It’s a piece of Heaven: Orthodox convert from England waited 17 hours in Iași to honour St Paraskeva’s relics

Doxologia has published a video feature on the experience of Sophrony (Brett) Shackles, an Orthodox convert from England, who waited 17 hours to venerate Saint Paraskeva during the pilgrimage in Iași.

Sophrony was baptised into the Orthodox Church in August 2025. “I started my Orthodox journey in Romania, in Bucharest,” he says. His godfather is from Bucharest, and the young man says that it was in Romania that he truly discovered Orthodoxy, after he entered a church for the first time.

“Converted” by Romania, baptized in England

Last year he took part in the consecration of the National Cathedral’s iconography, and this year he came to the feast day of Saint Paraskeva to experience the pilgrimage for himself. “It feels like a way I’m being grateful to Romania because of what it’s given me – by coming here to celebrate one of its most beloved saints,” he explains.

He told the Doxologia reporter why he came to Orthodoxy: “I was very dissatisfied with my atheistic life, with my very secular lifestyle, and I was very keen to seek the truth. In the end, I found it in Christ.”

“When I was looking to get closer to Christ and looking at Christianity, Orthodoxy was the…