Kosmas the Pantokratorinos

Saint Kosmas the Pantokratorinos (Ampelikos, the vinedresser), a venerable monk, was born in 1897 at Angelochori in Thrace, with the name Cleanthes, and was a gardener. While still in the world he lived like a monk: he gave much alms and helped those who might have been tempted to steal. About 1914 he left the world, his brother and his garden, and came to Athos. He was tonsured a monk in 1915 and stayed at the Stavronikita Monastery until 1924. After the change of calendar he left and lived in community at the Pantokrator Monastery, where he asked to live outside the monastery, in the vineyard near his hermitage. Until 1939 he also struggled in other places of the Holy Mountain.

All day he worked and prayed without ceasing. He had left his body completely neglected. His clothes were full of mud and sweat, and the blanket on which he slept held so much earth that seeds thrown on it would have sprouted. He ate little: greens, a nut, a rusk. He did not take the money that the monasteries gave as payment for services, saying that he would take it later, all gathered, in the other life. What he received from the monastery he shared with the elders of Kapsala, and if one did not accept, he said he had brought things to sell and gave them almost free. He was short and sunburnt, but his face shone at times. Father Paisios writes that he saw this with his own eyes. On 13 April 1970 he departed from the Garden of the Mother of God like an angel. He is honoured by the faithful, without synodal canonization.