Philotheos of Xenophontos

Philotheos of Xenophontos, with the secular name Nicholas Nikolaides, son of Athanasios, was born at Akalanio in Evros. He never knew his mother, who died before forty days after his birth; his father remarried, and he loved and always remembered his stepmother. In childhood he was struck by polio, which left him with a considerable physical disability and prevented him from playing with other children or working at home. After his stepmother's death he went to Thessaloniki. From 1925 he corresponded with the venerable Elder Philotheos Zervakos (d. 1980); he kept and studied the roughly two hundred letters. Before leaving for Athos he went to Tinos, where Elder Philotheos heard pilgrims' confessions, and made a long general confession. With his blessing he went to become a monk at Xenophontos Monastery.

He came there in 1954 and in 1956 received the rason with the name Nectarios. He was secretary of the monastery; the spelling, calligraphy and composition of his texts made them exemplary. His daily route was cell, church, office; only on Sundays did he take a short walk around the monastery. He led a simple, temperate, humble, quiet, communal life. He took great care of his monastic life and never forgot why he had left the world. He systematically avoided idle talk, chatter, superfluous speech. So as not to chat aimlessly, if you went to his cell, he handed you a book and said: "Let us read now." He did not want to hear or see jokes. "Do not laugh, weep," he said, after the Gospel. Once a monk praised a good cleric. "Do not praise," he said. "But he is not present." "The devil hears, though, and may tempt him." He knew the Fathers of the Church by heart, especially his beloved Saint John Chrysostom. Holy Scripture, the Philokalia, the Psalter, the Evergetinos and the Fathers were always in his cell. He never went out into the world. He never judged anyone. He often said: "Glory to God." He had great devotion to Saint Cosmas of Aetolia and recommended reading his life and teachings, and those of Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite, whose works he read continually.

If anything was sent to him, he gave it away at once. One bar of soap lasted him all year. Often he went without food. He always bewailed his sins. A model of a struggling monk with genuine self-⁠knowledge. In his last years he was confined to his cell. On 1 November 1984 Abbot Alexios tonsured him into the great schema and gave him the name Philotheos, in honour of his elder, in the chapel of the Holy Unmercenaries of the monastery's infirmary, in his wheelchair. At the end he went blind. He bore it with prayer, praise and thanksgiving. He reposed in the Lord on 26 June 1986, the memory of Saint Sampson the Hospitable, and was buried the next day in the monastery cemetery. He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization.