Gerontius of Humor

Gerontius was a hieroschemamonk and abbot of Humor Monastery in the fifteenth century, a secret counsellor of Stephen the Great and in youth a disciple of Saint Daniel the Hermit. 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.

In youth he was Daniel's disciple, when Daniel was struggling in the Laura skete near Rădăuți. He then received priesthood, laboured for several years at Humor and became abbot before 1470. The monastery had been built at the start of Alexander the Good's reign and was for a long time a choice hearth of spiritual life in northern Moldavia.

Under Gerontius, Humor became known. The abbot was a sought-⁠after confessor and drew priests, monks and lay people, whom he strengthened in faith. Some of his disciples became good priests, hermits and skilled monks. The community numbered more than forty monks, some of them confessors, teachers and calligraphers, and the monastery school trained young men for priesthood and for chanting in the villages.

Stephen the Great often visited him and asked his counsel, and endowed the church with gifts and liturgical objects. The most important gift was the Tetraevangelion written at his command by the hieromonk Nicodemus of Putna, finished on 17 June 1473, which the prince placed in Gerontius's hands. On its cover the calligrapher painted Stephen on his knees, offering his gift to the Mother of God. The manuscript has been kept by the abbot and his successors to this day.

Toward the end of the fifteenth century Gerontius passed to the Lord in peace.