Feast Day of Elder Porphyrios, a Modern Day Saint

On November 27, 2013, the Holy Synod of the Patriarchate of Constantinople canonized Elder Porphyrios (Bairaktaris) of Kafsokalivia, and his Feast Day was commemorated on December 2.

Elder Porphyrios was born in 1906 in the village of Agios Ioannis in Karystia province on Evia and was baptised with the name Evangelos. He spent only two years at school. His teacher’s illness and his family’s poverty forced him to earn his keep by tending to the few animals his family-owned.

A little later, as a young boy, he worked in the local coal mine and then in a grocer’s store in Piraeus that a family acquaintance owned. His father had gone to work on the Panama Canal to provide for his family.

As an eight-year-old shepherd boy, he came into possession of a booklet about the life of St. John Kalyvitis, which he read with incredible difficulty. This saint deeply impressed the young Evangelos and filled him with a strong desire to lead a life like his. Thus, when he was about twelve years old, he secretly left on his own for Mount Athos and on a ship on the way there, met the man who would soon become his elder, the hieromonk and spiritual confessor Panteleimon, who lived as an ascetic in the kalyve of St. George at the Skete of Kafsokalyvia on Mount Athos.

It was to this elder and his natural brother, the monk Ioannikios, that the young novice paid full and joyful obedience. A few years later, he was deemed worthy of being tonsured as a monk and learning the secrets of spiritual life through practical experience.

One consequence of his great love for Christ and his elders and his obedience and asceticism was that he was visited by God’s Grace and, at a young age, received the gift of prophecy, that is to say, the ability to see, through the operation of God’s Grace, invisible things or spirits or past or present events, or sometimes even future events.

While he was on Mount Athos, he suffered from pleurisy, and his elders sent him to a monastery outside for treatment. At this monastery on Evia, he met the Archbishop of Sinai, Porphyrios, who, after observing that God’s Grace had visited the young monk, ordained him as a priest at the age of twenty.

A little later, the local metropolitan bishop made him a spiritual confessor. So the gift of clairvoyance with which God had endowed Porphyrios was placed at the service of the faithful.

With this gift, the young hieromonk and spiritual confessor, Porphyrios, helped people to escape from various snares of the Devil, to understand what was going on in their souls, to reject the deceitful claims of witches who drained them of all their money under the pretext that they could break the spells that afflicted them, to discern and heal their bodily ailments and their causes, and generally to see and understand things that would help them in their lives.

In 1940 Porphyrios was appointed chaplain at the Polyclinic in Athens, in Sokratous St. near Omonoia Square. He remained in this post for thirty-three years, giving confessions to both patients and others, praying, advising and on no few occasions healing patients who asked for his help through God’s Grace and prayer. Although he studiously concealed his gifts, he became known to a relatively small group of believers that gradually grew in number.

In 1950 he rented the abandoned little monastery of St. Nicholas Kalission on Mt. Pendelis and up until 1978, spent time cultivating the land around it. In 1979 he settled at Milesi in Attica, near Oropos, where, after obtaining the necessary legal permits, he began to build the Hermitage of the Transfiguration of the Saviour. Here he received visitors from all walks of life and telephone calls from all over the world to discuss a variety of problems. He gave advice, prayed, heard confessions, and healed the souls and, very often, the people’s bodies who approached him.

In June 1991, sensing the end of his life was near and wishing to avoid a large public funeral, he left for the kalyve of St. George at Kafsokalyvia on Mount Athos, where he had been tonsured as a monk some seventy years earlier.

At 4.31 a.m. on 2 December 1991, he passed away. There he was buried in a simple monk’s grave in the presence only of his fellow monks, for he had very humbly requested that his passing should not be made known until after his burial. Nowadays, this grave is occupied by another monk as Elder Porphyrios’s remains have been concealed in an inaccessible place, by an instruction that he left his novices.

According to the Greek Orthodox Church, the main characteristics of Elder Porphyrios’ throughout his life was his extreme humility, his perfect love for Christ and his fellow men, and his sense of belonging to the Church, with his complete obedience to it in Christ, his absolute unity with all men, and his sense of immortality and freedom from fear and the hell of life here on earth.

To these should be added his uncomplaining patience in the face of unbearable pain, his wise discernment, his incredible power of clairvoyance, his boundless love of learning, the astonishing breadth of his knowledge (which was a gift from God and a fruit of His Grace and not a result of study), his diligence and inexhaustible love of hard work, his constant, humble and therefore effective prayers, his supremely Orthodox though not fanatical mentality, his sound advice, the diversity of his teachings, his very profound piety, the majestic solemnity of the church services that he conducted, and the great care with which he kept his numerous good works secret.

The presence of the Agios Porphyrios is now alive at his Monastery at Oropos, and visitors here have the opportunity to enter his holy cell to worship his bed and the picture of Panagia. The candle of the Saint is constantly burning in the sacred cell, and the nuns give some oil to the visitors for blessing. In the Monastery, you can find books written about the Saint, his life, his countless miracles, and his visionary gift.

Quotes by Saint Porphyrios

“The life of the parents is the only thing that makes good children. Parents should be very patient and ‘saintlike’ to their children. They should truly love their children. And the children will share this love!”

“This is the way we should see Christ. He is our friend, our brother, whatever is good and beautiful. He is everything. Yet, He is still a friend, and He shouts out, “You’re my friend, don’t you understand that? We’re brothers. I’m not…I don’t hold hell in my hands. I am not threatening you. I love you. I want you to enjoy life together with me.”

Xronia Polla!

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