Chrysostom Postolache of Bucium

Hrisostom Postolache, born in 1884 at Probota, near Iași, was an archimandrite and abbot of Bucium Skete for forty-⁠two years, after having been abbot at the Prodromos. He fell asleep in the summer of 1979, at ninety-⁠five. 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.

In 1908 he arrived as a resident at the Prodromos Skete on Athos, where he received monastic tonsure from Archimandrite Antipa Dinescu, abbot of the skete. He received priesthood and served with devotion in the Romanian community on Athos, loving stillness and often visiting the hermits below the summit of Athos. Between 1919 and 1921 he was abbot of the Prodromos, with a community of eighty monks from all over the country, to whom he was like a mother to many sons.

In 1921 he returned to the country as serving priest at Darvari Skete in Bucharest, and in 1937 he was named abbot at Bucium Skete, near Iași, an obedience he carried forty-⁠two years. For more than fifty years he served the Church, a confessor with many spiritual sons, with a radiant face, gentle soul and venerable abbot, known throughout the country. At Bucium he gathered up to twenty disciples, whom he taught humility and obedience, and kept the typikon of the services as on Athos, with daily Liturgy.

In the summer of 1979 he fell ill and was taken to the hospital in Iași. The Paterikon tells that, at night, dozing on a chair, he saw three holy men in shining vestments, one of whom told another to tell Father Chrysostom to prepare, to call Father Cleopa, his confessor, to confess and commune, for soon he would come to take him. Chrysostom asked to be taken to the skete and for Archimandrite Cleopa Ilie to be brought from Sihăstria, who arrived at dawn, confessed him and communed him. After eight days, at exactly the same hour, he gave his soul into Christ's hands. Before that he told his disciples to strive all their lives to serve the Church and to do obedience, whatever they were commanded. His grave is under a fir, beside the altar of the church in which he served more than fifty years.