The Eastern praxis in the Liturgical year has some particularities, about celebrating the saints. In the case of some big feasts, the very first day after the celebrating is dedicated to the persons implied in the event itself. As an example, the second day after Christmas is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and the ones who came in the stable from Bethlehem. The name of this secondary feast, on the 26th of December is The Group (Sobor) of the God’s Mother. Only the next day, 27th, is dedicated to St. Stephen. The other case I mention here is the one after the Feast of the Theophany, when the next day is dedicated to the Sobor (group) of St. John the Baptist.
In the same manner, the Saints Symeon and Anna, the Prophets, are celebrated in in the day after the Presentation of the Lord at the Temple, which practically closes the Christmas-periods in the Calendar.
The history of St. Symeon and St. Anna, the old prophets from the temple is in the Christian thought a mixture between Scripture and tradition. According to the Holy Gospel of Luke, the earthly Parents of Our Lord went to the Temple, about 40 days after the birth, in order to accomplish a traditional Jewish ritual, consisting in “re-buying” the first male offspring through a sacrifice, consisting in a holocaust of a pair of turtle-doves, or two young pigeons.
Outer of the Bible itself, the historian Joseph Flavius is the main author who also describes the activity at the temple in Jerusalem, speaking about the auxiliary personal near the temple, including the prophets and prophetesses, the virgins etc., who supposed to help the priests and the levites not to the prescribed rituals, but with the administrative things. Of course, the prophets have totally another mission, which cannot be clearly designed.
In the moment that the Holy Parents came to the temple in order to make the ritual sacrifice, St. Symeon was nearby. The Gospel says that he was a just and devout man waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him (Luke 2,25). God promised him that he would not die until the promised Messiah, Christ the Lord, came into the world.
Saint Symeon
The mention of Luke let the tradition to make some special remarks about this saint. The eastern stories, following the Letter of Aristeas (about 130 B.C.), mention that St. Symeon was one of the 72 scholars, who were supposed to complete the first translation of the Scripture from old Hebrew to ancient Greek. The Hebrew community in Alexandria, from which belongs also Philo, built after the Babylonian exile their own temple on the Elephantine Island, in Egypt, and tried to establish its own cult. There was a problem: almost all the Jews here knew only Greek, so that they couldn’t understand the Torah. From this reason, with the participation of the Pharaoh Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.), who wanted to include the Law of the Jews into his big Library of Alexandria, they tried to translate the text of the Torah into Greek. The legend mentions that there were invited scholars from Jerusalem, and from now on the story doesn’t follow Aristeas anymore. The number of 72 was modified into 70, in order to coincide with the 70 holy men who helped Moses by the implementing of the Law (Num. 11,24 sq.). With this it has been strongly underlined the theory of the verbal inspiration of the Bible, a still very spread idea in the Eastern Church.
St. Symeon is supposed to be one of the 70/72 scholars to translate the text. According to the Prologue from Ochrid (containing the lives of the saints, written in the Middle Ages) St. Symeon had to translate the book of Jesaias and it seems that he has been stocked at the text from 7,14: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a Son”. Being thinking that “virgin” was inaccurate, he wanted to correct the text to read “a young woman”. At that moment an angel appeared to him and held back his hand saying, “you shall see these words fulfilled. You shall not die until you behold Christ the Lord born of a pure and spotless Virgin”. From this day, St Simeon lived in expectation of the Promised Messiah. One day, he received a revelation from the Holy Spirit to come to the Temple, and from here on the tradition meets again the Scripture (Luke 2,27). It was on the very day when the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph had come to the Temple in order to perform the ritual prescribed by the Jewish Law.
If we follow the legend, there’s clear that Symeon was, in the day he met Jesus, more than 300 years old (according to the legend, about 360), a quite unbelievable age. But if we put that together with the describing of the lives of the first ancestors off the humanity, Adam lived 930 years, Seth 912, Jared 962, Matusalem 969, Lamech, the father of Noah, 953 - venerable ages. Many churchfathers understand that literally, so I don’t know I should doubt, only because in our century it would be laughable. I would rather incline to believe the text of the Bible.
