Paisie Olaru

Holy Venerable Paisie Olaru, known as Paisie of Sihăstria, was a hieroschemamonk and great spiritual father of the Romanian Orthodox Church in the twentieth century. He was born on 20 June 1897 in the village of Stroiești, Lunca commune, Botoșani county, and reposed in the Lord on 18 October 1990 at Sihăstria Monastery.

He was the youngest of the five children of Ioan, a forester, and Ecaterina, a housewife, and received the name Petru at baptism. In 1921 he entered monastic life at the nearby Cozancea Skete, and a year later was tonsured a monk with the name Paisie. He was ordained deacon on 14 October 1943 and priest on 4 April 1947, and was briefly abbot of the skete. In 1948 he withdrew to Sihăstria Monastery and remained there as spiritual father of the whole community; between 1949 and 1953 he lived at Slatina Monastery in Suceava, and from 1954 he returned to Sihăstria. From 1972 to 1984 or 1985 he struggled as a hermit at Sihla Skete, and in his last years he lived in his cell at Sihăstria until the end of his life.

He was renowned for the charismatic power by which he penetrated people's souls and consciences, for the mercy and love with which he received all at any hour of day or night, and for a humility joined to gentleness, by which he won people and brought them to repentance. He is commemorated together with Saint Cleopa Ilie, with whom he lived at Sihăstria.

On 12 July 2024 the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church decided on the canonization of sixteen Romanian saints, among them Fathers Paisie Olaru and Cleopa Ilie of Sihăstria; the solemn proclamation was planned for 2025, when the Church marked a century since its elevation to Patriarchate. The two are honoured together, in a common service, as the Holy Venerable Cleopa and Paisie of Sihăstria.