Evlogios of the Phaneromenos Cell

Evlogios of the Phaneromenos Cell was an Athonite monk, the eldest disciple of Hadji-⁠Georgis, a great faster and a struggler in the Jesus Prayer. He reposed in 1948, having passed the age of one hundred; he is venerated by the faithful, without a synodal canonization.

The cell of St George Phaneromenos lies above Karyes, towards Vatopaidi, and belongs to Pantokrator Monastery. The name Phaneromenos (the Revealed) already appears in the fourteenth century in an imperial charter, and according to tradition the saint appeared here again around 1821, when robbers who had come to rob the elderly monks were invisibly bound, and later recognised on the icon the young man who had opened the door to them. After the repose of Hadji-⁠Georgis, six of his disciples remained here with Evlogios as their elder. Later Pachomios and George joined them and so became spiritual grandsons of Hadji-⁠Georgis.

St Paisios the Athonite tells of Evlogios in his old age. Past a hundred years, he spent his days on a couch, saying the prayer. One day, while his disciples were out picking olives, thirty demons fell on him and beat him, and the disciples found him lying on the floor. Another time, as he prayed before a wooden cross, a devil came in at the window, but the cross came off the wall by itself, moved towards the devil and drove him out, then returned to its place. Once, when there was no fish for the feast of St George, Evlogios left the matter to the saint; on the eve a mule laden with good fish, strayed from a merchant, knocked at the door.

He struggled until the age of one hundred and eight. Informed by God, he prepared his disciples and told them that he was going to St Anthony, and he told Father George that he would live eighty years. He received Communion and reposed on 11 April 1948. The prediction came true: George reposed at eighty.