Philotheos Zervakos

Archimandrite Philotheos Zervakos (1884-1980) was a hieromonk and abbot of the Life-⁠Giving Spring Monastery (Longovarda) on the island of Paros, a spiritual son of Saint Nectarios of Aegina. He is venerated in Greece as a saint by the faithful, without synodal glorification; no day of commemoration has been set.

He was born in May 1884 in the village of Pakia in Laconia, with the name Constantine. He was tonsured a monk on 29 December 1907, receiving the name Philotheos. He did his military service in Athens as a non-⁠commissioned officer, attended the church of Saint Eliseus, where he came to know Alexandros Papadiamantis and Alexandros Moraitidis, and Saint Nectarios urged him to go to Longovarda Monastery to become a monk. He was ordained priest on 22 April 1912, archimandrite in 1913, and in 1930, after the death of the abbot Hierotheos, became abbot of the monastery. In 1924 he made a great pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Sinai and Egypt, which he described in the book of 1925. In 1934 he went to Constantinople, and on his return founded the convent of Panagia Myrtidiotissa at Thapsana, near Lefkes.

For sixty-⁠eight years (1912-1978) he preached and heard confessions on many islands and in many cities of Greece, among them Paros, Naxos, Tinos, Patmos, Rhodes, Chios, Cyprus and Athens. He built twelve churches, two monasteries, three cemeteries and two schools, and the money he received from the faithful he gave to the poor, widows and orphans. During the German occupation, in May 1944, after an attack by Allied commandos on the island's airfield, the German commander of the Cyclades ordered the execution of 125 Parians taken as hostages. Philotheos pleaded with the commander to spare them and asked to be counted himself among the condemned; the commander relented. For three years he distributed food to 1500 people.

He wrote on the lives of the saints, on pastoral care and catechesis, and kept a rich correspondence. Among his writings are "A Great and Wondrous Pilgrimage to Palestine and Sinai" (1925), "The Wayfarer" (1947), the life of Venerable Arsenios the New of Paros (1960) and "Spiritual Testament" (1961). He fell asleep in the Lord on 8 May 1980, in his cell at Thapsana. The funeral service was served by Archimandrite Dionysios of Simonopetra. His grave is in the church of Saint Nectarios, near the Myrtidiotissa convent at Thapsana, Paros.