Venerable Saint Paisius Velichkovsky

Venerable Saint Paisius Velichkovsky is fondly remembered as the Archimandrite of the Neamţ Monastery in Moldova.

The righteous Paisius Velichkovsky (Паїсій Величковській) was born in 1722 in the city of Poltava to the family of a priest. At seventeen years of age he entered the Lyubechsky Monastery, and then transferred to the Sacred Monastery of Saint Nicholas, along the Trăisteni River (also called Medvedovski) in Moldova. From there he relocated to the Carnul Skete, where he met ascetics, hermits, and fathers who lived the hesychastic* tradition and where he was distinguished by his strict observance of the monastic life.

Ultimately the venerable Paisius moved to Holy Mount Athos (Greece). He arrived at Great Lavra and from there went to the Pantocrator Monastery. He settled in a hut and started living in great asceticism, repentance, abstinence, poverty, struggle. Various monks gradually came to join him, requiring them to build an additional hut until they occupied the Cell of Saint Constantine. The brotherhood consisted of Romanian-speaking and Slavic-speaking brethren.

Without seeking it, the venerable Paisius attracted many monastics who sought to live under his spiritual guidance and to share his way of spiritual life. For the sake of the brotherhood, he was pressured to accept ordination to the priesthood in order to offer liturgical services for the growing brotherhood. Eventually the community moved into the Skete of the Prophet Elias, where services were conducted in two languages: Slavonic and Romanian. The venerable Paisius’ reputation spread throughout the Holy Mountain and many came to confess to him. He lived eighteen years on Mount Athos.

When the brotherhood became too numerous to fit at Prophet Elias, over sixty monks followed the righteous one to Moldova and settled in the Dragomirna Monastery. The new community toiled with great labor to reconstruct the monastery facilities, and Saint Paisius established the spiritual rule according to an Athonite order based on the typikon and writings of Saint Basil the Great. He codified that the abbot of the monastery must know three languages: Greek, Slavic, and Romanian.

Neamţ Monastery

Within three years the number of monks in the Dragomirna brotherhood tripled. Over two-hundred monks lived in asceticism at this monastery. The brotherhood remained twelve years (1763-1775) at the Sacred Monastery of Dragomirna, where due to the events of the Ruso-Turkish war they served and ministered to a large crowd of people gathered at the Monastery. When the Austrians occupied the territory where the monastery was located, the community which had grown to 350 members moved with great sadness and pain to another monastery, that is, the Monastery of Sekou. With continued growth of the community, the righteous Paisius relocated with a significant number of monks in 1779 to the Neamţ Monastery, leaving a portion of the brotherhood in Sekou. The venerable Paisius was elevated at this time to the rank of Archimandrite. At its height in 1790, there were approximately 700 monks comprised of ten different nationalities dwelling in the Neamţ Monastery. On 15/28 November 1794 the venerable one reposed in the Lord at the age of 72 and was buried in the cathedral church of the Ascension in the Neamţ Monastery.

*Hesychasm is a mystical tradition of prayer in the Orthodox Church. It is described in great detail in the Philokalia, a compilation of what various saints wrote about prayer and the spiritual life. St Paisius and his monks translated many books including the Philokalia into Slavonic and other languages. As befitting a translator of the Philokalia, St. Paisius revived and taught hesychast spirituality and the Jesus Prayer. St. Paisius’s translation and his practice of the Jesus Prayer led to a revival of this spirituality and influenced many monks and monasteries in the years to come.

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