Isaias of Karyes

Isaias of Karyes, with the secular name Anastasios Psychopoulos, was born in 1890 at Iconium in Asia Minor, where in the primary school Byzantine music was taught. He came to the Holy Mountain as a child. He put on the monastic habit at only twelve, in 1902, obeying the strict elders of the Lavra cell of the "Karamanlides," the Holy Trinity near Karyes, among them his compatriot Christopher (d. 1956). Later he had disciples: his compatriot Gerasimos, secular name Constantine Eleftheropoulos, born at Iconium in 1905 and tonsured in the cell in 1925, Basil (d. 1976) and Clement (d. 1955). Because of their origin, the people of Karyes called them "the Karamanlides."

These fathers were simple, industrious, humble, silent, likeable and devout. Monkish men, of unceasing prayer, with their minds permanently only on God. Bishop Chrysostom of Rodostolon, who knew them closely, says that they were good makers of cassocks. All the fathers esteemed and respected them for their great virtue. Today's Elder Nectarios, with his kindly disciple Christopher, told us that he had wanted to repair the cell, make gardens and do works, but they did not let him, telling him to care only for spiritual things. Gerasimos reposed first, and after fifteen days his elder Isaiah reposed too, in July (the source gives 1954 in its title but 1959 in the text for Gerasimos). Nectarios said: "They were all good, loved, quiet, without gossip or foreign cares, men of prayer and of the service. Strict only with themselves." He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization.