Monastic Life and Mission in the Banat
Calistrat Bobu was tonsured a monk at the Sihăstria Monastery in Neamț County in 1925. In 1942 he was sent as a missionary priest to the Banat, the region of western Romania where he would spend the remainder of his life. There he founded the Timișeni Monastery and took part in renewing the monastic life of the Săraca, Partoș, and Vasiova monasteries, places associated with the older monastic heritage of the Metropolis of Banat.
He spent the latter part of his life at the Vasiova Monastery, dedicated to the Holy Prophet Elijah the Tishbite, in Bocșa, Caraș-Severin County. Accounts of his life record that he held the monastic rank of Protosyncellus and that he was remembered for humility and meekness; tradition associates him with the gift of healing and of casting out unclean spirits.
Repose and Canonization
Saint Callistratus reposed on May 10, 1975, at the Vasiova Monastery, and according to his wishes was buried behind the church's altar. The formal process for his canonization opened on September 25, 2021, at a meeting of the Metropolitan Synod in Timișoara, when the supporting files were forwarded to the Chancery of the Holy Synod.
He was numbered among a group of twentieth-century confessors and spiritual fathers canonized by the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church through a synodal decree issued on February 4, 2025, an act timed to the centennial of the Romanian Patriarchate and honoring those who held to the faith during the communist period. His feast day is May 10.
Relics & Shrines
His relics were exhumed on March 11, 2025, in a ceremony officiated by Bishop Lucian of Caransebeș, and were placed in the winter chapel of the Vasiova Monastery. The local proclamation of his canonization was appointed for the patronal feast of the Holy Prophet Elijah the Tishbite at the monastery.
