Bassianos of Prodromou Skete

Bassianos of Prodromou Skete was born in 1888 in the commune of Bahna in Roman county, Romania, with the secular name George Oprisan. In 1910 he came secretly to the Holy Mountain, because his father wanted to marry him off. He entered the skete of Saint John the Forerunner, where he was tonsured a monk. There he served in the church, the kitchen, the garden and the infirmary. After a few years he went to the skete of Saint Demetrius-⁠Lakkou, where many of his compatriots struggled. He submitted to one of them who lived in stillness: the Romanian Elder Barlaam, who lived with great asceticism, unceasing prayer and divine visions. He himself later related: "There were many venerable monks then on Athos, but they fled from people and lived utterly unknown to the world in caves and hermitages, and died there. Ah, what the Holy Mountain was then. A true garden of paradise. At every step, wherever you went, you met a monk, a hermit praying, a schemamonk making prostrations..."

In 1924, because of calendar divisions, he left for the Athonite dependency of the Darvari skete in Bucharest, where he stayed twenty years. He wanted to return to the Garden of the Mother of God, but never managed it. He always longed for it. The last thirty years of his life he lived at Cernica Monastery, working ceaselessly at the killing of the passions and the gathering of virtues, and reaching high degrees of humility. The blessed elder used to say: "The Psalter is the monk's prayer book. We must read it daily... Illnesses do monks much good. Especially in old age, for they remind us of death, humble us and prepare us for the great journey. Illness is a great gift to the old, for it warns them of the hour of death... The most precious gift to a man is his salvation. Therefore here on earth we must labour for our salvation, otherwise we were born in vain. Let us win our salvation, for if we lose it, we have lost everything... The most profitable work for a monk is prayer. Lay people have children and many cares. They are saved by the afflictions and trials of life, if they endure them. Monks, however, by prayer. This is our mission: to glorify God always. It is a short prayer, but has much power for those who say it often: 'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner'..."

He reposed and was buried at Cernica Monastery on 21 November 1972, the feast of the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple, whom he loved exceedingly from Athos, her Garden. He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization.