Neophytus of Stânișoara Monastery

Venerable Neophytus of Stânișoara Monastery was a hermit in the Cozia mountains, in Oltenia, and is commemorated on 3 September (new style), together with Saint Meletius.

As a young man he received the angelic habit of monasticism at Cozia Monastery. After several years of obedience in the community he asked for and received his abbot's blessing to go into the hermit life. He dug a cell on the western side of the mountain called Sălbaticul and struggled there alone, in harsh labours and unceasing prayer, then received the great schema. All week he fasted and prayed in his cave, and on Sundays and feast days went down to the hermitage at Turnu, confessed to Venerable Daniel the confessor and received communion. He was granted the gift of tears and of intercession for the world.

After thirty years in the wilderness, with hard winters, poverty and temptations from demons, he gave his soul into the Lord's hands in the cave, unknown to anyone. A monk of Cozia, appointed to bring food to the hermits, found the body and took it to the monastery for burial. That night Neophytus appeared to him in a dream and ordered him to carry him back to the cave; he also appeared to the abbot. The next day two monks carried the body back to the cave. One of them, tired, spoke an irreverent word and his head was turned backwards; after he confessed and the fathers prayed, Neophytus healed him at once. The news drew many believers to the cave. The saint's relics are kept in the church of Stânișoara Monastery, and the cave is a place of pilgrimage. The Romanian Orthodox Church canonized him together with Meletius of Stânișoara and with Daniel and Misail of Turnu.