Bl. Jeremiah of Wallachia

Ion Kostist was born in 1556 in Wallachia, in today's Romania. He dreamed of going to Italy, believing he would find the best Christians in the world there, and his parents let him leave at nineteen.

In 1578 he joined the Capuchins in Naples as a lay brother, Brother Jeremiah of Wallachia. From 1584 he lived at the friary of Sant'Efremo Nuovo in Naples for the rest of his life.

For some forty years he nursed the sick and begged food and clothing for the poor, often giving away his own rations. He cared for a fellow friar with repulsive sores for over four years until the man died. He died in 1625, and John Paul II beatified him in 1983.

Jeremiah of Wallachia was beatified in 1983.

Beatification allows public veneration, usually in a particular region or religious family. Canonization extends it to the whole Church.