Savva of Ioannina

Saint Savva of Ioannina lived an ascetic life in the Holy Monastery of the Honorable Forerunner on an island in the lake of Ioannina, around the middle of the fifteenth century. It is not known where he was born. He was the spiritual father of Saints Nektarios (died 1550) and Theophanes (died 1544), who came from the distinguished Byzantine Apsaras family and are commemorated together on 17 May.

Savva was the son of an aristocratic family, but from an early age he loved the poverty of Christ, and he lived to the end as a humble and poor hermit. No one ever saw him angry, judging others or remembering wrongs. Of humility he said: "Humility is the solid and indestructible cornerstone on which the spiritual life is built." He was a hesychast with a very strict ascetic life: he prayed every night until morning and ate little and simply, with no meat, fish or cheese, and never poured oil on his food.

He fell asleep peacefully in 1505. When he gave up his soul, an inexpressible fragrance rose from his body. He was buried in the monastery of the Forerunner. A relic of the saint is kept and venerated in the Roussanou Monastery of the Transfiguration at Meteora. He is commemorated on 3 February (new style; 16 February on the old calendar).