Agatharchus

Saint Agatharchus was bishop of the island of Lefkada at the time of the First Ecumenical Council. It seems he came from Achaea and represented the Church of Old Epirus at Nicaea, where he was one of the 318 Fathers.

The holiness of his life drew five other Fathers of the council, who followed him to the island on their return. The ship left them in a natural bay where the settlement of Episkopos stands today; neighbouring Nikiana takes its name, perhaps, from "Nea Nikaia" (New Nicaea). Three of the Fathers chose a cave on Mount Skaros and stayed there all their lives, in fasting, vigil and prayer. Their end was peaceful. They were buried where the little church of the skete of the Holy Fathers now stands. From the tomb of one of them holy water flows continually, its level falling neither in winter nor in summer. The Holy Table of the little church stands over the tomb of the second, and the third was buried where three lamps now burn. Miracles take place for those who drink from the holy water with faith. In 1890, two dreaded robbers, Psilias and Choutas, demanded arrogantly to drink from the water, but the spring ran dry until the nun Akakia drew water and gave it to them. When swarms of locusts were ravaging the crops, they disappeared as soon as the same nun sprinkled the fields with holy water. A man of Pigadisani was healed of a serious eye ailment after, in a dream, he came to the skete of the Holy Fathers.

The other two Fathers struggled where the Phaneromeni monastery stands today, on the site where the temple of Artemis Lefkadia had earlier stood. They too lived ascetically and fell asleep in peace. The names of the five Fathers have not been preserved. They are commemorated on the seventh Sunday after Pascha, the Sunday of the Holy Fathers. At the skete is kept "the seal of the saints", a lead round seal engraved with the figures of the three.