Cyriacus of Tazlau

Venerable Cyriacus of Tazlau was a hermit of Moldavia, born into a peasant family, who became a monk at Tazlău Monastery and struggled fifty years in the cave on Măgura Tazlăului. He fell asleep in the Lord on 31 December 1660.

Though few know him, the faithful of the surrounding area have passed his name down from father to son. He came from the village of Mesteacăn (Mastacăn according to the Orthodox Church in America, today part of Borlești), of pious parents. Already as a child, taken by his parents to the services at Tazlău Monastery, he felt his soul "take wing with divine longing", and from his youth he joined the monastery's community, in the time of Abbot Dositheos. He learned the monastic life, received the angelic habit and showed zeal in humility, obedience, unceasing prayer and fasting. He was ordained deacon and priest against his will and became a skilled guide of souls.

Desiring a stricter struggle, he withdrew into a cave on the mountain called Măgura Tazlăului, where he spent fifty years in all-⁠night vigils, eating dried bread and fruit, shedding many tears, enduring the terrible cold and the temptations of the devil, like the great hesychasts of old. By the grace of the Holy Spirit he foresaw future events, healed the sick and cast out demons. His face shone with the light of Tabor. Crowds of monks and faithful came to him, and many became hesychasts in the mountains of Tazlău, Nichitu and Tarcău. In the time of Calvinist propaganda from Transylvania he was a defender of the true faith in the Neamț region.

His disciples buried him, according to some sources in the cave on Măgura, according to others in the porch of the monastery church, and many miracles took place at his holy relics. At the end of the seventeenth century Moldavia was threatened by great dangers and the faithful hid in the forests; the Saint's relics were divided among the faithful so that they would not be desecrated by unbelievers, and the cave was left without its treasure. Popular piety held him a saint already in his lifetime, as confirmed by the holy Hierarch Dositheos, Metropolitan of Moldavia. He is commemorated on 31 December.