Ananias of St Anne's Skete

Ananias of St Anne's Skete, with the secular name Demetrius Makris, was born in the village of Vrynaina near the monastery of Ano Xenia at Almyros, on Mount Othrys. He was a nephew of the elders Ananias of the Holy Cross cell of St Anne's Skete and came to them with longing in 1903. Elder Anthimos of St Anne's (d. 1996) called him a model of monastic obedience, who struggled through all the stages of the ascetic life. He was tonsured a monk in 1912, ordained hierodeacon in 1919 and hieromonk in 1938. For a time he was a zealot; on returning to the church of the skete, he felt no difficulty in standing last in the line of priests.

He was a gentle, prudent and kind man, very generous in alms. He foresaw and foretold his end, gave useful counsel to his disciples and asked that the Lord take him after the feast of Theophany, which came to pass: he reposed after a short illness on 7 January 1977, the feast of Saint John the Forerunner, patron of monks. He was a skilled and discerning confessor who heard tirelessly a multitude of monks, skete dwellers, cell dwellers, monks of the monasteries and lay people. He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization.