Eudocimus of Vatopedi

Holy Venerable Eudocimus of Vatopedi is a saint of the Holy Mountain of Athos about whose life and deeds nothing is known. His relics were found in 1840.

On 5 October 1840 the monks of the Vatopedi Monastery were putting the brotherhood's crypt in order. Suddenly the roof collapsed, blocking one corner of the crypt. The monks began to clear it and suddenly smelled a wondrous fragrance. Clearing the crypt of debris, they found a human skeleton wrapped in a cloth tunic. The skeleton was in a kneeling position, with the hands humbly folded on the breast, holding an icon of the Most Holy Theotokos.

The holy relics gave off such a fragrance that it filled everything around. The brotherhood of the monastery took this as a sign of the favour (in Greek eudokia) that the saint had found with the Lord. Judging by the clothing, he had died in the first half of the seventeenth century. Archbishop Chrysanthus said to Metropolitan Gregory and the brotherhood that our bones, after separation from the flesh, pay the earth a tribute of stench, while the relics of this servant of God, unknown to us, give off the fragrance of paradise; from this we should conclude that the Spirit of God, who dwelt in him in life, did not leave him even after death, and so glorify God, wondrous in His saints.

The fragrant relics were carried into the church and healings began from them. With the blessing of the Patriarch of Constantinople, the brotherhood gave the saint a symbolic name, Eudocimus, that is the glorified one or one given by favour, resolving that if he did not wish to be glorified under this name, he would appear to the monks and name himself. It remained a mystery how the relics of the venerable man came to be in the crypt, since a deceased monk is first buried in the earth and only after a time are his bones laid in the crypt.

According to one view, the saint foresaw the hour of his death, told no one anything and, taking the icon of the Mother of God, hid in a remote place in the crypt, where quietly and humbly he departed to the Lord. Since then Venerable Eudocimus the Newly Revealed has been honoured on Athos. Fragrance continues to come from his relics, and they have been glorified by many healings.

Through prayers to the saint a monk of the Holy Mountain, sick with consumption and near death, was healed. Another monk, Gabriel, was also healed and, in thanks, gave a precious silver shrine for the venerable head of Eudocimus.

Some time later a Vatopedi monk had a vision in which the saint told him that his true name was Sabbas. The monastery's tradition continues to identify Saint Eudocimus with Saint Sabbas of Vatopedi of the fourteenth century, but doubts have been expressed on this, and the Church has not given a judgment.

He is commemorated in the Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers of Athos, which in the Russian calendar falls on 4 July, but is a movable day.