Giovanni Battista and Sant'Efisio (of which a relic is preserved), is entirely built in fir wood, chiseled by Romanian cabinetmakers, and will be completed within four months with the large painted fabrics depicting the sacred icons to be hung on the vault and behind the altar, according to Greek art.
The laying of the first stone is due to the Romanian billionaire entrepreneur Dan Petruscu, the main benefactor of the Romanian Orthodox Church of Olbia who donated one hundred thousand euros for the construction of the place of worship, at home in Gallura, who died in October 2021, in a plane crash, at the control stick of his private jet, while taking off from Linate headed for Olbia. Yesterday, Father Marian and his community dedicated a prayer to him, to remember the day of his birth.
