Vasian Panaite of Pocrov

Vasian Panaite, born in 1821 at Filioara, in Neamț, was a hieroschemamonk and abbot of Pocrov Skete for about fifty years, until his repose in the autumn of 1903. 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.

He was the son of poor, devout parents. In 1840 he entered monastic life at Neamț, and after two years received the schema with the name Vasian. From 1843 he was a disciple of the great elder Neonil, together with the monks Neofit Eliade and Teofan Cristea. After the elder's death, in the autumn of 1853, he was ordained priest and named abbot at Pocrov, where he remained as abbot, confessor, serving priest and counsellor to all for almost fifty years.

He renewed the church and cells and gathered a community of more than twenty monks and schemamonks who loved stillness. With his disciples he strove to keep exactly the rule of Bishop Pachomius of Roman, left by testament to his foundation: church services kept in holiness, perfect common life, fasting food five days a week, cheese and milk allowed on Saturday and Sunday. For the skete's needs he planted an apple orchard, dug a fish pond and built an apiary with two hundred hives. For pilgrims he built a new guesthouse, where he hosted all free of charge. He also cared for the hermits in the surrounding forests, giving them food and what they needed.

The skete's prayerful life and the abbot's gentleness quickly became known: monks and abbots, bishops and hermits, priests, peasants and townspeople, simple and learned, found in him a wise counsellor and a skilled confessor. In the spring of 1903 he received the great schema, and toward autumn he went to Christ to receive the reward of his labours.