Thomas of Little St Anne's

Thomas of Little St Anne's, with the secular name Apostolos Petroutsakos, the son of John and Argyri, was born in 1895 at Skoutari in Laconia. From childhood he was serious and studious and excelled at school. As a pupil he jumped into the sea and saved a child from drowning. He went to Athens to work; a copy of the book "The Salvation of Sinners" kindled his heart to become a monk on Athos.

He came to the Athonite wilderness in 1912 and was tonsured a monk in 1913. The hut of the Apostle Thomas, of the virtuous Elder Cyprian (d. 1944), opposite the cave of Agapios Landos, the author of "The Salvation of Sinners," became his permanent home. At the first steps of his obedience the Mother of God herself appeared to comfort him. All his life he used to say: "I love Christ and his Mother very, very much, therefore I even accept to be slaughtered for their love." He did not tolerate in any way the name of Christ and the Theotokos being blasphemed.

For sixty years he steadfastly bore toils and hardships in the hard-⁠to-⁠reach skete of Little Saint Anne's. Those who knew him in the evening of his life say he told stories about the old elders, the miracles of the Mother of God, the Gerontikon and the Lausaic History. Elder Joachim of Karyes (d. 1988) related that in 1940, because of the famine, the meal at the feast had ceased at the hut of the Holy Apostle Thomas; after the vigil all left, but Father Thomas, tidying the church, saw a young layman standing in the elders' stall, who vanished. On the day of his death he said calmly, "Today I die." About four in the morning, on a Wednesday, looking serenely at his disciples, he closed his eyes and mouth, bowing his head a little. The funeral service gathered many monks from the monasteries and sketes, and Metropolitan Paul of Ierissos was present. He reposed on 24 February 1978. He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization.