Amphilochios of Patmos

Saint Amphilochios of Patmos (in the world Athanasios Makris) was a Greek hieromonk, missionary and teacher of the island of Patmos, born on 13 December 1889 and fallen asleep on 16 April 1970. He was greatly revered in Greece for his wisdom and experience as a spiritual elder. He was canonized on 29 August 2018 by the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and his feast day is 16 April.

Youth and monastic life

He was born into a large and devout family of Patmos, the island where Saint John the Evangelist is believed to have written the Book of Revelation. His father was from Lipsi and his mother from Patmos. At Patmos he met the Asia Minor ascetic Theoktistos and was guided by him. At seventeen he received his parents' blessing to enter as a novice at the monastery of Saint John the Theologian, where he was given the name Amphilochios. In 1913 he was tonsured a monk by the hieromonk Makarios of Samos, and seven years after entering received the great schema. He was ordained deacon in 1919 and priest soon afterwards, and began to serve as a confessor throughout the islands of the Dodecanese, under Italian occupation. He was known for the love he showed to all. He said once that he was born to love people, that it did not matter to him whether one was a Turk, black or white, for he saw in each face the image of God, and for that image he was ready to sacrifice everything.

Against the occupation

Under the Italian occupation Greek schools were forbidden, and after the rise of fascism in Italy the policy of Italianising the islands grew harsher, to the point of banning the teaching of the Greek language. Priests all over the Dodecanese then gave great spiritual and national help, reviving the secret school: under the pretext of catechism they taught the children Greek from the sacred texts. Amphilochios founded catechetical schools on Rhodes, Kos, Kalymnos, Nisyros, Patmos and Leros, where the children learned Greek. They were in fact secret schools under the cloak of catechism.

In 1935 he was elected abbot of the monastery of Saint John. He opened a knitting workshop, under cover of which the children were taught Greek. When the Italian occupiers discovered this, in 1937, Amphilochios was exiled to Athens. He spent the next two years travelling through mainland Greece, in Epirus, Macedonia and Crete, where he finally settled and became the spiritual father of the land. In 1939 he was allowed to return to Patmos and stayed there in peace to the end, helping the nuns of Patmos and founding an orphanage and several charitable institutions.

The monasteries and his repose

In 1939 and 1940 he served as priest at the shrine of the Mother of God Diasozousa. On Patmos he organised the monastery of the Annunciation and founded other monasteries on Aegina and Kalymnos. He was spiritually bound to Saint Daniel Katounakiotis of Smyrna and to Saint Nectarios. After the Italian occupation came the German one, from the end of 1943 until May 1945, when the place knew great poverty. After two years of British administration the Dodecanese united with the Greek state.

At Pascha of 1968 he received a forewarning that he would die and was given two years to prepare himself and his spiritual children for his departure. He fell asleep on Thursday, 16 April 1970, and was buried in the cemetery of the monastery of the Annunciation. Those present saw that his face was filled with a remarkable beauty and peace.