Gerasimus Greerus

Gherasim Greeruș was a schemamonk and hermit in the Cașin Mountains and those around Bogdana Monastery in Târgu Ocna, who died in 1925. 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 was from Botoșani county. He first struggled at Cozancea Skete in Botoșani, where he became a monk and did much spiritual labour. In 1899 he went with his elder, the hieromonk Silvestru, to Tarnița Skete in Vrancea. Silvestru remained abbot in the new skete, while Gherasim chose the hermit life, withdrawing into the forests of Măgura Odobeștilor, where he struggled alone and received no one at his dugout. All week he prayed on the mountain, and with his hands he made spoons, baskets and troughs, which he carried down to Tarnița, receiving in exchange rusks, potatoes and salt.

When his name became known and believers began to seek him at his dugout, he left for the Cașin Mountains in Bacău county. Since here too he was disturbed by many, he moved to the Cașin Mountains around Bogdana Monastery. The Paterikon says that, through his choice life, he received the gift of wonders and foresight. It tells that once, passing through a mountain village, he made the sign of the cross over a sick ox in a man's yard and the ox was healed, and another time, when the forest caught fire and it was thought that the dugout would burn, he raised his hands in prayer and the fire went out. One Sunday, coming down to Bogdana, he told one of two brothers that he would not stay in the monastery, and the other that he would become a monk and priest, and so it happened.

He struggled until 1925. He called a confessor from Bogdana, received the Holy Mysteries and, praying, gave up his soul into the Lord's hands. The fathers buried him in the forest, beside the dugout, and his cross can still be seen today.