Basil of Putna

Basil was a calligrapher monk and hesychast teacher, one of the five calligraphers brought in 1470 from Neamț to Putna in the time of Stephen the Great. The Paterikon counts him among those who established the Philokalia in the Romanian lands. He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization; the sources available to us give no day of commemoration.

He knew the writings of the Holy Fathers well, above all the great Sinai fathers, beginning with the Ladder of Saint John Climacus, and the philokalic writings that circulated in the monasteries of Athos and former Byzantium. Being himself a hesychast, he knew how much benefit they bring to the monks of Moldavia. At Neamț he was one of the best hesychast teachers of the school of calligraphers and copied several philokalic books for the monastery's community and for the hermitages. He was also a skilled practitioner of the Jesus Prayer.

At Putna, Stephen the Great ordered him to write the Ladder of Saint John Climacus, so that his monastic intercessors should not lack a book that no Orthodox monastery went without. The note on folio 269 says it was written at the prince's command, for his monastery at Putna, in the time of Archimandrite Joasaph, by the hand of the monk Basil, in 1472. The book's binding wore out and was renewed in 1674 by the hieromonk Anthony.

He was among the first teachers of the school of calligraphers at Putna, wrote other philokalic books and trained disciples. He reposed in peace toward the end of the fifteenth century.