St. Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia (1906-1991)

A shepherd boy from Euboea with one year of school who ran away to the Holy Mountain at twelve, to the skete of Kavsokalyvia, and received there the gift of clear sight that his elders told him to guard by obedience. Illness sent him back into the world, and for thirty-three years he was chaplain at the Polyclinic in the middle of Athens, hearing confessions in a city he loved. His teaching turns away from fighting evil head on: fill the soul with the love of Christ, he said, and there is no room left for anything else, so the Christian life is joy before it is struggle. His words were gathered after his death as Wounded by Love. He went back to Kavsokalyvia to die, in 1991, and was glorified by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 2013. Feast: December 2.