Paul of Xiropotamou

Paul of Xiropotamou, a hieromonk, with the secular name Basil Prokopiou, was born in 1882 at Agiasos on Lesbos. He received a good education and knew Latin, French and Russian well. He came to Xeropotamou Monastery on 1 August 1901. He was tonsured a monk on 29 June 1904 and given the name Paul. He was ordained deacon at the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, 14 September 1907, and priest on 12 May 1913. In 1914 he translated from Latin the Rule of Orthodox monastic life of Saint Benedict, with his own introduction and commentary. In June 1916, of his own will and desiring a stricter life, he left for the wilderness. He lived in the cave of Saint Athanasios the Athonite at Vigla. He engaged in translating and publishing books. He translated from Latin works of Saint Augustine, The City of God and the Confessions. But there, from privation and hardship, he fell gravely ill, with tuberculosis of the bones, and after two years was forced to return to his monastery. He also published a Pilgrim's Guide to the Holy Mountain, useful to pilgrims. He was very studious, monkish, a lover of God, of the saints and of the Mother of God.

His illnesses did not let him live long. He reposed in the Lord Jesus our God and Saviour on 26 October 1920, the day of the memory of the Holy Great Martyr Demetrius the Myrrh-⁠Gusher. According to the prophet David: "He was taken away lest wickedness change his mind... Being perfected in a short time, he fulfilled long years... For his soul was pleasing to the Lord." In the commentary of one work of the diligent, learned and virtuous hieromonk Paul it is said: "Surely it is not enough merely to wish in order to possess the sought virtue, but methodical and gradual exercise is required for its acquisition, above all a deep recognition of the obstacles which, entering in, deform man and resist the acquisition of the sought virtue..." He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization.