Isaiah the Hermit of Moldovita

Isaiah was a schemamonk, hermit and calligrapher at Moldovița, a disciple of Archimandrite Philotheus of Putna, in the second half of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the next. 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 first struggled at Moldovița, where he became a monk advanced in spiritual things. Wishing to learn more, he was sent by the abbot to the school of Putna monastery, where Anthony the Chief Cantor and Archimandrite Philotheus taught. From the first he learned the typikon and psaltic chant, from Philotheus Greek, Slavonic, Holy Scripture and the choice works of the Holy Fathers, and at Putna he also learned calligraphy and the illumination of books.

Returning to Moldovița, he was for a time chief cantor and teacher in the monastery school. Then, desiring the great hermits of old, he withdrew into the surrounding forests, made himself a hut and struggled day and night in fasting, prayer and attention to himself. He received the Holy Mysteries at the monastery, where he went down on the great feasts, and earned his food and clothing by the work of his hands, copying service books.

His most precious manuscript is a Tetraevangelion written at the request of the abbot of Moldovița in the time of Jeremiah Movilă (1595-1606). On folio 257 stands the note: I, the much-⁠sinning hermit Isaiah, laboured and wrote. On the first page he placed a dedication of gratitude to his teacher, Archimandrite Philotheus of Putna. The Tetraevangelion is kept today in the library of Dragomirna Monastery.

After many years of the hermit life he returned to the community of Moldovița, lived a little longer and passed to the Lord in the first decades of the seventeenth century.