Evdokimos

Evdokimos of Agiou Pavlou was a monk of the Monastery of St Paul on Mount Athos, born in 1910 at Fanari near Karditsa, with the worldly name Evangelos Travlos. He is venerated by the faithful without synodal canonization.

After his military service he asked that Daphni be written on his travel paper, so he did not return to his village but came straight to become a monk. He meant to join a community elsewhere, but he stayed one evening at St Paul, liked the order and remained. Being educated, a graduate of the Scholarchion, he was taken by the abbot as his assistant. He was tonsured in 1935. His mother, sisters and brother did not want him to be a monk, and he never again went to the village. He went out into the world after thirty years, because of a nosebleed that would not stop and the doctor feared he would die.

In one year there was an earthquake and the fathers slept outside in the back garden. Evdokimos did not go out: he stayed in his cell and, asked why he was not afraid, answered: I came for the monastery; if the Mother of God wants the monastery to fall, what use is my life to me? He devoted himself to prayer and never lay down to sleep, but slept sitting. He never closed his cell window, winter or summer. He had a natural humour and condemned no one. Even when abused he stayed silent, then said: all right, elder, thank you, and went away. He was loved by all and quick to serve in any obedience.