Auxentius the Hermit of Mount Athos

Auxentius was a Romanian schemamonk, born in Moldavia, who lived almost forty years as a hermit in a cave below the summit of Mount Athos and probably fell asleep around 1890. He is named in the Romanian Paterikon, on the testimony of Romanian Athonite monks, and venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization; the year of his death is uncertain, and the sources give no day of commemoration.

Around 1850 he went to Athos and received monastic tonsure at one of the cells around Karyes. With great zeal for the hermit life, he withdrew into one of the uninhabited caves below the summit of the mountain, where he struggled alone, in fasting, prayer and tears. The Paterikon says he acquired perfectly the gift of tears, of foresight and of prayer of the heart. He lived like the fathers of old, in all-⁠night vigils, hunger, thirst, cold and great temptations, hidden from all eyes, for he remained mostly in the mountain. Only from time to time did he come down to the Prodromos Skete, confess, receive the Holy Mysteries and return to the wilderness.

So he remained, like an unquenched lamp below the summit of Athos, almost forty years, praying day and night for the world and for his country. The monks of the area honoured him as a true saint, but his life was hidden in Christ. Once, two monks from the Lavra, going to visit the caves of the hermits, found him fallen asleep in the Lord, on his knees with his hands raised in prayer. They brought the body down to the Lavra and buried it in the monastery cemetery.