Ananias of Crete

Venerable Ananias of Crete, known as Hadji Ananias, in the world Antonios Barberakis, was the first brother, renewer and abbot of the monastery of the Mother of God Exakoustis at Mallon, near Ierapetra. He was born in 1837 and fell asleep on the night of Pascha, 22 April 1907. He is commemorated on 22 April.

His parents, John and Athena, were simple and poor but God-⁠fearing people, and raised him in the training and admonition of the Lord. He did not learn letters but had a zeal for holy books and longed for the angelic habit. He avoided every bodily pleasure: as an infant he refused to suckle on Wednesdays and Fridays; he never ate meat, fish or dairy, taking oil only on Saturdays, Sundays and great feasts. He always went barefoot, dressed in coarse hair garments, with a sheepskin for a bed and a stone for a pillow. At fourteen he left his parents' house and went to the monastery of Saint John the Baptist at Kapsa, in Sitia, where he was tonsured a monk and was disciple and companion of Venerable Joseph Gerontoyannis, founder of the Kapsa monastery, who appointed him his successor. After Joseph's death, in 1870, he was elected abbot, but certain slanders forced him to take refuge in Jerusalem, whence comes the title Hadji.

Returning to Crete in 1877, he settled at Mallon, at the Exakoustis monastery, then in ruins. According to tradition, as a child, while herding the family's animals, he took shelter from the rain in a cave and fell asleep, and the Mother of God told him in a dream that she was there and that he should look for her icon. The child was frightened and fled, but the dream was repeated the next day; he searched and found at the back of the cave an icon of the Mother of God, which he carried home. His father was afraid to keep it in the house and ordered him to take it back; from then on Antonios came daily and lit a lamp before it, and later, with his father, he turned the cave into a small chapel. As a monk, Ananias renewed the cave chapel and rebuilt the old church, making it the katholikon of the new monastery. The works were finished in 1882, according to an inscription at the base of the bell tower. His personality and holiness drew other monks, and in 1881 the monastery had eight monks. He was abbot until 1895 and sought to give the monastery resources to survive. The monastery was dissolved by the Cretan law of 1900, but was re-⁠established in 1903, and Hadji Ananias returned with the brothers to the place of their repentance.

He fell asleep as a saint on the night of Pascha, at the hour of the Resurrection service. In the conscience of those who knew him he is a saint, and his fame has reached us.