Zosimus of Tuman

Venerable Zosimus of Tuman (also called Zosimus the Sinaite) was a Serbian hermit of the second half of the fourteenth century, one of the Sinaite monks who came to Serbia in the time of Prince Lazar. He is honoured as a saint in the Serbian Orthodox Church and is remembered on 8 August, with Jacob the New of Tuman. He was canonized in 1962 by the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church, together with eight other Sinaite saints, but his commemoration began to be kept only from 1992, when it was officially entered in the calendar.

Life according to tradition

According to the magazine Pravoslavlje and the official website of the Tuman monastery, there are no historical records from his own time about the life of Saint Zosimus, but only folk legends, first written down in the nineteenth century. It is thought that, like the other Sinaite saints, he was a disciple of Saint Gregory of Sinai and travelled with him from Sinai to Serbia. According to the legend, Zosimus lived alone in a stone cave near the present Tuman monastery. The building of the monastery, dedicated to the Holy Archangel Michael, is linked with the name of Miloš Obilić, who governed the Braničevo region in the time of Prince Lazar.

It is said that Miloš shot the hermit Zosimus by mistake, while hunting. Badly wounded, Zosimus was taken by Miloš to his court in the village of Dvorište, to receive help. The old man Zosimus, sensing his end, said to Miloš: "Stop here and leave me to die here". Miloš buried him at the place where he died and raised a church over the grave, more or less at the site of the present monastery, which is still called Tuman.

Relics and veneration

The relics of Saint Zosimus are in the church of the Tuman monastery and were found on 8 August 1936. A film, The Wonderworker of Tuman, was made in 2022 about the miracles that have occurred in connection with him. People come today from many places, asking the saint for healing from sickness and deliverance from troubles. The monastery chronicle records many cases of wonderful healings, among them from cancer, leukaemia, unclean spirits and childlessness.