Saint Joseph of Bisericani Monastery (late XV century)
This Venerable Father was the first known hermit on Mount Bisericani, and the founder of a Monastery with the same name. He was born in a village in Neamț county and, being inclined toward the monastic life from a young age, he entered Bistrița Monastery. There he was trained in monasticism and learned about the spiritual life from the older Fathers, who also taught him about fasting and unceasing prayer. The Venerable Joseph, seeing that he did not have much peace at Bistrița Monastery, he left with the Igoumen's blessing went to worship at the Lord's tomb in Jerusalem. He then retired to the wilderness of the Jordan Valley, and within a few years after his arrival, he was a famous hermit. He lived in a cave, alone at first, then with a few disciples, enduring many temptations from the devil. Leading a life of exalted spiritual experience, he gathered seventeen monks around him, and founded the first Romanian spiritual community in the Holy Land. But when Arabs invaded the Holy Places, causing great turmoil, Saint Joseph took his disciples and went to Bistrița Monastery in Moldavia. Thus, Saint Joseph's hermitage moved from the Jordan Valley to Moldavia, on Mount Bisericani.
After the number of disciples increased, he built a small church dedicated to the Annunciation, and built cells around it. For the monastic life here, he established the Rule of the sleepless, after the model of the Stoudion Monastery in Constantinople, which involved unceasing prayer in church and in the cells, fasting, prostrations, singing psalms, listening, and love.
When the Turks came and set fire to their church, they decided to go to Holy Mount Athos. On the way, however, they saw Most Holy Mother of God in an oak tree, who asked them, "Where are you going?" At this wondrous sight they replied, "We are going to your garden;"1 and the Mother of God then said to them, "Return, for my garden is here."
In remembrance of this miracle, they placed an icon of the Mother of God there. Later, the Hermitage of the Venerable Joseph was called "Bisericani Skete." that is, "of the godly," because the monks prayed here with tears, and many were cured of their diseases through Saint Joseph's prayers and blessings.
1 Mount Athos is known as the Garden of the Theotokos.