Archimandrite Ioanichie (Balan)
[Important
Supplementary material:
https://orthodoxmiscellany.blogspot.com/2024/10/st-john-romanian-new-chozebite-and-his.html
https://orthodoxmiscellany.blogspot.com/2025/10/monk-paul-cypriot-1994-hagiorite-monk.html]
Life
St. John (Iacob) was a holy
hesychast of our days, who struggled for twenty-four years in the Holy Land, in
the Jordan Valley and in the desert of Chozeba (also spelled Choziba). This
blessed bearer of Christ was born on July 23, 1913, in the village of Crăiniceni,
Paltiniș commune, Botoșani county, into a family of pious peasants Maxim and
Ecaterina, and was their only child. In Holy Baptism, he was named Ilie, and at
home he was called Iliuță. Six months after his birth, his mother fell ill and
died, and the baby was left in the care of his paternal grandmother, Maria
Iacob, who cared for him like a true mother for ten years.
In 1916, when little Ilie was
three years old, his father died at the front. In 1923, his grandmother also
passed away, leaving Ilie an orphan, deprived of the comfort of his loved ones.
He was then taken in by his uncle, Alecu Iacob, who had six children of his own
at home. Between 1926 and 1932, young Ilie studied at the Mihail Kogălniceanu
Gymnasium and the Dimitrie Cantemir Lyceum in the town of Cozmeni near
Chernivtsi.
In the summer of 1933, he entered
the Neamț Monastery. On April 8, 1936, he was tonsured a monk with the name
John (Ioan), and in November of the same year, along with other monks of the
Great Lavra (as the Neamț Monastery is often referred to), he set off to
venerate the Holy Sepulcher. Afterwards, he settled permanently in the Holy
Land, where he struggled in the brotherhood of the Lavra of St. Sabbas the
Sanctified (the Mar Saba Monastery) in the vicinity of Bethlehem.
On September 14, 1947,
Metropolitan Irinarch ordained him hieromonk at the Church of the Holy
Sepulcher; he was subsequently appointed abbot of the Romanian Skete of St.
John the Baptist on the Jordan River. After five years of obedience, together
his disciple, Monk Ioanichie (Pârâială), he withdrew into the desert of Chozeba
in the vicinity of Jericho. There they struggled in St. Anne’s Cave in the
Valley of the Chorath Brook, for eight years.
On August 5, 1960, at the age of
forty-seven, St. John (Iacob) departed to the Heavenly abodes and was buried in
the cave where he had led an ascetic life. Twenty years later, on August 8,
1980, his body was found incorrupt in the grave.
On August 15 of the same year,
with the blessing of Patriarch Benedict I of Jerusalem, his relics were
translated to the nearby Monastery of St. George the Chozebite and now rest at
the church alongside other holy relics.
Deeds and Sayings
This venerable man was chosen by
God from his mother’s womb for the Heavenly Kingdom, for from infancy he was
manifestly blessed by the grace of the Holy Spirit, being in all things meek
like a lamb, humble, silent, zealous for holiness and patient in temptations
both internal and external. Then, prayer with tears worked incessantly in his
mind and heart. His mother Ecaterina was guided by Christ to lead a blameless
life and give birth to her only son on earth, for shortly after giving birth
she departed to the Heavenly abodes.
For Blessed Ilie, who was
orphaned in infancy, God was a father and the Church a spiritual mother, while
his humble grandmother Maria, a widow, raised him and protected him with prayer
and love until he was ten.
Old people in the saint’s native
village recount that every day his grandmother carried him to nursing mothers
for breastfeeding and kept vigil over him day and night until the boy began to
speak. And in the summer, setting off for field work, she would put the baby
boy into a knapsack so that his head was visible, heave it onto her back, make
the sign of the holy cross, and walk with a prayer on her lips and tears in her
eyes. There she would seat him in the shade beneath a tree and leave him until
sunset. Then she would put him back into the knapsack and carry him home. After
feeding the baby boy, she would put him to sleep beneath the holy icons, while
she would pray and make prostrations until late at night, according to ancient
sacred custom.
The child was gifted with a
bright mind, did well at school and brought his grandmother much joy. Over
time, the eldress began teaching him prayers, frequently took him to church and
asked him to read the Psalter to her, as she was illiterate. Sometimes she
would tell him to read the Passion of the Lord to her, while she wept and made
full prostrations. The child once asked her:
“Mother, why do you cry so much
when I read about the Passion of our Lord?”
And the eldress answered him:
“My darling, you don’t know what
tragedy befell our family. I’m not your mother! She departed to the Lord when
you were only six months old, and your father was killed in the war when you
were three years old. I’m your grandmother, and your grandfather has long been
in heaven. Widowed, I wanted to enter a convent, but when you were left an
orphan, I gave up that plan in order to raise you. And I cry because I’m old,
and after my death you’ll be all alone in this world and an orphan. But have
faith in God, always pray to Him, flee from sin and remember us. If you do
this, the Mother of God will protect you, and you will avoid many dangers. And
in life I can’t wish anything better for you than to become a priest and
glorify Christ!”
At the age of twenty, he
graduated from the lyceum and, since he was gifted with a bright mind by the
grace of Christ, friends and relatives tried to persuade him to study theology
and later become a priest. But his conscience and his heart inspired him: “No,
I want to become a monk!” And so one day, while working in the field and being
tormented by doubts, he began to pray to God to reveal to him what to do. And
the saint heard a loud voice from above: “The monastery.” From that moment on,
he lost his peace, for the Holy Spirit kept calling on him to go to the
monastery as soon as possible and dedicate his life to Christ.
One Sunday in the summer of 1933,
when the village youth were joyfully gathering for a wedding, Ilie, God’s
chosen one, venerated the icons in tears at the Crăiniceni church, kissed his
parents’ crosses at the cemetery and, bidding farewell to his relatives,
departed to be betrothed to Christ in the brotherhood of the Neamț Monastery.
On seeing him, Bishop Nicodim,
the Abbot of the Lavra (the Neamț Monastery), wondered:
“Why have you come to the
monastery, Brother Ilie?”
“Father Abbot, I wish to become a
monk, mourn over my sins, pray for my parents who brought me into this world,
and unceasingly glorify God.”
“You have chosen a good path,
Brother Ilie. If you have humility and obedience, love prayer, and do all that
is good, you will easily overcome the temptations of this world and be numbered
among the saints in Heaven.”
“So may God help me, Your
Eminence Father Superior!”
“Have patience in everything,
nourish yourself with the teachings of the Holy Scriptures and the Holy
Fathers, and follow the life and advice of the devout spiritual fathers and
ascetics of the Neamț Monastery brotherhood. Go to the church, bow before the
wonderworking icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, the Patroness of this monastery,
and then I will entrust you to the obedience of Father Iov (Job), the monastery
apothecary and the most spiritual monk of our brotherhood. Follow, to the best
of your ability, his life and advice, do not miss church services and carry out
your obedience at the monastery library.”
For three years, Rassophore Monk
Ilie served his novitiate under the Venerable Iov (Burlacu), striving to
imitate his austere ascetic labors, fasting, stillness, humility, poverty and
unceasing prayer. At the library he put all the books in order, read many
instructions of the Holy Fathers and gave good counsel to the young novices, so
that everyone found benefit on seeing his zeal, wisdom and labors, and he was
loved by all in the brotherhood of the Great Lavra.
The abbot and the spiritual
fathers noticed his zeal for Christ, and on April 8, 1936, on Holy and Great
Wednesday, Rassophore Monk Ilie (Iacob) was tonsured a monk along with ten
other brothers, receiving in the tonsure the name of St. John the Baptism. Two
great prophets, Elias and John, the leaders of the eremitic life of the Old and
New Testaments, became his teachers, fathers and intercessors in his monastic
feats. Both called on him to follow their lives, including fasting, prayer, and
virginity, inspiring him to go to the Holy Land—to the great hesychasts of the
Jordan Valley. St. Elias the Tishbite transmitted to him the zeal for defending
the True Faith and called him to the spiritual ascent of Mounts Carmel and
Sinai. And St. John the Baptist inspired him to go to the monasteries of the
Holy Land and taught him to call everyone to repentance and to boldly denounce
sin—which the future saint did throughout his life in the magnificent poems and
instructions that he has left behind.
Wounded by Christ’s love for the
Life-Giving Tomb in Jerusalem and for the desert life there, in the autumn of
1936, the humble monk John (Iacob) partook of the Divine Mysteries, venerated
the icon of the Most Holy Theotokos in church, asked for forgiveness and the
blessing from the elder and all the brethren, and set off forever for the Holy
Land, protected by the grace of the Holy Spirit, which inflamed his heart with
Divine love.
On arriving in the Holy Land,
Monk John first of all came to Golgotha and venerated the Holy Sepulcher of the
Lord. Then, having partaken of the Body and Blood of Christ, the blessed
soldier of Christ walked all over the Holy Land, following in the footsteps of
the Lord and his holy patrons, Elias the Tishbite and John the Baptist. At
first, he led an ascetic life alone in a cave in the Jordan Desert, then he
joined the brotherhood of the Lavra of St. Sabbas the Sanctified in the Kidron
Valley, where there were several Romanian hesychasts. In this ancient Lavra,
St. John struggled until the summer of 1947.
