Dometius of Neamt

Dometius was a monk of Neamț Monastery, called Dometius the Deaf of the cowshed, who for sixty years did obedience with the monastery's cattle and died in the autumn of 1905. 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.

The fathers relate that in the second half of the nineteenth century a very devout and unnoticed monk struggled at Neamț. For sixty years he took care of the monastery's cattle, carrying scraps of food from the kitchen and saying the Jesus Prayer unceasingly, in complete silence. In his cell he had only his cassock, the Horologion and the Psalter. Because he could not hear, he was called Dometius the Deaf of the cowshed, to distinguish him from other monks of the same name.

In the autumn of 1905 the sacristan announced that Dometius the Deaf had died: he had been found in his cell, with the Psalter beside him, and laid in the church porch. The hieromonk Ioanichie Moroi offered to read the Psalter beside him, as is the custom of monks. At midnight, when the monks came to Matins, the whole church was full of a sweet fragrance. Asked where it came from, Ioanichie answered that it came from Father Dometius's coffin. The monks understood that God had glorified him and began to bow around the coffin. So many gathered that some read the Psalter around the church. At the burial too the body gave off the fragrance again.

Archimandrite Narcis Crețulescu, the abbot of the monastery, then said that God glorifies the one who does obedience without grumbling and prays unceasingly, without seeking reward from people.