Philaretos of Konstamonitou

Saint Philaretos of Konstamonitou, abbot of the Konstamonitou Monastery and a venerable monk, was born in 1890 and entered at twenty, in 1912, the Konstamonitou Monastery, coming from Fytia of Veria. He was tonsured a monk in 1915. From early on he was marked by knowledge of himself and of the brethren, and by meekness and simplicity. He had no worldly wisdom but divine illumination. He went through various obediences (cellarer at the dependencies, ecclesiarch of the katholikon) and lived five decades in community, four of them as a tireless daily celebrant of the Liturgy. He served with tears, as if serving together with angels. He was abbot from 1949 and kept the same humble way of life, often taking the place of the last servant. He had great love for the Mother of God and said her Akathist several times a day. He wished each of his spiritual children: "May the Mother of God keep you under her skirt."

Father Paisios the Athonite writes that, through his purity, he saw the past and the future, the thoughts of people, and even what they had in their pockets. He also tells how he was taken to a hospital in Thessalonica, where he took the nurses for angels and hid his face in the sheet. He reposed in the Lord on 29 January 1963. When his bones were exhumed, they were yellow as amber, and a cross had formed on his skull, giving off a strong fragrance. He is honoured by the faithful, without synodal canonization.