Here the soldier of Christ John
acquired the gift of tears and the prayer of the heart. Here he endured severe
warfare and trials from demons, for the evil spirits could not bear the fact
that he unceasingly prayed and praised God. Here he was tonsured into the great
schema and here too he overcame his invisible enemies through strict and
prolonged fasting, exhausting night vigils, the victorious sword of prayer and
the shield of humility. As a result, he became so free from passions that he
endured all hardships with joy, felt an immense compassion for all creation,
and never feared demons, illness, or death.
In the brotherhood of St. Sabbas’
Lavra, St. John performed obediences as a librarian and an infirmarian. At
night he stood at services in church, and during the day he worked at the
monastery hospital, caring for the sick. He also visited sick monks and hermits
in their cells, bringing them food, and treated soldiers wounded in the war who
were brought here from the front. He dressed their wounds and comforted all of
them with love, while in his heart he ceaselessly prayed and lived by Christ.
On the recommendation of
Archimandrite Victorin (Ursache), the Superior of the Romanian Mission in
Jerusalem, St. John (Iacob) was ordained hieromonk and for five years served as
abbot of the Skete of St. John the Baptist on the Jordan, founded by the Romanian
Patriarchate. Here he added new, eremitic ascetic labors to his previous feats,
and endured numerous temptations from demons. His rule of life was as follows:
during the day he ate nothing until sunset and unceasingly offered up prayers
in his heart, while with his hands he labored in the garden to sustain the
skete and lovingly received Romanian and foreign pilgrims who came there. At
night, he celebrated the prescribed services in church, heard pilgrims’
confessions, and for a few hours retreated for stillness into a cave on the
banks of the Jordan, from which he would return in the morning to the skete
with a radiant face.
Burning with love for Christ, in
absolute silence and prayer, Blessed Abbot John, together with his disciple
Monk Ioanichie, withdrew in the autumn of 1952 to the desert of Chozeba in the
vicinity of the Monastery of St. George the Chozebite.
Initially, they struggled for
several months in the brotherhood, and then settled permanently in St. Anne’s
Cave in the Valley of the Chorath Brook, where other hesychasts also lived as
hermits, in order to spend the final years of their lives in prayer alone and
communion with Christ. St. John struggled here for over seven years, but no
one, not even his disciple Ioanichie, knew all his ascetic feats—they were
hidden in God and in the inmost recesses of his heart. For his disciple saw
only the saint’s outward labors, such as: all-night vigils, the chanting of the
daily cycle of services, the zealous celebration of the holy services at the
cave chapel, the reading of sacred books, the translation of the Patristic
works, and the composition of spiritual poems for pilgrims who visited him in
the cave.
But the feats he performed in his
heart, his hidden tears, his struggle with thoughts and evil spirits, his
spiritual meditations on things above, and the warmth of the Holy Spirit that
set his heart ablaze for Christ’s sake, were seen by God alone, Who accepted
them as a burnt offering from St. John the Hesychast, unknown to any mortal.
His disciple recounted the
following regarding the ascetic life of this holy hesychast:
“Throughout his illness, he never
once groaned or even sighed, but endured everything with serenity and joy. He
kept a strict silence, never laughed, prayed unceasingly with his heart, and
with immense strength endured pain and worldly privation. He adhered to a
rigorous daily routine and fasting, and took the bare minimum of food and drink
required merely to sustain life; he deeply loved stillness (hesychia) and
solitude, resolutely defended the True Faith, tradition and sacred canons, and
always kept his mind fixed on Jesus Christ crucified on Golgotha. He neither
thought about nor cared to know anything of this earth. His body, mind, and
heart were passionless, ‘dematerialized’, and mysteriously united with God
through prayer and the grace of the Holy Spirit.”
Fr. Ioanichie, his disciple, also
recounted:
“St. John foresaw the day of his
repose and inscribed it on the wall of the cave. Once he had passed away, I
dressed him in a cassock, placed the great schema on him (for he was a
schemamonk of the Lavra of St. Sabbas the Sanctified), placed an epitrachelion
on his chest and laid him on a bast mat. Then I lit three wax candles and an
icon lamp, and notified the Abbot of the Monastery of St. George the Chozebite,
Archimandrite Amphilochios, with whom he was very close. By his order, the
monastery bells tolled for three days, and a litiya was served in the cave.”
Regarding St. John (Iacob)’s
funeral and the miracle that occurred then, his disciple relates the following:
“On the day appointed for the
funeral, the monastery abbot, Fr. Amphilochios, came with several monks and
hesychasts who lived as hermits nearby in the caves of the Rouba Desert. They
walked up the stairs into the cave, and at ten o’clock on Saturday, August 7,
the elder began the funeral service. And suddenly the cave was filled with the
birds of the desert, to which St. John used to give breadcrumbs every day. But
now they had not come for food—they were sent by God to honor St. John, to
mourn him, and accompany his body to the grave.”
Elder Amphilochios related this
as follows:
“The birds prevented us from
performing the funeral service, flying over our heads, extinguishing candles,
closing books, flapping their wings over the saint’s body, and settling on
him—on his head, his chest, and his legs—with each wailing in its own way. They
didn’t want food; they needed their father, their benefactor, whom they had
lost. After the service was over, we laid him to rest in a grave in the cave
where other hesychasts had already been buried before, and covered it with a
board lid. Only then did the birds fly away and disperse. Then we brought
earth, made a clay mortar and sealed the boards to the grave, where the saint
rested until August 1980.”
From the day of his burial, the
grave of St. John (Iacob) stood almost completely forgotten for twenty years in
St. Anne’s Cave. His disciple Ioanichie moved to the Monastery of St. George
the Chozebite. Only on certain days, or when Romanian pilgrims came, would
they—accompanied by the disciple—ascend the stairs up to the cave, light
candles and an icon lamp on his grave, cense, celebrate vespers in the cave,
serve a litiya for the departed, ask the great hesychast for help, listen to a
brief account of his life as retold by the disciple, strike the semantron, and
descend from the cave with tears in their eyes, saying:
“How great the ascetic feat of
St. John (Iacob) was!”
In the summer of 1980—on August
8—Orthodox pilgrims led by a Greek Archimandrite who had once lived as a hermit
near St. John the Chozebite ascended to St. Anne’s Cave, offered up prayers and
kissed his grave. Then the archimandrite recounted:
“I struggled here, not far from
this cave, and I deeply loved Father John (Iacob), who was my spiritual father.
Afterwards, I went as a missionary to America and knew nothing of him for over
twenty years. And then one night he appeared to me in a dream and said, ‘If you
want to see me, come to St. Anne’s Cave in the desert of Chozeba and you will
see me.’ A month has passed since I saw him in that dream, and I have been
restless ever since. That’s why I came to speak with Father John, my spiritual
father and friend. I didn’t know that he had departed to the Lord. And now my
soul will not find rest until I open his grave to kiss his venerable,
much-labored body!”
The abbot of the Lavra, Fr.
Amphilochios, reluctantly gave his blessing to open St. John’s grave in the
cave. When it was opened, a wondrous fragrance emanated, filling the cave and
the hearts of all those present. The saint’s body and vestments were intact,
giving off fragrance of holiness. He looked as though he had just fallen
asleep. Then everybody fell to their knees and cried out with tears:
“Glory to Thee, O Lord, for this
great miracle! The Venerable John the Romanian is a saint!”
Then his holy relics were kissed
and censed, candles were lit and the troparion was chanted:
“In thee, O Father, was preserved
with exactness what was according to the image; for thou didst take up the
cross and follow Christ. By so doing, thou didst teach us to disregard the
flesh, for it passes away; but to care for the soul, since it is immortal.
Therefore, O Venerable John, thy spirit rejoiceth with the angels.”
And so, having received a
particle of the saint’s vestments as a blessing, the pilgrims departed in
peace, and his relics remained in the cave until August 15.
Fr. Ioanichie, his disciple,
related that on the eve of the feast of the Dormition of the Most Holy
Theotokos, the abbot of the Lavra brought a wooden coffin up into the cave and,
together with the other hieromonks, placed his holy body—which was completely
incorrupt and fragrant—into the coffin and censed it. On August 15, the
patronal feast of the Monastery of St. George the Chozebite, several hierarchs,
priests and monks, both Romanians and Greeks, arrived along with numerous
Orthodox pilgrims. Then, amid the ringing of bells, the holy relics were
brought down from the cave and translated in cross procession to the church of
the Great Lavra, where they were placed next to other holy relics. Then forty
Divine Liturgies were celebrated so that God might reveal the holiness of his
relics. Thus, seeing that his body remained intact and untouched by decay even
after this, everyone honored him as one worthy to shine among the Holy Fathers.
Subsequently, several
Christ-loving believers made a new ebony coffin for him and placed the precious
treasure inside it. Since the summer of 1980 and to this day, countless
pilgrims—Romanians, Greeks, Cypriots, Serbs and people from other
countries—have been flocking here to venerate him and beg for his blessing and
help in the struggles of this life before the relics (glorified by God) of this
new saint of the Orthodox Church, who became widely known under the names of
St. John the New Chozebite or St. John (Iacob) of Neamț.
His numerous letters and
spiritual poems are read with reverence by believers today and lead them on the
path of salvation.
Holy Father John, pray to God for
peace, for the people you came from, for the monasteries and believers, for the
salvation of all the faithful and those who seek the Lord!
