The Saints are never in a hurry. Their time is unknown and their work is unseen. They have their own mysterious plan and mission. Some remain hidden for centuries only to be revealed afterwards.

Beyond being the right faith and the right worship of God, Orthodoxy is also about the conveyance of faith, the continuation of sainthood. To live in an Orthodox way means to make yourself part of this continuity and to year to respond to this call - the call to join the Saints. Any distortion of this understanding inevitably leads, from a Christian perspective, to an existential failure.

As an Orthodox community living in a mainly Catholic country (theoretically speaking), we sometimes have the impression of being uprooted, of being separated from our Tradition and from the Saints of our land. But, for a reason known by God alone, we have to live our faith in these places that were blessed with so much sainthood a long time ago, when the Church was one, before the Schism of 1054.

We do not know the mystery of why the saints of these lands have kept a profound silence, but it is certainly our duty to research and look into their lives. These are the Saints next to us, which we do not see nor hear, since we do not know them. Let us strive to discover their lives, to follow their example, to understand God’s work with them and with us.

There is an old saying that the Saints choose us. Why have the Saints of these lands chosen us? What responsibility are they calling us to? What life? In order to freely reflect on the answer, we will start from another question: who are the Saints of these lands? In this chapter, we try to present small sketches about the lives of the Saints next to us, as an invitation to wipe away the dust of centuries of oblivion. Through the pilgrimages we hope to organize, we will try to follow in their footsteps, if only in a literal sense in the beginning.