James (Iakovos) of Vigla

James (Iakovos) of Vigla was from Himara in Northern Epirus and finished the gymnasium of Ioannina. He served in the Greek army in the war of 1912-1913. Having come to Athos, he went first to the skete of Saint Demetrius of Vatopedi; not finding peace there, he moved to Vigla, the hesychast place of the Great Lavra, to a hut without a church. With superhuman labours, bringing materials from far away, he built there a church of the Three Hierarchs.

He was voluntarily very poor. His hut was a small cell with a ball of straw for a mattress, and another for a rare guest, with an old blanket. His daily meal was a few greens with crumbled rusk and an olive now and then; the same he gave to strangers. He was a renowned confessor, whom the demons feared for his great fasting. Once he bore a temptation from a neighbour and judged that God had allowed it so that he might be humbled and remember how he too had once grieved his own elder at the Vatopedi skete. He was tall, sturdy, sincere and guileless. With his bag on his shoulder he asked everyone he met whether he had confessed, whether he communed, whether he loved Christ, and if the answer was no he heard his confession on the road.

When he grew very old, the Lavra monks took him into the monastery, but after two months, sensing his end, he left secretly at night, with his lantern, for the hut of the Three Hierarchs, praying that he might reach it to die there. He arrived and reposed on 8 January 1955. He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization.