Cyriacus of Putna

Cyriacus was a schemamonk and calligrapher who came from Neamț to Putna in 1470, where he copied the Homilies of Saint John Chrysostom for Stephen the Great. 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 struggled many years at Neamț Monastery, in prayer and in the copying of patristic books. He knew Greek and Slavonic, loved stillness and solitude and belonged to the lavra's school of calligraphers, as a disciple of Gabriel Uric. In 1470, going to Putna with Abbot Joasaph, he received from the prince the order to write for his foundation the Homilies of Saint John Chrysostom, which he finished in a few months. The book survives at Putna and was read both in church, for the consolation of the brothers, and in the cells. On the last page stands the note: I, the much-⁠sinning Cyriacus, wrote this Zlatoust for the right-⁠believing lord of all the land of Moldavia, Stephen Voivode, at the monastery he built, Putna, in the year 1470; it was finished in the month of January, 30.

He also wrote other philokalic books with teachings of the Holy Fathers and was among the first teachers of the school of scribes and calligraphers at Putna. Together with the other monks who came from Neamț he laid the foundation of spiritual life there and trained disciples.

The Paterikon says that he laboured for more than sixty years, in humility and obedience, and gave his soul into God's hands toward the end of the fifteenth century.