After seeing the Holy Child, Symeon took him into his arms and said a prayer to the Lord, which is read in all the Vesperal services of the Byzantine rite: “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all people, a light to enlighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel” (Luke 2,29-32). This prayer, read into the context described, it passes very well. The time for waiting would have been very long and difficult to him. Even a text from the Psalms says that the age of a man is 70 or 80, but what is more than that, is only sorrow and pain (Psalm 90, 10).That Symeon lived long beyond the normal life expectancy is mentioned by George Kedrinos in his Synopsis and by Euthymios Zygabenos in the Commentary on Luke 2, who means that the Elder Symeon was at least two hundred and seventy years old when he received the Christ Child in his arms.
But there’s not all about him. Symeon is the first one to prophesize to the Holy Mary her “way” of feeling the pain. A marianic Golgotha means to prophesize to a mother the passion of her son. The mother’s pain reporting to the crucifixion is “sword through the heart” (Luke 2,23-24), which appears mostly in the western iconography. (add image).
Saint Symeon has been connected with different other legends, according to whom he was a rabbi, the son of Hillel and the father of Gamaliel mentioned in Acts 5,34, but that contrasts with the simple reference of Luke to Simeon as “a man in Jerusalem”. The apocryphal gospel of Nicodemus (17,1-3) mentions about two sons of Simeon, Charinus, and Leucius, who were resurrected, when Our Lord descended into the Hell (according to Mat. 27,52). The eastern tradition states that Symeon would have been a priest, that’s why he was at the temple. The Churchfathers who mention that are Athanasius the Great, in About the same nature of the Father and of the Son, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, in Homily at the Presentation of the Lord, and St. Epiphanius of Salamis, in Teaching about the Parents of the Old Law. Also saint Joseph the Hymnographer, the composer of the Canon for the celebration of St. Symeon, identifies him as a ministering priest: “O blessed priest, thou didst offer up the sacrifices of the law, the lamb, for ineffable mercy, showing forth beforehand the blood of the Savior; and receiving Him incarnate, O Symeon, thou wast shown to be more glorious than Moses and all the prophets”.
A Jesuit scholar from the 17th century, Cornelius Lapide pointed out that the name of Phanuel means “the face of God”, while Anna means “Grace”, an interesting combination of names, which symbolically may be connected with a text from Genesis 32,30: “For grace proceeds from the face and from the mouth of God, and is breathed into the faithful”. Also the place where Jacob saw God face to face, was called by him Peniel or “Phanuel”. The mystery about Anna is bigger, because she came from the tribe of Asher, one of the 10 lost tribes of Israel.
Luke describes that Anna was very old, and many Bibles and older commentaries state that she was 84 years old. Anyway, the passage from Luke’s Gospel is ambiguous: it could mean that she was 84 years old, or that she had been a widow for 84 years. Some scholars, abd between them also Ambrosius of Milan, consider the latter to be the more likely option. On this option, she could not have married younger than about age 14, and so she would have been at least 14 + 7 + 84 = 105 years old. The intention of St. Luke is probably to state that she practically was like a virgin, so that the purity of the prophecy seems to be connected with the carnal purity, which is also seen in the eastern Christianity and specially in the monasticism as a “must be”.
Saint Anna, who’s name means symbolically “Grace”, is the Western tradition the protector saint of the widows, virgins and ascete women. The Catholic Church celebrates her on September 1, but in the Eastern Church she is celebrated together with St. Symeon, on February 3.
Another tradition, which may not necessary contradict the first, states that the body of Saint Simeon was moved from Syria to Constantinople sometimes between 565 and 578, during the reign of Justin II, who settled them in the Church of Saint James the Brother of the Lord, which was raised by Emperor Justin, near Hagia Sophia, in the sixth century. His grave was seen by the Russian pilgrim St Anthony, the future Archbishop of Novgorod (October 8) in 1200. Maybe from here a part of them were offered to Charles the Great, but there are no mentions in the Byzantine documents. The Relics of the Saint remained here until the Crusaders captured Constantinople in 1203 with the help of the Venetian fleet. The crusaders took the Relics of St. Symeon only in 1203 and let them in Zara (now, Zadar, in Croatia) on the Dalmatian Coast, controlled by the Venetians, in the Church of the Virgin, the pilgrim’s hospice at that time, apparently because of a big storm on the sea, who prevented a further sailing to Venice.
