Gregory Mystriotes

Venerable Gregory Mystriotes was born into a prominent Christian family of the Mystras area in the eleventh century and struggled as a hermit on the islet of Strongyli in the Lichades group, at the north-⁠western tip of Euboea. He is commemorated on the Sunday of All Saints; he is honoured as patron of the town of Sparta and has no known canonization.

From childhood he read the sacred books and showed zeal for monastic life. At sixteen he wanted to leave the world for a monastery, but his parents would not allow it. Later he joined a group of monks from Mystras who wanted to go to the Holy Land, but unforeseen circumstances took them to Rome, where he became a monk in a monastery there. Then he set out for the Holy Land, reached Nicaea in Asia Minor, passed into Thrace and Macedonia and at last settled in Euboea.

In the small town of Oreos, crowds of believers filled his church daily to hear his sermons and counsel. To escape the honour shown him and find quiet, he left Oreos for the tiny island of Strongyli in the Lichades group. There too rich and poor, priests, bishops and monks came to him to learn the way of repentance. He shone in every virtue and died in deep old age, going to the Father and Creator in heavenly blessedness. On the north-⁠eastern shore of Strongyli the ruins of his hermitage can be seen: the church of the Mother of God, his tomb, cells, the entrance, massive walls. A new church bears his name at Mystras.