Theoklitos

Theoklitos of Dionysiou was a monk of the Monastery of Dionysiou on Mount Athos and an important Athonite writer of the twentieth century. He was born in 1916 at Nafpaktos and reposed on 20 January 2006. He is venerated by the faithful without synodal canonization.

A young man of about twenty-⁠five, a graduate of higher studies, he was called up in the war of 1940 and fought on the front line. His life was saved in a wondrous way, and he then received the call to the monastic life, promising to renounce the world. He came to the Holy Mountain during the war, to the Monastery of Dionysiou, where his elder was the learned abbot Gabriel. At twenty-⁠seven, in 1943, he received the great schema. He served in the kitchen, in the refectory, in the guesthouse, as the monastery's representative at Karyes, at the dependency of Monoxylites, and later was made proistamenos and the monastery's representative at the Holy Community.

At his elder's urging he wrote his first book, Between Heaven and Earth, which shows the beauty of Athonite monasticism and was awarded a prize by the Academy of Athens. He then wrote many works and articles in the Christian press and gave lectures. After the celebration of the Athos millennium in 1963, he was officially invited to the palace and the University of Athens. His best-⁠known work in Russia is the life and works of Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite, written in 1958.