Callistratus of Sucevita

Callistratus was a hieroschemamonk, a disciple of Saint Daniel the Hermit, and the founder of Sucevița Skete at the end of the fifteenth century. He is named in the Romanian Paterikon and venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization; the sources available to us give no day of commemoration.

He was Daniel's disciple when Daniel was labouring at Voroneț. After learning the spiritual struggle from his teacher, he withdrew to the valley of the Sucevița stream, where a few monks withdrawn from the world lived, and lived there as a hermit for many years. Hearing of him, other monks who loved stillness gathered around him. They had no church, being poor and far from villages.

The Paterikon recounts, according to tradition, a wonder that came through his prayers: every Sunday at the time of Matins, at midnight, many lit torches were seen above a small clearing, with wondrous priests and deacons singing the canon of the Resurrection. Callistratus then built in that clearing a small wooden church dedicated to the Resurrection of the Lord and, gathering the hermits of the area, founded Sucevița Skete. It was the second skete in the valley, first called Callistratus's Hermitage. Its first abbot was its founder himself.

He was known as a hermit and confessor in northern Moldavia, with the gift of prayer, foresight and the casting out of unclean spirits, and was venerated by many as a wonderworker. He passed to the Lord in peace, leaving a community of more than thirty monks. When the church of Sucevița Monastery was rebuilt in 1583-1586, Callistratus was painted on the west wall of the porch, where he can still be seen today.