Menas of Philotheou

Menas of Philotheou, with the secular name Michael Papadakis, son of Emmanuel, was born in 1878 in the village of Katalagari in Heraklion, Crete. The present Metropolitan of Petra, Nectarios, was his nephew. He was learned and a polyglot. As a young man he had worked in Odessa and in Egypt, near an uncle of his, a senior Greek consular official. He came to Stavronikita Monastery and was tonsured a monk in 1909 with the name Martinianos. In 1917 he left voluntarily for Philotheou Monastery, where he received the great schema in 1920 with the name Menas. For thirty years at Philotheou he led a spiritually fruitful life. He served his monastery with zeal, love and willingness as sacristan, prosphora baker and bell ringer; it is said that he knew how to ring the bells to the tunes of troparia, apolytikia of saints or great feasts.

He reposed in the Lord on 7 September 1947, while tending the garden of the monastery's precinct, in the Garden of the Mother of God, this Philotheite elder, lover of the Theotokos and the saints. He had cultivated for years the garden of his heart with attention and care, and so found eternal rest in the courts of paradise. He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization.