Job Burlacu of Neamt

Iov Burlacu, born in 1874 at Boroaia, in Suceava, was a monk at Neamț Monastery, pharmacist of the monastery and caretaker of the old and sick monks, a great ascetic and lover of the poor. He fell asleep in the autumn of 1941. 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 1906 he took up his cross and entered the Neamț community, where he struggled thirty-⁠five years, with the same obedience of pharmacist and nurse at the infirmary. The Paterikon says he surpassed the other monks in three good works: fasting, unceasing prayer and sobriety of mind. He always kept his eyes down and thought of death. His disciple said he never saw him laugh or speak idle words. He spoke little, and his words pierced hearts. He ate once a day, in the evening, and slept a few hours on a bench, with a stone wrapped in newspaper under his head. He told the monks to be ready for the road, for no one is eternal on earth, and that the prepared man waits with joy for the hour of death, on which he has meditated all his life.

He knew medicinal plants well. He gathered them in summer from clearings and forests, preserved them and made syrups and ointments from them, which he gave free to sick monks and lay people, who came from all the monasteries and villages around. At the infirmary he had his cell and pharmacy; there he stayed day and night beside the sick, comforting them, binding their wounds and changing beds. All loved him and called him our father. At night he was never absent from church, standing at the back of all, eyes down. He had great devotion to the Mother of God, to whom he read the akathist and paraklesis in his cell.

He was merciful: daily orphaned children, the sick and poor people from Pipirig came to him, whom he fed with food from the infirmary and gave a coin. When a father asked him whether a monk must give alms, he answered that if he has, he must give; true monks are exempt, but only if they have nothing. It is told that, after buying an icon for seven hundred lei, he sold it for three hundred, saying that otherwise he would have had no alms to give, and if he had given it for nothing, the thought of pride would have overcome him. Another time he gave a man with seven children the thick winter coat he had received from a father, saying that he had everything. He fell asleep in the autumn of 1941 and was buried in the monastery cemetery.