Timothy of Kapsala

Timothy of Kapsala, with the secular name Nicholas Zachariadis, was born in 1900 at Prousa (Bursa) in Asia Minor, the son of Michael and Eleni. He came to the Holy Mountain in 1926 as a refugee and stayed there nearly sixty-⁠seven years, never going out into the world but circulating around all of Athos. He was tonsured a monk in 1928 in the cell of the Dormition of the Theotokos belonging to Stavronikita Monastery. He lived also in cells of the same monastery, those of Saint George, the Three Hierarchs, Saint Andrew and the Nativity of the Theotokos, and for a time in a cave near Saint Paul's.

He lived like a bird, in perfect detachment: he said he had no one in this world, neither friend nor relative nor acquaintance. He was meek, peaceful and cheerful, though illiterate, frugal and sober. He avoided condemning others, had much self-⁠reproach and great simplicity, and to some he revealed their thoughts. To a novice he said, "Winter will pass and you will leave," and so it was. He presented himself as a glutton, to avoid being honoured, and joked; he ate grass without oil and, when asked, said he ate a steak. It is told that the devil appeared to him one night in the cave and said angrily that he would have done something to him were it not that Christ was crucified and the Elder wore the cross. He counselled, "Make your neck thin through fasting, until it passes for a needle. If you don't have love, all is lost."

He reposed in November 1989, at about ninety years of age, in a good and peaceful end. That morning he had communed and kept saying "My Panagia," answering himself that the hour had not yet come. After lying down a little he blessed his attendant, something he did not usually do, slept about ten minutes, then took a deep breath and departed. He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization.