Pachomius of Bistrita (Valcea)

Pachomius, in the world Barbu Craiovescu, was ban of Craiova, founder of Bistrița Monastery in Vâlcea, and became a monk at the end of his life, dying around 1520. 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.

Toward the end of the fifteenth century the pious ban of Craiova, Barbu Craiovescu, together with his brothers, founded Bistrița Monastery below the Parâng Mountains, dedicated to the Dormition of the Mother of God, and endowed it with treasures. At great expense he brought from Serbia the relics of Saint Gregory of Decapolis. Tradition says the coffin with the relics was bought with money by weight, but that Saint Gregory proved light on the scale and cost the founder little.

In the first decade of the sixteenth century the founder renewed the monastery, which Prince Mihnea had torn down, added cells and built a small painted church for the infirmary, still visible today. Then he renounced everything for the love of Christ and became a schemamonk at Bistrița with the name Pachomius. The Paterikon says he surpassed many in struggle, being zealous in holy things, merciful and submissive to all.

It is told that when the Turks invaded to plunder the monastery's treasures, Pachomius himself took the coffin with Saint Gregory's relics and hid it in a cave in the mountain, so that Wallachia should not be deprived of such a gift. After many years of a life pleasing to God, he foresaw his end and passed in peace to Christ, leaving a monastery with dozens of monks.