John of the Koutloumousiou Skete

John of the Koutloumousiou Skete, called Old John, with the secular name George Markakis, son of Anthony, was born in 1895 at Tympaki in Crete. In the Greco-⁠Bulgarian war he promised that, if released, he would become a monk. He came to the hut of Saint John Chrysostom of the skete of Saint Panteleimon-⁠Koutloumousiou in 1921 and was tonsured a monk the next year.

According to Bishop Chrysostom of Rodostolon, he was "a personality that inspired respect and reverence, with all the marks of long fasting and temperance upon him." Elder Paisios the Athonite also spoke warmly to me of his virtue. For decades he was a good typikarios of the skete's kyriakon. With his small company they were makers of cassocks. The same bishop writes of them in his fine Memoirs: "They became from the very first moment protectors, catechists and almost pedagogues to us, in spiritual thought and life, in our monastic conduct in general, in our entirely decorous and measured conversations with the other strugglers, and in participation in the common worship in the kyriakon." He reposed on 13 November 1985, after the vigil and after communing. Like his elder Chrysostomos, he reposed on the day of their feast, of his name and the patronal feast of his hut. We, before the memorial of the founders of our hut, buried the blessed elder in the skete cemetery, whose kyriakon he served for about sixty-⁠four years. Old John was a good, old-⁠style monk, say all who knew him. Whenever the feast of Saint John Chrysostom comes, we too secretly await the heavenly call, since the last elders reposed on the day of the memory of the great and all-⁠wise... He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization.