Mark Dumitrescu of Sihastria

Marcus Dumitrescu, born Constantine in 1910 at Hătcărău, in Prahova, was a monk of Sihăstria Monastery, a former political prisoner, who died in 1999. The Paterikon names him as a confessor from the prisons. He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization; the sources available to us give no day of commemoration.

He grew up in a family with eleven children. His father died in the First World War, and his mother, Ana, raised all of them alone; Father Marcus said she lived like a nun, slept two hours a night and prayed in secret after the children fell asleep. Giving up marriage, he dedicated his life to Christ. Being zealous for the faith and guiding young people to Christ, he was accused and thrown into prisons, where he suffered greatly. Through patience he was led to monastic life. In 1951 he was clothed a riassophore at Slatina Monastery in Suceava, in 1968 he joined Sihăstria and in 1975 was tonsured a monk, with the name Marcus. There he spent thirty years in prayer and obedience.

In prison, the father told, the guards called him the fakir, because he never wept, however hard the torments. Once he wept, and the interrogators shouted that they had beaten him; but he was weeping out of pity for the man being beaten beside him. In the cell he withdrew into a corner, telling the others to forgive him, for he had his obligations as a monk. He told that he held out three days and three nights in a freezing punishment cell, making prostrations, until he fell; when he awoke he was rested and around him was warmth as of a stove. Another time was on the eve of the feast of Saint Mary, when, weakened by hunger, he thought he was dying, and a friend said that his youth would be renewed like the eagle's.

His teachings, kept in the Paterikon, speak of grace which alone can correct us, of the step taken toward God, who answers with two, and of the saying of Silouan the Athonite: keep your mind in hell and do not despair. In 1999, knowing his end, he passed to the Lord in peace.