Raphael of Banat

Venerable Raphael of Banat, also called Raphael of Banat the Hilandar monk, lived in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and died around 1700. According to tradition he was a Serb from the Banat, a monk of Hilandar Monastery on the Holy Mountain, and in old age he was sent on obedience to the monastery's metochion in the Banat.

He built a hut of reeds on the spot where the church of the Entrance of the Mother of God now stands in Zrenjanin, in the district called Gradnulica. He was known as an ascetic and healer, to whom the sick came for cure. It is not known exactly when he died; his grave has been preserved, with a six-⁠sided chapel built over it beside the altar of the church, older than the present church (built in 1826). An icon of him is kept at Hilandar.

The sick have come and still come to the chapel, where Raphael's prayer is read for them. In 1985 Bishop Amfilohije began a monastery dedicated to him at Hajdučica. The Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church canonized him in 1965, and the Serbian Church commemorates him on 16 August (old style), which is 29 August in the new style.