Paul of the Great Lavra

Paul of the Great Lavra, with the secular name Paul Pavlides, was a surgeon. He was born in 1885 at Saphrapolis-⁠Theodoroupolis in Pontus. He came to the Great Lavra in 1925 and was tonsured a monk the next year. He learned his first letters in blessed Caesarea of Cappadocia. He finished his studies at the University of Athens. He specialized in Paris and Leipzig, on a scholarship from the Turkish state, as a top student. He worked as a doctor in Constantinople and Prousa and even as an officer in the Turkish army, from which he escaped wonderfully in 1917. In 1922 he is found in the ranks of the Greek army. He married, but was left a widower early. Weary, he reached Thessaloniki, then Karyes, Vatopedi Monastery and finally the Great Lavra. In 1937 he became an elder and in 1945 superior.

He writes in his 1948 autobiography: "In the agony of that martyric life at Prousa, Asia Minor was taken by the Greek army, in which only after a year I had to be named reserve junior doctor in the X Division of heavy howitzers at Eskisehir..." For us it was a special distinction to frequent his room and enjoy his company, to receive his counsels and blessings. The writer I. M. Panagiotopoulos writes of him, among other things: "He is short, thin, bald, with a white, sparse and forked beard. He follows the services with compunction, unwinds his prayer rope, thinks, reads and writes, a monk since 1925. His manuscripts have exceeded a hundred and fifty volumes. Excerpts from these volumes he has printed in booklets."

The well-⁠travelled doctor, the affable monk, the God-⁠loving elder reposed in the Lord on 1 January 1980, the memory of Saint Basil the Great, the heaven-⁠seer, physician and all-⁠wise saint. He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization.