Savvas Lappas

Elder Savvas Lappas was an ascetic monk of the island of Kalymnos, born in 1903 and baptized Nikephoros, a spiritual child of Saint Savvas of Kalymnos and Saint Amphilochios Makris, who died on 7 April 1992. He is honoured by the faithful as a great spiritual father, without synodal canonization.

He was first a spiritual son of Saint Savvas of Kalymnos (1862 to 1948), on Kalymnos, and then of Saint Amphilochios Makris (1888 to 1970), on Patmos. He lived as an ascetic on Patmos for about twenty years. In 1960, at the age of fifty-⁠seven, he returned to Kalymnos and took the name of his first spiritual father, Savvas. He lived in asceticism until his death in a hut of the Elevation of the Honourable Cross at Kantouni on Kalymnos. He passed to the Lord on 7 April 1992, the feast of his spiritual father, Saint Savvas.

The monk Moses the Athonite wrote a book about him, setting out his virtues and gifts. He was best known for foresight, silence and tears. Two events from his life beside his two holy spiritual fathers are preserved. One day on Kalymnos, helping Saint Savvas at the Divine Liturgy, he saw with his own eyes the consecrated Bread and Wine become a slaughtered Infant on the Altar, with blood running down; the sight shook him to the core. One night on Patmos, as he prayed on his knees outside his cell, he saw a pillar of light come down from heaven and found himself immersed in it. He did not understand it, and Saint Amphilochios explained that it was the uncreated light of God.