Veneration in Romania and the Holy Land

The two homes of his cult: the veneration of St. John Jacob in Romania — in churches dedicated to him, in the reading of his poetry, and in the devotion of a people who claim him as their first modern saint — and at the Monastery of St. George of Choziba in the Wadi Qelt, where his relics rest and where pilgrims of many nations venerate the Romanian hermit of the Judean desert.

Tradition: Romanian Orthodox (20th-c. hermit of the Judean desert; glorified 1992)

The Cult at Hozeva

The physical center of John Jacob’s veneration is the Monastery of St. George of Choziba (Hozeva) in the Wadi Qelt, where his relics — found in 1980 and translated to the monastery church — are enshrined and venerated (Romanian synodal Life, Viața Sfântului Cuvios Ioan Iacob de la Neamț; parohia-sf-ioan-iacob-hozevitul.ro, “Viața Sfântului Ioan Iacob Hozevitul,” recording the relics in the monastery church “where multitudes of pilgrims pray to the saint”; and see the-incorrupt-relics.md). The monastery has become, in consequence, a fixed station on the Orthodox pilgrimage to the Holy Land: pilgrims descending the Wadi Qelt from Jerusalem toward Jericho venerate the relics of the modern Romanian saint alongside the ancient shrine of St. George of Choziba, and the cave of St. Anne, where he lived and died, is itself a place of pilgrimage. That the shrine lies in the desert, at the site of his labor and death, gives the cult a striking fidelity to the life: the saint is venerated where he was sanctified, and the pilgrim who reaches him must, in a small way, enter the wilderness that formed him.

The presence of the relics at Hozeva rather than in Romania is itself expressive. John Jacob remains, even in death and veneration, the stranger and pilgrim he made the theme of his verse (see the-hymnographer-of-the-desert.md); his own people must go out to the desert to find him, as he went out from them in life. The desert shrine and the far homeland are the two poles of a single cult.

The Veneration in Romania

In Romania, John Jacob is venerated with the particular affection a people reserves for a saint it recognizes as its own and its contemporary. Popularly hailed as “the first Romanian saint of the twentieth century” and as “the orphan who became a saint of our days,” he is honored in churches and chapels dedicated to him, in the keeping of his feast on 5 August, and — distinctively — in the reading, singing, and love of his poetry, which has carried his name into Romanian devotional life far beyond the circle of those who study monastic history (egumenita.ro, “the first Romanian saint of the 20th century”; Doxologia, “Sfântul Ioan Iacob Hozevitul – orfanul care a ajuns sfânt al zilelor noastre,” and “Actualitatea scrierilor Sfântului Ioan Iacob Hozevitul,” on the continuing readership; and see feast-and-veneration.md). The Romanian Church has also placed portions of his relics in Romania for the veneration of the faithful who cannot make the pilgrimage to Hozeva, so that the saint who never returned to his homeland in life is, in his relics, partly returned to it. [Disputed: reports of relic portions and dedications in Romania are given in devotional and parish sources; the collection reports the fact of Romanian veneration and relic-fragments in general terms, as the tradition attests, without certifying the provenance of particular fragments.]

The intercessory dimension of the cult is strong. Romanian devotion invokes John Jacob particularly against despondency, sorrow, and dark thoughts — a patronage that flows naturally from his own life of estrangement and his poetry of consolation, and from the accounts of healings attributed to his intercession (Romanian devotional sources, e.g. mgargenti.ro, invoking him against “depression, sadness, despair, and dark thoughts”). Such patronages and the miracle reports attached to them are reported here as the devotion of the faithful attests them, per METHODOLOGY §3.5, not certified as adjudicated fact.

A Cult of the Written Word

What most distinguishes John Jacob’s veneration from that of the ancient desert hermits is the role of his writings in it. The ancient hermits are venerated through their icons, their relics, and the sayings preserved by others; John Jacob is venerated also, and centrally, through his own books — his poetry read aloud, printed in devotional collections, and set to music, and his ascetic counsels reprinted and circulated (Doxologia, “Actualitatea scrierilor…”; editions of Hrană Duhovnicească). This gives his cult an intimacy and a reach peculiar to a modern, literate saint: the faithful venerate not only the memory of a holy life but the actual words of the man, in his own Romanian, and it is largely through those words that his sanctity is communicated and his intercession sought. The cult of John Jacob is thus, to an unusual degree, a cult of the written word — fitting for the hermit-poet of the cave of St. Anne.

See Also

References

  • Viața Sfântului Cuvios Ioan Iacob de la Neamț (Hozevitul) — the Romanian synodal Life. (The relics at St. George of Choziba; the veneration.)
  • “Viața Sfântului Ioan Iacob Hozevitul.” parohia-sf-ioan-iacob-hozevitul.ro. (The relics in the monastery church; pilgrimage.)
  • “Sfântul Ioan Iacob Hozevitul – orfanul care a ajuns sfânt al zilelor noastre” and “Actualitatea scrierilor Sfântului Ioan Iacob Hozevitul.” Doxologia. (Romanian devotion; the readership of his writings.)
  • egumenita.ro, notice to Hrană Duhovnicească. (“The first Romanian saint of the 20th century.”)
  • Devotional sources (e.g. mgargenti.ro) on his intercession against despondency — reported as devotion attests, per METHODOLOGY §3.5.