Galaktion of Xenophontos

Galaktion of Xenophontos, with the secular name George Psychogyros, son of Athanasios and Diamanto, was born in 1878 at Raches on Ikaria. As a young man he went to Chios and met the venerable Elder Pachomios (1839-1905) in the skete of the Holy Fathers, where there were then about sixty monks, and there he was tonsured a monk. After the venerable one's repose he left for the Holy Mountain with his Chiot fellow, Gregory. They came and settled in the skete of the Annunciation of Xenophontos; Galaktion in the hut of All Saints, on 10 April 1934, and Gregory in a dry hut. At that time the monks of the skete numbered about eighty and were distinguished by their asceticism.

Elder Joachim writes of them in his book Palaestra of Holy Men: "One rivalled another in the strictness of life and in temperance. They were in general strugglers and virtuous people and loved hardship. The few fathers of the skete today who knew the end of that flowering remember ascetics of great monastic experience and virtue. They speak of them with admiration, pointing to the ruined huts and caves where their sweat and tears became a blessing." Another father says: "Such holy souls, night birds who cried constantly and begged God's mercy, our skete hosted in those days of old. Unforgettable ascetic figures, who shone. Fathers advanced in holiness, who passed their days and nights in work, prayer and study. If you listened, from everywhere you would hear their mournful sighs, and if you watched them in secret, you would see their hands raised and their faces bathed in the light of grace. And if you ever met them, you would see their modesty and nobility, which always accompany a life according to God." Galaktion reposed in 1951. He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization.