Anthimos the Fool for Christ

Blessed Anthimos the Fool for Christ was from Sofia in Bulgaria, where he served as a married priest in a parish. After the death of his wife, about 1841, he came to the Garden of the Mother of God, on the Holy Mountain. His first metanoia was at the Simonopetra Monastery, where he was tonsured. When he began the foolishness for Christ, to hide his inner wealth, he wandered over all of Athos, always in the wilderness, living sometimes in caves, sometimes in hollow trees. From time to time he appeared at the Russian Monastery of Saint Panteleimon, where he understood the services held in Russian. He usually hid in the narthex of the church. When he saw that a father was watching him with devotion, he began to play the fool or talk to himself, to spoil his thought.

For five years he wore an old and then a patched cassock, and in the end an old sack, in which he had made a hole for his head and two for his arms, so he was called "the Sack-⁠wearer". Those who judged by appearance thought him mad, but he told them their thoughts and built up those of good heart. He had the gift of fasting: he could fast many days. Once a brother who received him at the monastery condemned him in his thoughts for eating too much, and Anthimos told him that he had not eaten for many days and showed him by his tears at the psalmody what grace he had. He told others what they were thinking in secret and foretold the future. He did not go to a monastery when they honoured him as a saint. In summer he helped with the building at the Zographou Monastery, carrying stones and water.

In August 1867 he came for the last time to the Monastery of Saint Panteleimon and told his friend Father Victor that he would not come again, because he would soon die. At the end of November he reached Zographou, fell ill and stayed twelve days in the monastery hospital. On 9 December 1867 he left the Garden of the Mother of God and reposed in the Lord. He is honoured by the faithful, without synodal canonization.