Aglaios of Konstamonitou

Aglaios of Konstamonitou, with the secular name Basil Gelios, was born in 1898 in the village of Synista near Korçë, in Greek Northern Epirus. He came to the Monastery of Saint Stephen-⁠Konstamonitou in 1928 and was tonsured a monk in 1930. He passed through various obediences and was distinguished by industry. When he supervised the monastery's workers, he prayed much for them and their families. He had disinterestedness, love of the brothers, discernment, love, humility and compunction. A faster and fervent in prayer. At a vigil of Saint Stephen he stood all night, praying without ceasing. Hidden behind a pilgrims' icon stand, he took an active part in the worship. Reading the saint's Akathist, he shone all over with joy, says the hieromonk Anastasios of Karyes.

Once he fell ill with a severe form of tuberculosis. The fathers relieved him of obediences and sent him to the monastery's vineyard hut, of Saint Anthony. With his heart he thanked and glorified God and said that God's will be done. One day, while praying, he saw a large roe deer approach him, bow, fall down and thrash about. He called the lay gardener, who killed it, and with the abbot's blessing and the fathers' urging he ate of it little by little, without its spoiling in all those days, without a refrigerator, and with the help of the Mother of God and Saint Stephen he was completely healed.

The hieromonk Athanasios of Simonopetra, who lived some years at Konstamonitou, relates that he was blessed and very graceful, full of compunction and humility. "He had a face like a little child. He called constantly on the Mother of God Gorgoepekoos for his 'sins.' What sins did this man have. He also had a list of four pages with the names of saints and cried: Saint Forerunner, Saint Nikitas, Saint Bessarion, Saint Demetrios, Saint Paraskevi... He called all the saints in order, and some whom even we who read the synaxarion do not know. He had them there because he had a personal relationship with them and called on them all night." He had full awareness of his sinfulness; in old age he wept continually, repeating: "I am a sinner, I am a sinner." The demon harassed him. Once he confided his thought that he, "the good-⁠for-⁠nothing and wretch," as he said, had been found worthy to see the uncreated light. He reposed in the Lord in 1984. He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization.