Symeon Vroulos

Elder Symeon Vroulos was abbot of the Monastery of the Dormition of the Mother of God on the island of Psara, who died on 24 December 1944. He is honoured by the faithful, on Psara and Chios, as a saint, without synodal canonization; at the exhumation his body was found incorrupt and a sweet fragrance filled the monastery courtyard.

He was born in 1853 in the village of Agios Ioannis on the island of Chios and as a child went to the Monastery of the Dormition on the neighbouring island of Psara, where he was abbot for many years. From the age of eight he lived at the monastery and learned his letters from the Psalter. Fr Andreas Daphnos, who knew him and received his blessing at the age of five, describes him as a very strong man, who tilled the monastery's estates with love. At night they heard him go to a ravine near the monastery and break stones, to tame his body with work and not let the devil defeat him; in the morning he was at the services.

Every resident or visitor of Psara who met him has something to tell about him: illnesses of body or soul cured by his blessing, counsel useful to them or to those close to them. God gave him the gift of prophecy. His activity was richer still during the German occupation, when he hosted in the monastery Greeks, Englishmen and Australians, whom he smuggled to the Middle East. At ninety, his activity was so great that the Gestapo kept watch on the monastery. Three times they sent traitors to be received by him; he hosted them, though he knew who they were, and with God's help none of them understood that at that very time dozens of Greeks and Englishmen were hidden in the monastery.

Elder Symeon fell asleep on 24 December 1944 and was buried in the monastery cemetery on Psara. A few years later a crowd of believers went up to the monastery to carry out the exhumation and found the miracle everyone expected in their hearts: his body was incorrupt, and a fragrance flooded the courtyard as soon as the tomb was opened. His skull and relics are kept at the monastery, where the faithful gather on 15 August.