James (Iakovos) the Athonite

James (Iakovos) the Athonite, with the secular name Evangelos Valodimos, was born in 1870 in the village of Vodino near Argyrokastro in Northern Epirus. He went to Constantinople, where he worked as a small pedlar, and from there came to the Holy Mountain. His three years in the Athonite school of holiness and the ordination he received there gave him strength to begin missionary work in his suffering homeland. Like a new Saint Cosmas of Aetolia, he tried to preserve the Greek character of his region, which Turkish-⁠Albanians had trampled; twice friends and strangers resolved to kill him and did not succeed. Given wholly to God, he kept nothing for himself.

The little monastery of the Prophet Elias in the Zagorochoria was his base. He gained a reputation as a holy confessor. He told the young: "Confess cleanly," and repeated with deep pain: "Many confess, but few repent." Persecutions and tribulations never bent him. When driven from a place, he had nothing to take with him. He travelled the villages of Epirus teaching the people the word of God by the example of his life and in simple language. During the Italian occupation, when an animal of his was taken, he said, "God took it from me, because I was attached to it." He never left off the Jesus Prayer he learned on Athos. He always carried the liturgical books in his bag and celebrated almost daily, together with his blind nun sister, so that both could commune. He had the gift of foresight. Five years before his death he came again to Athos to bury his brother, a monk of forty years who died in his arms. His face at prayer and in the Liturgy shone like the sun.

He reposed on 15 February 1960. He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization.