Eugene of Prodromou Skete

Monk Eugene of the Romanian Skete of Prodromou was a Romanian monk who embraced the monastic life on the Holy Mountain and was later sent back to Romania, where for nearly four decades he guided a small community at the skete's dependency in Țifești. He reposed on 14 November 1954. He is honoured by the faithful as a man pleasing to God, though he has not been formally numbered among the saints. His life is found in the Romanian Patericon of Hieromonk Ioanichie Bălan, from which it passed into the Great Gerontikon of Monk Moses the Athonite.

He was born in 1880 at Segarcea in Dolj, to Dimitrie and Maria, who raised him in the fear of God. In 1903 he came to the Holy Mountain and was tonsured a monk at the Romanian Skete of Prodromou. Among the skete's hundred and fifty monks he was reckoned the most zealous and the most obedient.

After about ten years he was sent to the Darvari Skete in Bucharest, and in 1917 to the Prodromou dependency at Țifești in Vrancea. He stayed there almost forty years and gathered twelve monks around him, guiding them with prudence and wisdom. During a great famine he opened the storerooms of the dependency without hesitation and emptied them for the hungry, saving about a hundred people from death.

He taught above all by the example of his life. Many young men left a dissolute life and through his counsel became good monks. He did not impose obedience but inspired it. When a villager's sheep strayed into the monastery's vineyard, he would not let his disciples drive them out and rebuke the man, so as not to grieve their brother. When someone slandered him, he bore it without complaint and told his disciples that praise of a monk gladdens the demons, while insults gladden the angels.

He slept very little. He prayed standing with raised hands for two or three hours, made nearly a thousand prostrations every evening, said the Jesus Prayer without ceasing and read the Psalter with tears. He wore poor clothing, kept a small cell and avoided doctors, entrusting himself to God, who knows when health is needed and when sickness. From the time he left the Holy Mountain he never ate meat.

He reposed on 14 November 1954 in his cell, glorifying God, and was buried in the cemetery of the nearby Brazi skete in Vrancea. Many grieved deeply at his loss.