Gelasius Maloviceanu of Cernica

Ghelasie Maloviceanu, born in 1858 at Malovăț, in Mehedinți, was a hieroschemamonk and the greatest confessor and hermit of Cernica Monastery in the twentieth century. He fell asleep on 7 May 1936. He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization.

He entered monastic life at Cernica, in the community of Saint Callinicus, in 1888. After two years he received the schema, and after five more years of obedience he received priesthood. For twenty years he served the Liturgy with faith and tears. Then, following the rule of the hesychasts, he chose to spend the rest of his life in his cell, until death, and remained twenty more years praying day and night in his cell and in his heart, known to no one. In his cell he received the Holy Mysteries and his food, there he fasted and reflected on God with tears, and there he heard the confessions of monks and believers.

The Paterikon says he received the gift of speech and consolation and became the most skilled confessor of Cernica. Almost all the monks, the seminary students and many believers from Bucharest held him as spiritual father. He was not harsh in the canon if the person ceased to sin.

In the spring of 1936 a spiritual daughter asked his blessing to go to Jerusalem. The elder told her that she would become a nun there, but that on returning to the country she would not find him alive. On 7 May 1936 he fell asleep in peace, mourned by the community of fathers and by his many spiritual children.