Innocent of Probota

Innocent was a schemamonk at Probota Monastery, a disciple of Abbot Stachius, at the end of the fifteenth century. The Paterikon calls him Saint Innocent of Probota. He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization; the sources available to us give no day of commemoration.

According to tradition he was the son of a local peasant. He took up the cross of Christ and became a skilled monk in common life, through perfect obedience, prayer and love of the brethren, loved by all for his gentleness. He glorified God day and night with prayer, long fasting and tears. The Paterikon says he even became a wonderworker and that many of the sick were healed by his prayers.

Later he struggled for some years alone in a hermit's cell in the nearby forests, enduring, as the text says, many temptations. Toward the beginning of the sixteenth century he gave up his soul into the Lord's hands, leaving several disciples at Probota. For his high spiritual life he was venerated in Moldavia as a saint and intercessor. The Paterikon recalls that Metropolitan Dosoftei, who had himself taken his vows at Probota, venerated the relics of Innocent and of his disciple Eustathius.