Gideon of Koutloumousiou

Gideon of Koutloumousiou, with the secular name George Georgiou, son of Photios and Despo, was born in the village of Arbrinova Tsipilova in Ioannina, Epirus, in 1877. He came to become a monk at Koutloumousiou Monastery in 1909. He was tonsured a monk in 1912. For a time he left for Karakallou Monastery. He returned to his monastery of repentance, with its future abbot Makarios (d. 1957), in 1916.

He passed with patience, obedience, love and willingness through the obediences of doorkeeper and vine-⁠keeper. He used never to part with his cowl and prayer rope. The cowl is worn by monks always during the holy services in church. It is said that the old fathers of Kavsokalyvia always wore the cowl and cassock, even when digging the garden, like fighters ready for battle, striving by prayer against the demon of first evil. Father Gideon was a friend of the well-⁠known editor of the Synaxaristes, Constantine Doukakis, later the Athonite monk Cornelius (d. 1908). Because he was for frequent Communion, for which the holy Kollyvades fought, some accused him of being a Makrakist. Opinions about his character and personality are divided. But he was a simple, modest, honest, kind and devout monk. He reposed in the Lord on 25 December 1953, on the day of the great feast of the Lord, the Nativity of Christ, to rejoice eternally alongside the fervent friends of the Incarnate Son and Word of God. He was buried among the fathers in the monastery cemetery. At the exhumation his bones were placed in the monastery's ossuary, in hope of the resurrection of the dead... He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization.