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Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia

Athos monk who was priest and confessor at an Athens hospital for thirty-three years

Western calendar
Not kept
Orthodox calendar
2 December

Porphyrios was born Evangelos Bairaktaris in 1906 on Euboia, the son of poor farmers, had a single year of school and went out to work at seven, and at twelve he slipped away in secret to the Holy Mountain, where he became a monk at Kavsokalyvia at fourteen. Illness sent him back to the world, and for thirty-three years he was priest and confessor at the Athens Polyclinic, years he said he lived "as if it were only one day". Old, sick and blind, he went back to his hut on Athos to die quietly, and he fell asleep there on 2 December 1991 with the words of Christ's prayer on his lips, "that they all may be one".

Sources

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