Zosimas of Xenophontos

Zosimas of Xenophontos, with the secular name Savvas Iosifidis, the son of Photios and Parthena, was born in 1911 in the village of Demir Kapou (Iron Gate) in the Kars district of Pontus. The family story tells that his grandfather, on the feast of Saint Catherine, worked in the cowshed and a tall woman in blue appeared, who rebuked him; he fell as if dead. Since then the family has kept Saint Catherine's day with reverence. In 1914 the family went to Thessaloniki, then to Langadas and to Marina near Naousa. He learned Byzantine music, married in 1938 and had a child who died in infancy. In 1940, as an artillery sergeant, he was on the Albanian front. He was ordained deacon and priest in 1943 by Metropolitan Pantaleimon of Edessa (d. 1979) and served as parish priest and teacher in several villages, saving many people at risk of his life during the civil war.

He was indifferent to money, merciful and loving; he gladly distributed his money to orphans, poor pupils and the needy, and his cassock was patched a thousand times. He helped build churches and monasteries. He came to Xenophontos in 1983 and at his tonsure received the name Zosimas. A brother of the monastery describes him as a model of a gentle, guileless and cheerful elder, of few words yet instructive by his kindness and virtue; as a parish priest he had been strict and active. He read the services in the abbot's absence, chanted "More honourable than the cherubim" in the left choir, and throughout the years worked in the kitchen, peeling potatoes and onions. He was short, with a long, sparse beard.

He reposed in the Lord on 19 January 1996 after a short illness: for a few days he had not gone to the services, feeling discomfort in his heart; he communed and departed for the Kingdom of heaven. He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization.