Nicodemus Ravaru

Nicodemus Ravaru was a Romanian monk of Kapsala on the Holy Mountain, where he lived as a hermit in a dugout hut. He reposed in 2016 and was buried on 13 December 2016 at Secu Monastery, his monastery of profession in the Neamt region, though he had wished to be buried in the Athonite soil of Kapsala, where he had dug his own grave not far from the hut. He is venerated by the faithful, without a synodal canonization.

A pilgrim who knew him calls him a beautiful old man in the truest sense of the Greek word from which the name monk comes. He was a good man, who spread kindness and joy even without speaking, and when he met someone from home he liked to speak Moldavian. He would not learn Greek, though he was well educated: in Romania he had been a school director for many years. When the pilgrim left him a list of names for prayer and a ten-⁠euro note, the old man gave him change, saying he had no need of so much money. Asked what to bring him from home, he asked for the Encyclopedic Dictionary, since he had spent most of his life among books.

In the summer of 2016 he had a heart attack but would not go to doctors, because he did not fear death and even awaited it, so that it might bury his sins. He said God would not ask him why he had sinned, since He knows his sins better than he does, but why he had not wept for them, and he thanked God for the time of repentance given. He believed that whatever you give your neighbour remains yours, and whatever you keep for yourself you lose.