Anna Makkavaiou of Asia Minor

Gerontissa Anna Makkavaiou of Asia Minor (born Athena Makkavaiou, 1893 to 1981) was a Greek Orthodox nun at the monastery of the Ascension of the Saviour in Drama, a refugee from Asia Minor and a spiritual disciple of Saint George of Drama. Our sources show no canonization of her; she is honoured as an important figure of Orthodox women's monasticism, and we record her here as a devout nun, not as a recognized saint.

Life

She was born in 1893 at New Ephesus, in Asia Minor, and from youth was marked by piety, industry and kindness. At that time the fanaticism of the Turks was sharpened, so parents tried to marry their daughters off very young. Athena married and had two daughters, Kalliope and Hellas. During the Asia Minor Catastrophe many Greeks were killed, and those who were saved left as refugees. Athena's husband was taken prisoner by the Turks and died in the labour battalions. Left a young widow with two small daughters, she came to Drama with her mother and many other refugees from Asia Minor and worked in a tobacco factory. After a short time her younger daughter, Hellas, died. She lived in great want and supplemented her income by sewing and embroidering. During the Bulgarian occupation (1941 to 1944) she was persecuted by the Bulgarians and was forced to move to Thessaloniki, to the house of her daughter Kalliope.

She became spiritually bound to Saint George of Drama, who tonsured her a nun with the name Anna. In August 1959 he called her and announced his approaching death (4 November 1959). In the desert place of Sipsa, where the saint had struggled, a community was settled from 1970, led by Abbess Akylina, and with the guidance and support of Metropolitan Dionysios of Drama a monastery dedicated to the Ascension of the Saviour was founded there, with a large sisterhood of nuns. Anna then left Thessaloniki and joined the new community. She acquired all the Christian virtues, among them patience and obedience, and worked at many manual obediences of the monastery. She did not fail daily to attend the Paraklesis services of the Mother of God and of the saints. Her obedience was prayer for those who asked for spiritual support from the nuns. She reposed on 12 January 1981 in the monastery of the Ascension of the Saviour in Drama.