Kodratos of Karakallou

Saint Kodratos of Karakallou, abbot of the Karakallou Monastery and a venerable monk, was born in 1859, with the name Kyriakos Vamvakos, at Vourla in Asia Minor. He came to Athos in 1879, at twenty, and after three years was tonsured a monk. After more than twenty years of obedience he was entrusted with the abbot's staff of the Karakallou Monastery, of the Holy Apostles. In the common services he was a pillar who lit the monks by example. Nothing pleased him more than prayer; disobedience and idle talk hurt him. He was never seen idle; he slept little, sometimes lying on the floor with his staff in his hand like a shepherd, to remember the grave. He stood in his stall through long vigils even though suffering from a hernia. As strict as he was with himself, he was as gentle with others, above all at confession. He said to the penitent: "Come, my child, let us make a few prostrations and ask Christ to keep you." The chapel of Saint Gideon, where he heard confessions, was soaked with his many tears. He was regarded as the first of the confessors of the Holy Mountain.

A month before his death he resigned the abbacy of his own will, on 1 January 1940, and fell asleep on 31 January 1940 (13 February by the new calendar), about two o'clock in the evening, of old age. He had spent fifty-⁠eight years on Athos. He is honoured by the faithful, without synodal canonization.