Daniel Katounakiotis

Venerable Daniel Katounakiotis (1846-1929) was an Athonite hieroschemamonk from Smyrna, founder of the “Danielite” community of Katounakia on Mount Athos, and an iconographer. His name in the world was Dimitrios Dimitridis.

He was born in 1846 at Smyrna in Asia Minor, the youngest of the children of a large Christian family. In 1866, at twenty, he was tonsured a monk at the Monastery of Saint Panteleimon (Russikon) on Athos. Later the Ecumenical Patriarch sent him to renew the spiritual life of the monastery of Saint Anastasia Pharmakolytria in Thessalonica. Back on the Holy Mountain, he struggled five years at Vatopedi, then nine months at Smyrna, after which he settled at Katounakia, where he laid the foundation of the Danielite community and devoted himself to icon painting. As a hesychast he loved the writings of Saint John Climacus and Saint Isaac the Syrian. He passed to the Lord on 8 September 1929.

The Ecumenical Patriarchate numbered him among the saints in October 2019, together with three other Athonite elders. He is commemorated on 7 September (new style).