Ioannikios of Prodromou Skete

Ioannikios of Prodromou Skete was born in the town of Zarnesti in Brasov county, Romania. As a young man he married and had two children; later all became monks. For about ten years he lived in the Romanian skete of Saint John the Forerunner on the Holy Mountain. Then he returned to his homeland and lived in the monasteries of Neamt and Sihastria, where he stood out as abbot. He read with love and attention Holy Scripture, especially the Psalter, and the holy fathers. He had in life many temptations, privations and troubles from men and demons, but bore them all with faith and patience, with the help of the Lord, the Mother of God and the saints.

He usually ate on Saturdays and Sundays, especially in Great Lent. At the services he had tears. He was a very good celebrant, and for twenty years celebrated daily. In his community he kept a strict, unalterable cenobitic typikon, which he observed first. He solved problems with prayer and fasting. He had the gift of driving evil spirits from people. With Holy Unction he healed the sick. He was recognized especially as spiritual father of many: through his stole passed, besides his monks, a multitude of people, bishops, abbots, ascetics and lay people. He was loving, attentive and generous toward all and comforted each with the best word. The rule he most often gave was fasting, prayer and reading of the Psalter. He had great discernment. He said: "When you are troubled and your mind is clouded, you cannot judge and decide according to God's will." He closed his counsels with the exhortation: "Never forget these three works: have the fear of God, keep your mind pure, and say constantly 'Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.'"

Toward the end he knew great and continual temptations: the church of his monastery burned, robbers robbed him, beat him and blinded him. Because of these temptations many of his monks left for other monasteries. But for his patience he had also divine consolations; the Mother of God herself came to help him when he was alone and ill. His last words were to his community of forty monks: "If you do not keep with reverence the typika, the fasting and your monastic vows, know that this place will be desolate again. For God likes a desolate and clean place more than a place with many divided monks." He foresaw his end and reposed in the Lord on 5 September 1944, a luminous abbot of Romanian monasticism, whose beginnings are on holy Athos. He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization.