Isaias of Prodromou Skete

Isaias of Prodromou Skete was born on Great Thursday of 1807 in an insignificant village in Romania, with the secular name John Dragitsescu. As a young man he became a monk at the Horaita monastery in Moldavia. In 1845 he came to the hut of the Annunciation of the Theotokos in Saint Anne's Skete. In 1857 he moved to the Romanian skete of Saint John the Forerunner (Prodromou). He too was an excellent student of the university of the wilderness. He had no worldly wisdom but God's grace, and so became a wise teacher and spiritual guide of many. His word was lived and cheerful and therefore influential. The accessible manner of his soul-⁠profiting words greatly supported those who spoke with him. He had the grace of softening even the stoniest hearts. Many he led thus to true repentance and monastic life.

His whole life was adorned with the wealth of poverty. The virtue of non-⁠possession characterized him. He kept his ascetic mind into deep old age. He regarded rightly that both waste and stinginess are sin. He had a sense of measure; he was thrifty and discerning. On Athos he had as fellow struggler his brother in the flesh, Mark, who reposed on 8 September 1902. After fifteen days he too reposed, quietly and blessedly, on 23 September 1902. Elder Isaias was ninety-⁠five years old and had spent fifty-⁠seven years on holy Athos. This wonderful bird of heaven shut himself in the Garden of the Mother of God and brought to Christ many wandering souls, to the joy of the holy angels. He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization.