Herodion of Kapsala

Herodion of Kapsala, with the secular name John Mantouf, was born poor in 1904 in a village in Romania called Ordasest. From childhood he loved Christ exceedingly. Young, he came to the holy Garden of the Mother of God to dedicate himself wholly to her Son. He was a fragrant flower of the God-⁠planted garden of holy Athos and a sweet-⁠voiced bird of heaven. He was apparently tonsured rasophore at the Dionysiou cell of the Entrance of the Theotokos in Kapsala, and received the great schema in the hut of the Archangels at Lakkoskiti of Saint Paul's. From the end of 1964 he struggled in the cell of Saint Demetrius in Kapsala. He passed also through other places of the Athonite peninsula: Provata, Karyes, cells of Karakallou, Philotheou and Vatopedi. Like a bee hunting for pollen and like a free sparrow, he roamed the paths and forests to find a little food, being very poor. He chose the hardest road of holiness, foolishness for Christ. Many held him a real madman.

Metropolitan Nicholas of Mesogaia says of him that he passed over the earth without treading on it and without its touching him. Elder Ioannikios says: "For forty years he was shut in his little cell, completely naked, poor, yet happy and blessed. His whole life was consumed like a bright torch in prayer, in silence, in contemplation..." The Romanian Elder Herodion, a hidden hero, lived in continual and chosen poverty, asceticism, hardship, affliction and suffering for the love of Christ. His disordered, dirty and unkempt cell hid the purity of his beautiful heart. He was a true ascetic, a secret hesychast, an authentic man of God. Through his seemingly unhinged words he deposited truths, predictions and counsels. He caught the thoughts of his visitors, monks or lay people, before they told them, and said to them what was needed. Fleeing the glory of men, he reached the glory of God. Mocking worldly vanity, he entered glorious eternity. He reposed in 1990. He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization.