Sophia of Kleisoura

Holy Venerable Sophia of Kleisoura was an ascetic of Pontic origin, born in 1883 and reposed in the Lord on 6 May 1974, who spent almost fifty years in the Monastery of the Nativity of the Theotokos at Kleisoura, in Western Macedonia. The Ecumenical Patriarchate added her to the saints in 2011 and proclaimed her solemnly on 1 July 2012.

She was born in the village of Sari-⁠Popa, in the Ardasa district of Trebizond, in Pontus, into a Christian family; her maiden name was Sophia Amanatiou Saoulidou. In 1907 she married Iordanis Chotokouridis, and in 1910 she bore a child, whom she lost two years later in a tragic way. In 1914 she also lost her husband, who was taken by the Turks into the labour battalions, where he seems to have died.

Left alone, the young widow withdrew to the mountains, where she lived in strict fasting. Saint George appeared to her and warned her of an imminent raid by Turkish bands; she told the village, which hid and was saved. During the exchange of populations, the ship carrying her fellow villagers to Greece was in danger of sinking; Sophia saw the waves full of angels and of the Mother of God, asked that she alone be drowned so that the others might be saved, and the Mother of God saved them all.

In 1927, urged by the Mother of God, she settled at the Monastery of the Nativity of the Theotokos at Kleisoura, near Kastoria. There she found a virtuous hieromonk from Athos, Father Gregory, who guided her. She lived as a laywoman, in the black clothes of widowhood, with her face smeared with ashes, barefoot and in rags, sleeping on straw with sharp stones laid beneath it. Her food was poor: mushrooms, wild herbs, leaves, a little oil on Saturdays and Sundays. She fasted by both calendars so as not to scandalize anyone, and told those who reproached her severity: "I am disciplining my poor body." For much of those years she was alone, since the monastery had no monks, enduring winters of down to minus fifteen degrees.

Hard on herself, she was gentle with others. She hurt and saddened no one, kept no money but gave it to the poor, and provided dowries for poor girls so that they could marry. Whoever came to her burdened left comforted. It is said she condemned no one, but would say: "Cover over, and God will cover you." She loved animals too: a she-⁠bear from the forest, which she called "Rousa", took food from her hand. In 1967, gravely ill, she was healed after a vision in which the Mother of God, the Archangel Gabriel and Saint George appeared to her.

Mother Sophia reposed in the Lord on 6 May 1974. Her relics were raised on 7 July 1981 and examined again in 1998, when they were carried into the monastery by Metropolitan Seraphim of Kastoria; they give off a sweet fragrance. The Great Church entered her in its catalogue of saints in 2011, and on 1 July 2012 the Ecumenical Patriarch proclaimed her officially at Kastoria. She is commemorated on 6 May.