There is a church called San Simeone Grande in Venice, dedicated to the saint, where there is a beautiful monument (cenotaph), in which is kept an old shrine from Zadar, dated in 1317. On it there is mentioned that “here was the body of Symeon for 114 years” (hic stetit corpus Beati Symeonis annis centum et XIIII), but now this monument is empty.
On 17 October 2010, at the insistence of the Abbot Theodoret of the Monastery of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, the Archbishop Želimir Puljić of Zadar offered a part of these relics to the Church of the Katamon Monastery of St. Simeon, being received by the Patriarch Theophilos of Jerusalem. In this monastery there was an old grave, traditionally the very grave of St. Symeon
About the relics of St. Anna I couldn’t find any information. So how much her life is a mystery, as much also her earthly remains are unknown.
His early Life
St. Maximus (580-662) was born in Constantinople, in a noble family and had a good education. The maronite source, who share the monothelite teaching, ascertain that he was from Palestine.
About 610 Maximus he became the personal secretary of the Emperor Heraclius (610-641), but from unknown reasons, after three years has left that position and entered in the monastery of Chrysopolis, situated on the other shore of the Bosphorus Straight, taking the monastical vows. Shortly after he became the abbot of the monastery, and from this position he used to say that the theology without practice is a theology of demons, so his theoretical approach to the theology was doubled to a practical one.
At the Persian invasion from 632, he was obliged to flee together with his entire community, so that he arrived in the Province of Africa, at that time under the Byzantine rule, together with his friend the monk Sophronius, the future patriarch of Jerusalem. Here he remained in a monastery near Carthago, where he studied the christological writings of Gregory of Nazianzus and Dionysius the Areopagite.
The monothelite dispute
In Africa, Maximus and Sophronius began their fight against the official position of the emperor, who found the monothelite solution as the one to re-unite the schismatic miaphysites (or monophysites) from Egypt and Syria with the orthodox believers from Constantinople. The miaphysites (the ancestors of the today Coptic believers from Egypt) believed that in Christ there is only one nature - the divine one - , because the human nature disappeared into the divine, such as a drop of water disappears into the ocean.
In order to reestablish not only the religious union, but especially the political one, in danger of Persian and Arabic invasion, Emperor Heraclius in agreement with the Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople (610-638) imposed through an official decree the doctrine of monothelism as the official position of the Church. The new doctrine stated that in Christ there are two natures, divine and human, but only one will (mono-thelos) and one work (mono-erga), which in fact was a hidden form monophysitism. The official declaration became as a formal pact between the Orthodox and Monophysite parts in 633.
The first to see the danger of this “compromise” and to fight against it was in fact the monk Sophronius, even before this compromise to be signed. Shortly after, he became Patriarch of Jerusalem, and from this position he published a synodal letter (643), in which he makes a clear distinction between the two works in Christ. In the next four years nothing special happened, but the troubles began in 638, when the Emperor Heraclius published the so-called Ekthesis, the official imperial “Confession of faith”. Shortly St. Maximus became the leader of the struggle against the heresy. Between 642-645 he carried out an extensive work to strengthen the African bishops against the imperial heresy there.
In July 645 Maximus carried in Carthage a great public dispute with Pyrrhus, in the presence of many bishops. Pyrrhus was the former patriarch of Constantinople (638-641 and later in 654), and a monothelite, but in the same time an old friend of Maximus. After these debates Pyrrhus agreed that the monothelite position is false and heretic. Several councils in Africa condemned shortly after the Monothelism as heresy.
The martyrical Death of St. Maximus
At the end of 646 St. Maximus went to Rome, where he remained up to 649. Here the pope Martin (649-653) convened the Council of Lateran (649) in presence of 105 bishops, who also condemned the Monothelitism. But a terrible situation happened in that time, because the central Italy fell into the Byzantine control and in 648 the Emperor Constantine II (641-668), successor of Heraclius gave a new decree, which stopped under heavy penalty any discussion about the fact that in Christ there are one or two works and willings.
In 653, St. Maximus and St. Martin of Rome were arrested and brought to Constantinople. St. Martin, condemned without trial, died on the way, but Maximus came in front of the tribunal, where he was sentenced in 655 with the exile in Bizya, a town in Thrace. A new hearing in the same year sent him in Perberis, at the Black Sea’s shore. Later in 662, St. Maximus was brought to Constantinople for another hearing, in order to be forced to accept the monothelite teaching. Here in front of the crowd, the soldiers have cut his right hand and the tongue, in order to make him unable to communicate his position neither through speech nor in writing.
After this barbaric mutilation, which happened when St. Maximus the Confessor was already about 80 years old, he was sent into exile in Lazika, situated on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, being cast in the fortress of Schemarum, probably near the modern Georgian town of Tsageri where he remained until the end of his life, which happened in the same year, on August 13, after a great sufferance, at the venerable age of 82 years.
The events of the trials of Maximus were recorded by Anastasius Bibliothecarius (Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 128 (Historiae de vitis Romanorum pontificum, 130, col. 737-763).
Along with Pope Martin, Maximus was rehabilitated by the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680–681), which declared that Christ possessed both a human and a divine will. With this declaration, the Monothelism became heresy, and Maximus was posthumously declared innocent of all charges against him.
His feast day is in the Eastern Church on August 13 (the moving of his relics) and on 21 January. In the Western Church he is celebrated on August 13.
Relics
The orthodox Synaxarion from the Menologion attests that after Saint Maximus’s death, on his tomb occured healing miracles, and that three bright lights like candlesticks could have been seen burning (a symbol of the Holy Trinity).
In the Greek Prologue, August 13 commemorates the Transfer of the Relics of St Maximos from Lazika on the southeast shore of the Black Sea to Constantinople, to the Monastery of the Theotokos at Chrysopolis (where he had been the Abbott), across the Bosphoros which probably took place after the Sixth Ecumenical Council. 
August 13 is considered by many scholars als the saint’s death. It is possible that his main commemoration was moved to January 21, because August 13 is the Leavetaking (the End) of the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord.
Today a part of his Relics is to be found in Mount Athos, at the St. Paul’s Monastery (a reliquary with the right hand of the Saint, the one to be cut after the trial from 662). This relic was brought here from Constantinople in the 12th century by the Abbot Paul from Xiropotamou. This is the only relic known of the saint.
Anyway, some international journals stated that the rest of the Relics of St. Maximus (matter fact his tomb) were discovered in Georgia, near Tsangeri, in October 2011. The arguments of the discoverers can be believed, because in fact there are no historical informations about the real moving of the relics, but only liturgical sources. His tomb was found under the altar of a church in Tsangeri, who’s patron saint is even St. Maximus, together with the remains of the 3 apprentices of the saint.
(More informations about this theory, here: http://byztex.blogspot.com/2010/10/relics-of-st-maximus-found-in-georgia.html
Brighter, but in Romanian, here: http://www.crestinortodox.ro/biserica-lume/mormantul-sfantului-maxim-marturisitorul-georgia-128168.html)
His Writings
From St. Maximus have remained numerous writings, some of which were included in the Greek Philokalia, an important collection of mystical writings for the Eastern Christianity. Some of these writings are dogmatic, but curiously St. Maximus is known not because of his dogmatic writings about the Person and Nature of Christ, but because of the ones in which he described the contemplative life, providing an ample guidance to the ascetics. Some other works were written on the liturgical and hermeneutical themes.
As a follower of the Areopagite, Maximus preserved and interpreted the earlier neo-Platonic philosophy in a Christian way. His work on the Areopagite was continued in the West by John Scotus Erigena.
The Platonic influence on Maximus' thought can be seen most clearly in his anthropology. Maximus adopted the idea that the humanity was made in the image of God, and the purpose of the salvation is to restore us to unity with God. In soteriology, Maximus insisted that the humanity is intended to be fully united with God, because God was first fully united with the humanity in the incarnation (such also St. Athanasius of Alexandria told before). If Christ did not become fully human, then salvation was no longer possible, as humanity could not become fully divine. That’s why he condemned so strongly the monothelism, the heresy who denied the human will in Christ. The accent on the idea of the human divinization or theosis made Maximus one of the most important Eastern theologians.
Ignored for centuries by the Western scholars, the writings of St. Maximus had always a special place in the Eastern theology. He is considered to be the “spiritual father” of some mystics as St. Symeon the New Theologian and Gregory Palamas.
His most important works are:
- The Replies to Thalasius - A series of 65 questions and answers about some difficult passages from the Scriptures;
- Ambigua - An exploration of the difficult passages found in the writings of St. Dionysius the Areopagite and of Gregory of Nazianzus, focused on Christological issues;
- Scholiae - Commentaries and meditation on the early writings of Dionysius the Areopagite;
- The Mystagogy – A Commentary and meditation on the Divine Liturgy and the connection between the Macrocosm and the mycrocosm;
- Chapters about love – some essays about the spiritual life, grouped into collections of hundreds of such meditations;
- Ascetic Words - Dialogue on monastic life;
- The Life of the Holy Virgin - the earliest complete biography of the Virgin Mary, with interesting connections to the apocryphal gospels.
Hymn (Troparion) of the Saint:
“You are a guide of Orthodoxy, a teacher of piety and modesty, a luminary of the world, the God inspired pride of monastics. O wise Maximos, you have enlightened everyone by your teachings. You are the harp of the Spirit. Intercede to Christ our God for the salvation of our souls!”
St. Peter Movilă was the Metropolitan of Kiev (Ukraine) from 1632 until his death in 1646. He is known as a leading Orthodox theologian of the e18th century and as a reformer of the orthodox theological education. His feast day is the Romanian Orthodox Church on December 22.
The first years
Peter Movilă was born on December 21, 1596 (1574 according to some other sources) in the noble Moldavian family, very important for the history of Romania in the 16th-18th centuries. From the Family Movilă became more princes of Wallachia and Moldova, and between those was also Peter’s father, Simion (Prince of Wallachia, in 1601 and of Moldova in 1606-1607) and his brother, Ieremia (Jeremy) Movilă (in Moldova, 1595-1606, with a brief interruption in 1600). His mother, Marghita, was a Polish princess.
In 1599-1600, the Wallachian prince Mihai the Brave tried a short unification of the coutries lived by Romanians (Wallachia, Moldova and Transylvania), and because of the turbulent political situation in Moldova, the family had to flee to Poland when Peter was still very young. In 1607 his father was killed by the tatar khan Kantemir Murza, and he moved together with his mother definitively in Poland, where they had important relatives, as the family of Polotski, Korezski and Wysnowiecki. Peter received the early education here, in the Lvov Orthodox school, and then continued his studies in Western Europe, including Paris and Amsterdam, so that he was the first known Romanian to attend western studies, being in contact with the study and the methods used here. Back in Poland, he became shortly officer, fighting in two battles, both in Moldova, at Zezor (1620) and Hotin (1621), but he was attracted more to the monastic life. Even living a noble’s life in Poland, he retained the Orthodox faith.
Metropolitan of Kiev
In 1625 he entered the monastery Lavra Pecerska in Kiev, being tonsured as monk in 1627. Later he was ordained priest and then received the rank of Archimandrite. Shortly he was ordained as bishop and enthroned as Metropolitan of Kiev in 1632, the highest orthodox rank in the Kingdom of Poland at that time.
As Metropolitan he was the founder of the Kievean Spiritual Academy, the first orthodox institution of theological education, organized on the principles of the theological seminaries and universities from the West. Even if until then Latin was quite unknown to the Orthodox believers, the teaching here was mainly in Latin (also an official language in Poland) and secondly in Greek and Russian, which was more spoken in the Ukrainian part of Poland. Newly for the eastern Orthodox, the students here received a double theological and scientific training, so that the only learning of the liturgical rites was doubled by a scientific knowledge of the theology. Beyond theology were studied he school offered a variety of disciplines: Ukrainian, Latin, Greek, and Polish languages; philosophy; mathematics, including geometry; astronomy; music; and history. Because of the high profile of the faculty, the collegium received the status of a higher educational establishment.
Peter governed the Church in Ukraine in a very difficult period in Poland, after the Union of Brest-Litovsk (1596), when much of the Orthodox here accepted the supremacy of the Pope of Rome and union with the Catholic Church. Very concerned about the fate of the Orthodox Church, Peter was dedicated to strengthening the Orthodox position, that had remained independent from Rome. Despite the strong political and social pressure, sometimes violent, he was able to recover for his Church a large number of temples, including the St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev. As the representative of the Orthodox Clergy in the Sejm (Parliament), negotiated here, and with the king, the abolition of the repressive laws against the Orthodox Church and against the use of the Ukrainian language. Finally, the new protestant King Władysław IV Vasa (1632-1646) reinstated the status of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
His writings
After becoming metropolitan, started to print different books, about 15 titles in 5 years. Peter Movilă published in 1637 an annotated edition of the four Gospels, after the western model, and in 1646, also a revised edition of the Euhologhion or Trebnik, the book of the main special services in the Orthodox Church. Also he is the author of some commentaries about the articles from the Symbol of Faitn (Niceo-constantinopolitane), and a small Russian Catechism for the use of the Russian-speaking Church.
His most famous work is the Orthodox Confession of Faith of the Apostolic and Catholic Orthodox Church of the East, which was a response to the Jesuits and Western reformers, very active in that time, in order to attract the Eastern Orthodox on their side. Also it was a reaction to the semi-calvinistic Confession of Faith published in 1629 by the Patriarch Cyril Lucaris of Constantinople, in Geneva.
The Confession of Metropolitan Peter was written after the scholastical catholic method, quite strange for the eastern mentalities. It was the first Eastern Confession of Faith after the one written by John from Damascus in the 9th century, with a whole different language and methodology. Because of these new vision, the work was discussed in the first inter/orthodox Council after the fall of the Constantinople, in Iasi, the capital of Moldova, in 1642 and recognized as valid, after the Synod corrected two points: the position about the purgatory, which is not accepted in the Eastern Church, and the problem of when it happens the transfiguration of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Our Lord. Accordinf to Peter’s meaning, it happens at the moment of anamnesis, that is, when the priest is reciting the biblical text: “Take and eat…” and “Drink from this all…”. The synodals, keeping the position formulated by Nicholas Cabasilas in the 12th century, argued that this is happening at the moment of reciting the epiklesis, a formula immediately after.
The Orthodox Confession of Faith was published in 1645 in latin and shortly after it was then spread throughout Europe in Greek, Latin, German and Russian. With the changes made by the Synod, the Confession was recognized by the patriarchs of Constantinople, Jerusalem, Alexandria and Antioch in 1643, and in 1672, the Holy Synod of Jerusalem adopted the Confession of Faith of Peter Movilă as its official catechism. The first edition in Romanian language appeared in 1699.
Some contemporary Orthodox theologians such as George Florovski or Christos Yannaras accused Peter Movilă of being strongly influenced by the Western influence, which is perfectly true, but not at all wrong for his time. The scholastic style of exposing the faith, though foreign for the orthodox experience, was very good for the students and future priests, who had their first “manual” of theology, punctually structured. Also this style was asked in order to be an answer to the Catholic and Protestant positions.
He passed away on December 22, 1646, in Kiev, being buried at the Pecherska Lavra, the biggest Ukrainian monastery, where he rests until today.
He is venerated as a saint by the Churches of Ukraine, Romania and Poland. His feast day is December 22 Romanian Orthodox Church (since 1997) and Ukraine on 1 January independently, and on October 6, together with the other holy Metropolitans of Kiev. In 1996 it was opened a new theological Academy in Kiev, named “Mohyla-Academy”.
Troparion |(Hymn of the Saint):
“Defender and confessor of the Orthodoxy, enlightener of Gentiles, son of Moldova’s son and Ukraine’s father, Holy Hierarch Peter, virtuous man, pray to Christ the God to defend our faith and to save our souls”.
Saint Daniil the Hermit (in Romanian, Daniil Sihastrul = also, the hesychast) was a Romanian hermit and the confessor of the voivode (prince) of Moldova, St. Stephen the Great (1457-1504).
Daniil the Hermit was born at the beginning of the 15th century, in a village near Rădăuţi, an important town in Northern Moldova, and received at baptism the name of Demetrius (Dimitrie). About his youth there’s not very much known, but it seems that he came from a simple family, having a simple education, without attending the great schools of his time. At 10 years he became an apprentice of St. Leontie, bishop of Rădăuţi. He received the tonsure as monk at the age of 16, being named David, at the Monastery of St. Nicholas in Rădăuţi.
After a while he left the citadine monastery and lived at the monastery of St. Lawrence, near the village of Vicovu de Sus, in the monutains of Bucovina. Being a solitary character, he needed always more quiet, so that he took the vowes of the so-called “great Skima”, receiving the name of Daniel. The Monastical tradition of the East provides two states for the monks, “the little Skima” being the simple form of the congregational monasticies, during the “big Skima” is reserved to the solitaries, “spiritually high levelled” monks, who live after that alone in the forests, caves or deserts.
