Nektarios the Spiritual Father

Nektarios the Spiritual Father of Kavsokalyvia was born on 28 March 1904, Pascha Sunday, at Perachora in Corinthia, with the secular name Nicholas. As a child he moved with his parents to the village of Kaparelli near Thebes, where he learned his first letters. His poor parents entrusted him with pasturing their small flock of sheep. From childhood he desired monasticism and often went to the Holy Trinity monastery on Kithairon to pray and converse with the virtuous fathers there. In 1921, after a divine revelation, the fathers received him near them. After military service he settled in that monastery, where he was tonsured a monk.

In 1930 he came to the Holy Mountain with other fathers and lived in the hesychast cell of Saint Euthymios, above the skete of Kavsokalyvia, near the cave of Saint Neilos the Myrrh-⁠Gusher, where he received the great schema in 1931. He was ordained deacon and priest and made a confessor in 1937. Very devout and venerable, he loved God, monasticism, stillness and his neighbour beyond measure. Poor, ascetic, quiet and humble, he stayed in his lonely cell and sent letters of consolation to many sufferers. He prayed for all. There we too knew him in the evening of his life, counselling us in a patristic, sober and soul-⁠profiting way. He bore the illnesses of old age, deafness and blindness, glorifying God constantly, without complaint. His company, the hieromonk Joachim (d. 2003) and the monk Euthymios, served him with care and love. He reposed in the Lord on 30 August 1989. He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization.