Draft:Rafailo Banatski

Venerable Rafailo Banatski(Serbian Cyrillic:Рафаило Банатски) ived in the 16th and 17th centuries. He lived for a long time in the Holy Lavra of Serbian Hilandar on Mount Athos. He is celebrated on 16 August (Julian Calendar) or 29 August (Gregorian Calendar).

At that time, the Hilandar monastery had several monastery metohs in Serbian lands, including one metoh in Banat, in the area of the present-day city of Zrenjanin.. . In all probability, Hilandar got possession of that metoch during the time of the Serbian despot Stefan Lazarević the Tall (Visoki), who had received a place called Bečkerek as personal possession from the Hungarian king Sigismund

Rafailo was sent from the Hilandar brotherhood to this monastery for some monastic obedience. Arriving in Banat, the reverend settled there for a while at the place where the Church of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin, better known as Vavedenjska crkva is located today (and that place has been known in Zrenjanin as a monastery since ancient times). Here, St. Rafailo practiced strict asceticism, not only in performing the monastic obedience he was instructed to do, but also in all the God-pleasing feats of the monastic life, especially in the feat of prayer and fasting. He lived in a small hut made of ordinary reeds, and there he rested peacefully in the Lord.

Because of his many exploits and virtues known only to God, the Lord visited him with the gift of miracle-working, which was especially manifested in the presentation of the Venerable.

Venerable Rafailo was reposed and was buried in the place where today there is a small church dedicated to him, that is, on the southeast side of the altar of the great Vavedenjska church in Zrenjanin. A small chapel was built at that place soon after the presentation of Venerable Rafailo, and later due to demolition, it was repaired and expanded

Immediately after the presentation of St. Rafailo the pious people of this region began to come to the grave of the venerable, especially after the migration of a large number of Serbian people to these regions (after the migration of 1690). Believers still continue to come to the small church of St. Rafailo and bring their sick people there, who then spend the night in the chapel and there Rafailo's prayer is read to them, from which according to their faith they are healed.

In the monastery of Hilandar, in the altar of the cathedral, there is an older icon of the venerable Father Rafailo, on the back of which there is this inscription: "This Saint Rafailo, a native of Serbia, priest of Hilandar, sent on a journey to the monastery obedience in Banat, and there was presented, and God glorified him by performing miracles from his holy relics to those who come to him with faith"