Nil Dorobantu

Nil Dorobanțu, born Nicholas on 1 August 1920 at Crainici, in Mehedinți, was a hieroschemamonk, abbot and confessor, known as a fool for Christ. He died on 27 March 1977 in his native village. He is venerated by some believers as a saint, without synodal canonization; his cult and canonization are supported by some and contested by others.

The son of Dumitru and Ana, he attended Saint Sava lyceum in Bucharest, then the Infantry Officers' School, leaving as sub-⁠lieutenant of mountain troops. He resigned, saying he did not wish to fight a war in another country while Transylvania was occupied; considered a deserter, he escaped trial with a medical diagnosis. He studied Theology, Philosophy and Law at Bucharest and graduated in Theology in 1947, with a grade of 10, then in 1949 defended the doctoral thesis The Theory of the Incarnate Logos in Spiritual Life, under Father Dumitru Stăniloae.

He was tonsured a monk in 1947, as Nichifor, ordained hierodeacon in 1948 and hieromonk in 1949, and in 1952 received the great schema, as Nil, with the hieromonk Daniil Sandu Tudor as godfather. In the 1950s he was used by church authorities for the return of the Greek Catholics to Orthodoxy, did missionary work in Transylvania and contributed to reorganizing seminary education. He was diocesan secretary, director of studies at several monastic seminaries, abbot and confessor.

Between 1952 and 1956 he was arrested four times, the last on 3 January 1956, for services held in secret; he was acquitted on 24 April 1956. On 27 November 1956 a monastic consistory defrocked him and excluded him from monasticism, in absentia, for breaking the vow of obedience and using the priesthood uncanonically. After that he served and preached in believers' houses and served the Liturgy daily in a chapel arranged in the shed of his parents' house. He took on the garb of foolishness for Christ, a form of life little known in Romanian monasticism. He refused treatment for tuberculosis and died at Crainici, cared for by his disciple Toma Alexandru.

Thousands of pages of writings remain, published by an association that bears his name, among them Mystica, Heavenly Words and the spiritual autobiography. At the exhumation on 28 September 2015 the coffin was found empty and without a lid. Some authors link his attitude to the mystical movement of Vladimirești, and one professor claims that the movement called the Secret Church of the Mother of God promotes his canonization. The Church has not canonized him.