As a hermit, he retired to a wooded hardly accessible area, in the valley of theViţău River, near the actual village of Putna. In that place he found a rock, in which is believed that he carved a small chapel. This place, today a seat of pilgrimage, consists in the small chapel, and below it a room, carved also in stone, which served him as a cell. The simplicity of this place was amazing since there, but especially for the visitors today.
St. Daniil remained here for a while, and after the tradition, the prince Stephen the Great came here in 1451, after the assasinate of his father Bogdan II. The hermit Daniil prophesied that soon he will become ruler of Moldavia, which happened in 1457. The visits of Stephen continued for the rest of the earthly years of the saint, who became not only the confessor, but also the counselor of the prince.
At the advice of Daniil, Stephen built the greatest Monastery from Moldova, at Putna, 2 km away from the cell. The monastery was important in the next century, being the burial place of the prince and in the meantime, the symbol of the Romanian resistance during the 2-century Austrian occupation. After the building of the monastery (1470) the hermit Daniil moved away, in order to find his bothered silence, at Voroneţ, about 30 kilometers to the south, under the Falcon’s Rock (Stânca Şoimului).
In 1477 the Metropolitan Teoctist of Moldova died, and the prince together with the council of the coutry elected him as Moldova’s pastor. He refused, because he wanted to remain solitary at his Falcon’s Rock.
The Prince Stephen visited further the hermit, after his defeat at Războieni against the Turks in 1476, asking for advice.
After letting him to wait at his door, because “he was in the middle of a prayer”, Daniil “ordered” to the prince not to leave or give the country to the Turks, something that seemed impossible, foreseeing that he will finally prevail, what it really happened. In memory of this victory, Stephen built in 1488 the monastery of Voroneţ, dedicated to St. George, which was painted during the reign of his son, Petru Rareş. The beauty of the painting here and the famous image of the Final Judgement on the western external wall, made the monastery famous, being called today “the Sixtine Chapel” of the East.
After the consecration of the monastery, Daniel moved from his cell in the monastery, being named abbot. Here he spent the last years of his life.
He died in 1496 and was buried in the church of the Voroneţ monastery. On the tombstone, made at the command of Stephen, it is written: “This is the tomb of our father David, hermit Daniil”. His relics were worshipped openly until 1775, when they were placed in the grave, where they were from the beginning. Today it is kept separately the index finger, which the Abbot Gideon from the Monastery of Putna locked in a silver box, in 1749.
The importance of the Saint
Daniil the Hermit was one of the founders of the Hesychast movement in northern Moldova, having many disciples in the forests around Voronet and in the hermitages and monasteries in the area. Also he is important, because he encouraged Stephen the Great to fight against the Turks and to defend the Christianity, and also to build places of worship after every battle, in the memory of the ones dead on the fighting field.
Such as Prince Stephen is not holy because he raised 44 churches and monasteries, but because he resisted against the Turks, avoiding the danger of extinction of an entire Christian nation, similarly, Daniil is not a holy man only for his asceticism and for the guidance he gave to the monastic communities of the time. Especially Daniil’s holiness is respected because he “trained” a ruler to be faithful. Through him, prince Stephen was named as “athleta Christi” (“athlete of Christ”) by the Pope Sixtus IV. Daniel is the holy coach, the “shadow man” beyond the athlete.
St. Daniil was considered holy already during life, healing the sick, casting out demons and giving advices suffering. He was already depicted with the golden Aura (nimbus) of the saints, on the wall of the church at Voroneţ, only about 20 years of his death (in 1547 the church was painted), together with the one who ascended the metropolitan seat, Gregory Roşca.
Being always considered a saint, he was though officially canonized by the Romanian Orthodox Church in 1992 under the name “The Pious St. Daniil the Hermit”. His day of celebration is 18 December, after some other saints with the same name, the prophet Daniel (17 December) and St. Daniel the Stylite (11 December).
Troparion
“Pious Father, God-bearer, Saint Daniil, you left the world and lived in a stone cell at Putna. The arrogant mind you humbled by temperance, the temptations you overcame with the true poverty, and through these you were an example to the monks, you searcher of the angelic life and lover of the desert lands. Ask Christ the God to save our souls!”
