St. Nectarios the Wonderworker of Aegina

 

St. Nectarios of Aegina (1846–1920) Metropolitan of Pentapolis and Wonderworker of Aegina, was officially recognized as a Saint by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1961. His Feast Day is celebrated every year on 9 November.

Anastasios Kephalas, later Nectarios, was born on 1 October 1846 in Selymbria in Thrace to a poor family. His parents, Dimos and Maria Kephalas, were pious Christians but not wealthy.
At the age of 14, he moved to Constantinople (Istanbul) to work and further his education. In 1866, at age 20, he moved to the island of Chios to take a teaching post. On November 7, 1876, he became a monk, at age 30, in the Monastery of Nea Moni, for he had long wished to embrace the ascetic life.
Three years after becoming a monk he was ordained a Deacon, taking the name Nectarios. He graduated from the University of Athens in 1885. During his years as a student of the University of Athens he wrote many books, pamphlets, and Bible commentaries.
Following his graduation he went to Alexandria, Egypt, where he was ordained a priest and served the Church of Saint Nicholas in Cairo. He was consecrated Metropolitan bishop of Pentapolis (an ancient diocese in Cyrenaica, in what is now Libya) by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Sophronios in 1889.
He served as a Bishop in Cairo for one year, but was removed from his post and sent away from Egypt without explanation. He then returned to Greece in 1891, and spent several years as a preacher (1891–1894). He was then director of the Rizarios Ecclesiastical School for the education of priests in Athens for 15 years. He developed many courses of study, and wrote numerous books, while preaching widely throughout Athens.
In 1904, at the request of several nuns, he established Holy Trinity Monastery for them on the island of Aegina.
St. Nectarios died on November 8, 1920, at the age of 74, following hospitalization for prostate cancer and two months of treatment. His body was taken to the Holy Trinity Convent, where he was buried by his best friend St. Savvas of Kalymnos, who wrote the first icon of St. Nectarios. The funeral of St. Nectarios was attended by multitudes of people from all parts of Greece and Egypt.

To learn more about the life of St. Nectarios, read:

"The Story of the Holy Hierarch Nectarios the Wonderworker" written by Catalin Gregore, illustrated by Cristina Ionescu-Berechet

 

"Saint Nectarios' Shoes" by Egle-Ekaterine Potamitis

 

A tribute to St. Nectarios