Joel of Ialomicioara Cave

Joel was a monk of Ialomicioara Cave Skete, originally from Avrig, Sibiu county, who died in 1940 after more than forty years of life in the skete. 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 came to serve Christ at Peștera toward the end of the nineteenth century. The Paterikon describes him as a monk of prayer and obedience. His choicest struggle was prayer strengthened by fasting: all his life he ate only once a day, boiled vegetables and greens. If the enemy tempted him to eat before the time, he told himself to endure a while, for it was not the time for eating but for prayer. By day he did obedience in the skete, saying the Jesus Prayer in secret, and at night he kept vigil, reading the Psalter and making prostrations.

The Paterikon tells that after he lay down he was troubled with apparitions: sometimes someone knocked at his door, telling him to come out because the abbot was calling him, other times one entered his cell in the form of a woman. Joel understood the snare, said Let God arise and let His enemies be scattered, then drove the apparition away with the sign of the Holy Cross, and so he was delivered.

For a time he was steward of the skete and an example of gentleness, humility and obedience. It is said he had received the gift of foresight: he saw which passion held each person and advised him to give it up, and many listened and repented. He lived in the skete more than forty years and was found dead in his cell, with the Psalter beside him.