Nektarios of Aegina

Saint Nektarios of Aegina, Metropolitan of Pentapolis, is one of the most beloved saints of recent times. A humble and gentle hierarch, unjustly persecuted, he lived in poverty and prayer and reposed in 1920. Through his relics on Aegina God has worked, and still works, countless healings.

Early life

He was born on 1 October 1846 at Selymbria in Thrace, with the name Anastasios Kephalas, into a poor and devout family. At fourteen he went to Constantinople to work and study. Later he was a teacher on the island of Chios, and in 1876 he became a monk at the Nea Moni monastery, receiving the name Lazarus, and at his ordination as deacon the name Nektarios.

The persecuted hierarch

With the help of benefactors and of Patriarch Sophronius of Alexandria, he studied theology in Athens. He then served in the Patriarchate of Alexandria, where he was ordained priest and, in 1889, Metropolitan of Pentapolis. The people's love for him, however, roused the envy of some clergy, and through slander he was removed from his ministry without trial.

He came to Greece, where, poor and unknown, he humbly accepted the post of preacher in Euboea and then in other regions. From 1894 he directed the Rizarios Theological School in Athens, a spiritual father to its students. He wrote many books of teaching and prayer.

Aegina

In 1904 he founded the convent of the Holy Trinity on the island of Aegina, where he retired in 1908. There he lived as a simple monk, working with his own hands, guiding the nuns and receiving those who came to him.

Gravely ill, he was admitted to a hospital in Athens, in the ward for the poor, and reposed on 9 November 1920. According to tradition, a paralysed man in the next bed was healed on touching his garment.

Veneration

The Ecumenical Patriarchate numbered him among the saints in 1961. His relics rest in the convent on Aegina, where pilgrims come from all over the world. He is commemorated on 9 November.