Ioannikios of Dionysiou

Ioannikios of Dionysiou, with the secular name Alexander Anthimou, son of Anthimos and Panagiota, was born on 22 July 1942 in Cyprus, in the village of Agridaki in the Kyrenia district, now occupied by the Turks. His parents, God-⁠fearing people, had six children, he being the first. His father, at his death, said to those present, "Do you see these two in white?" and immediately gave up his soul; his mother, at his urging, was tonsured a nun with the name Mariam in the last ten years of her life and died of brain cancer. After primary school he attended the American Academy of Larnaca and for years worked at an English bank. Burning with divine longing and desire for the quiet life of monks, he left for the Holy Mountain on 1 September 1967. A personal diary from the time he was a layman shows his daily struggles, many philanthropic acts, visits to hospitals and places of suffering, as well as improvised prayers full of love for God and anxiety for the salvation of his soul.

In Elder Charalambos he found "a good elder, a holy man," to whom he entrusted his life. He met him at Daphne, as the elder was going from the New Skete to Hilandar to register a novice brother. Asked whether he too could come and be registered as a novice, the Elder received him gladly. He received the great schema at Bourazeri on 15 August 1968, with the name Ioannikios, in memory of the last old Russian remaining in the cell, the hierodeacon Ioannikios. On 15 September 1979 he followed Elder Charalambos and the community of twenty to the Monastery of Saint Dionysiou, and the next day was elected head of the Synaxis of Elders. He was four times Protepistates (1984-1985, 1994-1995, 1999-2000, 2004-2005). For years he served at the guesthouse with great zeal for the spiritual and bodily rest of pilgrims, especially helping foreigners and those of other faiths, talking with them and taking them into the katholikon, where he explained to them the martyrdoms and lives of the saints in the frescoes, introducing them, without their noticing, simply to Orthodox faith and theology. He slept little, and his eyes were almost always dark from his hidden vigil. After 1987 he returned to icon painting, learned at Bourazeri. He was the typikarios from the first day and kept the monastery's typikon to the last detail; he never missed the services, even in severe illness.

In 2006 he fell gravely ill, an illness he bore with patience; the brothers served him with joy day and night. To one brother he had confided that he longed for martyrdom. On 26 May 2006, the Tuesday of the Myrrh-⁠Bearers, his condition worsened and he fell almost into a coma. The Elder came down and read him the prayer for a departing soul, and after a few minutes he reposed quietly, surrounded by weeping brothers. The Holy Community sent a letter of condolence, stressing his service full of decorum, prudence and discernment. He was sixty-⁠three. He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization.