Gigi Becali (67 years old) made a surprising announcement on Christmas Day itself. The man with the money from FCSB decided to give up the pilgrimages to Mount Athos, preferring to pray only at churches in Bucharest.
Over the years, Mount Athos has been his favorite place for prayers and spiritual reflection, but Becali confesses that the experience no longer has the same intensity outside the capital.
Going to the province no longer gives him the experiences and connection he feels in Bucharest, where the places he frequents remind him of different stages of his life, from his youth to the moments when he matured and learned important lessons.
“I feel so good in the churches of Bucharest!”
Thus, his spirituality moved to his hometown, and the connection with the churches in Bucharest now became the center of his religious practices.
“I don’t go to Athos anymore. I got used to Patriarhia, Cernica, Darvari and Plumbuita, I still go to these. I feel so good in the churches in Bucharest that I don’t even go to the province. There are some experiences that you don’t know and that many don’t know. I thank God for giving me a gift! If I go to the province, I don’t experience them anymore.
I got used to certain places. When I go to Darvari, I remember from my youth, that’s where I started. I am not referring to youth as an age, but to my spiritual youth, because my beginnings were at the Darvari Hermitage.
“It brings me to tears when I remember my teenage years!”
That’s where I started going day by day, day by day. Now I go once every two or three weeks, but the moment I go in there I burst into tears because I remember my beginnings. There are my beautiful memories from the beginning. Then I moved to Plumbuita. When I enter Plumbuita, I remember my places where I used to sit and pray.
And again I am crying because I remember my adolescence. And then I moved to Cernica. I remember my manhood, that’s where I grew up. And after that, when I reach the Patriarchate, my wisdom and old age begin to be felt. The Romanian Patriarchate is for me the holiest place on earth!“said Gigi Becali, quoted by fanatik.ro.
