Roman of Đunis

Saint Roman of Đunis (Roman the Wonderworker, Roman the Sinaite) was a monk and missionary to the Slavs, an enlightener of old times, venerated in the Serbian Orthodox Church as a miracle worker and healer. He is associated with the spread of Christianity, of literacy and of monasticism among the Serbs. The sources do not agree on his time. His commemoration is on 16 August by the old calendar (29 August on the new style).

His life is the subject of several differing hagiographies. According to Orthodox tradition Roman, with his brother Nestor the Sinaite of Vitkovac, was among the three thousand five hundred disciples of Saint Clement of Ohrid and Saint Naum, entrusted with continuing the evangelizing of the South Slavs in their own language, as commissioned by Saints Cyril and Methodius. He worked chiefly in what is today southern Serbia, establishing a monastery in 888, before dying some time afterward. Another tradition makes him a contemporary of the eleventh-⁠century saints Prochorus of Pčinja, John of Rila, Joachim of Osogovo and Gabriel of Lesnovo. Serbian folklore also says that Roman came to Serbia in the fourteenth century, in the time of Prince Lazar, as one of a group of holy monks from Sinai and Mount Athos; for this reason he is also called the Venerable Father Roman the Sinaite.

His relics are housed in the monastery he founded.