Philotheos of Sklataina

Saint Philotheos of Sklataina (today Rizoma, in Thessaly) was abbot and founder of the Monastery of Saint Stephen at Meteora. He lived between about 1475 and 1550; 1545 is the year in which he appears as abbot of the monastery.

He was a contemporary of Saint Bessarion, archbishop of Larissa and Trikala (15 September), and a founder of the Monastery of the Transfiguration of the Saviour (Dousiko). Shortly before 1545 he renovated, or rather rebuilt, the old small katholikon of the Monastery of Saint Stephen, with the help of the hieromonk Gerasimos. The little church is a single-⁠aisle basilica with a wooden roof and an esonarthex. The two founders of the monastery, Anthony Katakouzinos and Philotheos, appear in frescoes on either side of the entrance to the narthex, with halos, dressed in monastic habit, with the archangels Michael and Gabriel standing guard. The inscription says: "Our venerable father Philotheos and founder of Saint Stephen, being from the region of Sklataina". Philotheos also rebuilt the cells and the other buildings, and enriched the monastery's dependency in his native village of Sklataina with his paternal estates and those of Gerasimos. On 6 November 2004, Metropolitan Alexios of Trikki and Stagoi consecrated in his native village a new church dedicated to the venerable Philotheos.

A troparion of his service says: "Receive, venerable Philotheos, the prayers of your fellow villagers and their petitions, and entreat Christ, father who loved your homeland, to keep your village from sickness and sorrow and to grant us the sweet paradise". He is commemorated on 13 June, according to the calendar of the Church of Greece (new style). His veneration is local.