Palladius the Hermit of Putna

Palladius was a schemamonk, a disciple of Saint Daniel the Hermit, a hermit and calligrapher in the Putna valley, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 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.

Before 1460, when Daniel lived as a hermit in a cave near Putna, he had around him a few disciples whom he taught the ascetic struggle and the love of God. Palladius was one of them. When Daniel moved to Voroneț, the disciple followed him. After Putna Monastery was founded, Palladius made himself a hut of wood and earth in the valley of the Putna stream and lived there in fasting and prayer, together with other hermits of the monastery.

After the hours of prayer he wrote church books; from this he earned his food and clothing. He was a good calligrapher and a hermit known and honoured by Stephen the Great. Of his books one Horologion copied in 1493 survives at Putna, perhaps at the prince's request. On folio 181 it is written that this book was made by Palladius the Hermit of Putna.

He raised several disciples in the spiritual life and passed to the Lord in the first decades of the sixteenth century.