John of Hurezi

John was an archimandrite and the first abbot of Hurezi Monastery, from 1692 to 1726, confessor of the family of Constantine Brâncoveanu. He passed to the Lord in the summer of 1726. 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 beyond the summer of that year.

He was from the Argeș region. He entered Negru Vodă Monastery in Câmpulung, became a monk and in a short time a priest and abbot, a known spiritual father of monks and believers and a good steward of the house of God. Constantine Brâncoveanu, hearing of him, named him in 1692 abbot and steward of his foundation at Hurezi, then being built. The Paterikon says he guided the great lavra for thirty-⁠three years.

He first led the building works of the monastery, from 1692 to 1697, then the painting, in which he too was depicted beside the founder's family. He led the building of the infirmary, in 1696, and of the chapel within the precinct, helped with Saint Stephen's Skete, founded by Stephen Brâncoveanu in 1698, and founded himself the Holy Apostles Skete, in 1700, which he dedicated to the lavra. He also led works at other monasteries: Polovragi (1703), Surpatele (1706), the chapel of Cozia (1710) and others. From the monks in the churches he built he asked only that they remember him in prayer and, at least once a week, on Thursday, serve the Liturgy.

He was the closest secret counsellor and confessor of the prince's family. After the martyrdom of Constantine Brâncoveanu and his four sons at Constantinople in 1714, he remained the only father and comforter, after God, of Lady Marica, left a widow with seven children. He died in the summer of 1726 and was buried by the community in the princely church.