Michael of Kavsokalyvia

Michael of Kavsokalyvia was a monk and icon painter of the skete of Kavsokalyvia on the Holy Mountain, remembered for his constant smile and his childlike soul. He was born in 1905 on the island of Symi in the Dodecanese, with the secular name Demetrius Kalamas, son of George and Maria.

In 1922 he came to the cell of the Annunciation of the Theotokos at Kavsokalyvia, and the next year he was tonsured by the blind elder Arsenios (d. 1930). Those who met him saw inner calm, goodness and peace in his face, and he comforted with tenderness the souls of those who came to him. He kept the services, the prayer rule and the Liturgy with care, chanted well and loved the all-⁠night vigils. Those who knew him say that he practiced the prayer of the mind in secret, having learned it from a great elder of stillness.

His icons, painted in a Renaissance manner, had a particular grace, because they were made with much prayer. It is told that he painted an icon of Saint Sabbas of Kalymnos without any model, and when the icon reached the saint's monastery on Kalymnos the bells began to ring by themselves. He took an icon of Saint Nectarius to the saint's newly built church on Rhodes. On his return he fell seriously ill with a stomach ulcer, and Saint Nectarius appeared to him in his cell to say that he had been healed with his help. On another day of the saint's memory the church and the cell were filled with a fragrance that lasted five days.

Once, admitted to a hospital in Athens with a diagnosis of cancer, he was healed through his own prayer and that of the saints who were his friends, and he left on the eve of the operation, to the astonishment of the staff. Father Porphyrios (d. 1991) said that Elder Michael had had an abundance of God's grace since childhood. He reposed in the Lord on 12 May 1979, cared for by his disciple, the monk Gabriel, and before he departed he was granted to see the Lord and the Mother of God. He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization.