Gervasios Paraskevopoulos

Saint Gervasios Paraskevopoulos of Patras (1877 to 30 June 1964) was a Greek priest, theologian and monk, abbot of the Gerokomeio Monastery in Patras and protosyncellus of the Archdiocese of Athens. Close to the refugees from Asia Minor, founder of the first catechetical schools in Greece and of a church camp and trade schools for the poor, he was proclaimed a saint by the Ecumenical Patriarchate on 16 November 2023. His memory is kept on 30 June.

Childhood and years as a monk

He was born in 1877, with the name Georgios Paraskevopoulos, in the village of Nymfasia (Kernitsa; the Greek source writes "Granitsa"), in Gortynia, Arcadia, son of Charalambos and Vasiliki Paraskevopoulos. He was orphaned of his mother, worked from family need and greatly wished to go to school, having from early on also an inclination toward church and monastic life. In 1891, at fourteen, he entered the Monastery of the Dormition of the Mother of God at Kernitsa as a novice. He then attended the schools of the Monastery of Megalo Spileo and of the Taxiarchs Monastery at Aigialeia. In 1897 he reached the Monastery of the Dormition of the Mother of God Gerokomeio in Patras, where he lived as a novice monk (the English source says he became a monk then).

In 1899 he did military service. In 1904, according to the English source, he was ordained deacon of the Archdiocese of Patras. In 1905 he entered the higher course of the Rizarios Ecclesiastical School in Athens, whose director was Saint Nectarios of Aegina, who foresaw the important role Gervasios would have in the Church. In 1909 he enrolled in the Theological School of the University of Athens. In 1910, at thirty-⁠three, he was ordained priest of the Metropolis of Patras. In 1912 he interrupted his studies and enlisted as a military priest, in the "Independent Evzone Detachment Konstantinopoulos", in the Balkan Wars, where he raised the spirits of the Greek army. In 1914 he became a Doctor of Theology. In 1915, after a short service as preacher of the Metropolis of Hydra, he taught at the First Gymnasium of Ermoupoli, Syros. In 1916 he returned to the Gerokomeio Monastery, of which he was elected abbot, aiming at its renewal and monastic reconstruction. In 1919, with the permission of Metropolitan Antonios, he resigned the abbacy and began his systematic pastoral work in the city of Patras from the church of Saint Demetrios.

His work in Patras

In 1922, after the Asia Minor disaster, families of refugees from Asia Minor, about 7,000 people, found shelter in Patras. Many Patrans, especially the wealthier, did not receive the refugees with solidarity. In this hard situation, Father Gervasios stood beside the refugees, cared for them, visited them in the camps, supported them morally and materially, while few fellow citizens did the same.

He believed in the saving importance of the Divine Liturgy and served four or five times a week, at morning and night Liturgies. The church of Saint Catherine in the so-⁠called refugee district was always full. In 1923 he founded and organized the catechetical schools of the city of Patras, the first in Greece, making the church of Saint Demetrios the catechetical center. In 1931 he founded the school of crafts and handiwork, in 1932 a kindergarten, and in 1934 the night school for illiterates. (The English source dates to 1946 and 1950 the founding of camps and of the reconstructive school for women; the Greek source gives 1948 for the handicraft school and 1954 for the new church camp at Sychaina, to which he moved the camp of Prophet Elias.) In April 1941 (the English source says 1938; the Greek one 1939 to 1941) he was appointed protosyncellus of the Archdiocese of Athens, under Archbishop Chrysanthos. There he organized meals for the needy and rescued wounded, sick and homeless people, coordinating the parishes of the Archdiocese.

At Sychaina, near Patras, are today the church of Saint Paraskevi that he built and his tomb. Among his writings: topical theological articles in local Patras newspapers, a large number of catechetical lessons, in 1958 the book "Interpretive Supervision of the Divine Liturgy" (reissued 2005), in 1962 "Pious Meditations", with sermons on the Sunday Gospels published in local papers, and "Current Problems in the Light of the Holy Canons".

Repose and veneration

Father Gervasios reposed on 30 June 1964, aged eighty-⁠seven. At the funeral service in the church of Saint Demetrios, packed to overflowing, the feeling prevailed that a saint was being buried. He was buried in the church camp of the Anaplastiki School at Sychaina, behind the sanctuary apse of the church of Saint Paraskevi. In 1963 a cross appeared in a pine tree he had planted with schoolchildren in 1929, which is counted among the miracles attributed to him. On 29 June 2014, fifty years after his repose, Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Patras carried out the translation of his relics, in the presence of metropolitans, priests, monks and a crowd.

On 26 August 2019 the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece, on the proposal of Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Patras, after thorough research, submitted the request for his canonization. On 16 November 2023 the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, under the presidency of Patriarch Bartholomew I, officially proclaimed the sainthood of Gervasios, with the emphasis in the patriarchal announcement that he had been inscribed from the start as a saint in the consciousness of the people. On the same day, 16 November 2023, the first service in honor and memory of Saint Gervasios took place in Patras. On 18 December 2023, at the Patriarchal Church of Saint George, the ceremony took place of signing the Patriarchal and Synodal Act of the inclusion of three new saints in the Church's calendar: the nun Gavrilia (Papagiannis), the hieromonk Athanasios Hamakiotis and Archimandrite Gervasios Paraskevopoulos. Every year, on 30 June, events in his honor are held in Patras and in the camps of the Anaplastiki School at Sychaina, where his tomb is, on the initiative of the Holy Metropolis of Patras. On 8 June 2024 the first church dedicated to Saint Gervasios of Patras was inaugurated at the town of Chalandritsa in Achaia by Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Patras.