The Revealed Path: Saint Phanourios and the Memory of Nafplio’s Liberation

The veneration of Saint Phanourios occupies a unique space within Greek Orthodox folklore. Unlike many military or monastic saints whose legacies were codified in homilies or formal ecclesiastical historiography, Saint Phanourios exists primarily through the lens of lived experience and communal practice. The hallmark of his devotion is the baking of the phanouropita, a vegan cake made with seven or nine ingredients, which functions as a domestic ritual of intercession, traditionally associated with the recovery of lost objects, openning of closed paths, or offering prayers for his legendary, unrepentant mother. Alexandros Papadiamantis beautifully preserved this folklore and act of piety in his 1899 short story, Goutou Goupatou, recording the custom of offering a cake while quietly praying, "God forgive the mother of Saint Phanourios." Yet, when this same underlying folklore interacted with the localized realities of Nafplio, the concept of a saint who "reveals" (phaneronei) underwent a profound, civic transformation, shifting from a private domestic prayer into a literal catalyst for the Greek War of Independence.

The Teaching on Weeping of Venerable Poemen the Great

A brother asked Abba Poemen what kind of spiritual labor a monk ought to undertake. The Abba replied: “When Abraham came into the Promised Land, he purchased a tomb for himself, and from the tomb he began to take possession of the Promised Land.” The brother asked: “What does the ‘tomb’ signify?” The Abba replied: “It is a place of weeping and lamentation.”

The following saying also belongs to Abba Poemen: “Weeping is twofold: it brings about and preserves.”

A brother asked Abba Poemen: “What should I do about my passions, which trouble me?” The Elder said to him: “Let us weep with all our strength before the goodness of God, until He has mercy upon us.”

A brother asked Abba Poemen: “What should I do about my sins?” The Elder said: “He who desires to be freed from the sins that dwell within him is freed from them through weeping; and he who desires not to fall into sin again avoids falling through weeping. This is the path of repentance handed down to us by Scripture and the Fathers, who said: ‘Weep!’ There is no other path apart from weeping.”

Venerable Poemen the Great Resource Page

Venerable Poemen the Great (Feast Day - August 27)

 

Verses

As from the open mouth of a wolf Poemen snatches,

The lives of the sheep of the exceedingly great Shepherd.

On the twenty-seventh Poemen is mourned as a great shepherd.

 

Life and Sayings of Holy Abba Poemen the Great

 

August: Day 27: Venerable Poemen the Great 

 

Homily One on Venerable Abba Poemen, the Shepherd of Souls (Metr. Hierotheos of Nafpaktos) 

 

Homily Two on Venerable Abba Poemen, the Shepherd of Souls (Metr. Hierotheos of Nafpaktos)

 

The Teaching on Weeping of Venerable Poemen the Great 

 

On Those Who Do Not Accept Our Forgiveness (Abba Poemen)

 

Seven Precepts For An Assured Salvation 

 

Prologue in Sermons: February 16 

 

Christians Today Are Like Watermelons

“Elder, what are Christians like today?”

“Like watermelons, my child.”

With this simple remark, full of spiritual wit, an elder on Mount Athos expressed a profound truth about our times.

If you think about it, a watermelon is a fruit that can easily deceive you. On the outside, it is deep green and firm, and you see a beautiful, hard surface that gives you the impression that nothing can bend or break it.

So it is with many Christians today. They wear the “garment” of piety, know the right words, follow religious customs, and appear steadfast.

“Help Us To Love Our Enemies, Our Brothers and Sisters.”

At the Sacred Pilgrimage Cave Church of the Nativity of Saint John the Forerunner (Damialis, Crete), traditionally believed to have been built by Saint John the Xenos (10th century), where, according to the liturgical schedule of the shrine, Divine Liturgies and Parakleses are celebrated every month, with the commemoration of all the names that the many pilgrims record during their pilgrimage, His Eminence Metropolitan Amphilochios of Kissamos and Selinos celebrated the Paraklesis to Saint John the Forerunner on July 14th 2026.

At the conclusion of the Paraklesis, the His Eminence Metropolitan Amphilochios referred to one of the “For Health” prayer requests that had been recorded at the shrine during the month of July.

In this particular request, which was written in English, the person making the request asked God to keep his or her family “in Lebanon” safe and to grant them peace: “Keep them safe. Make peace.”

The next sentence of the prayer request was a prayer for the “enemies.”

It reads:

“Help us to love our enemies, our brothers and sisters.”

The Hidden Greatness of Greece

“Scattered across the surrounding hills and throughout the entire rural amphitheater are an astonishing number of churches.

The immeasurable depth of Orthodoxy, with the houses of God that you encounter everywhere in Greece, whether you make your way through the ravines and mountains or along the sea-washed shores of this maritime land, three-quarters of which is surrounded by the sea, where the people have always found the foundation of their spiritual truth: 'that you may know how one ought to conduct oneself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.'

Faith and language, peasant and fisherman or sailor—the two primordial, indestructible cells, bound together in the form of a cross, like the lion, the angel, the ox, and the eagle upon the Tetramorph, or again like the four primordial elements, those four so celebrated, inexhaustible sources, flowing abundantly through life and death, ever-flowing springs that sustain a people who are the guardians of one of the most wondrous religions and languages in the world. […]

Saint Kosmas the Aitolos and His Vision for the Greek Nation

By Protopresbyter Fr. George Metallinos

Father Kosmas¹ is one of the best-known ecclesiastical figures of the pre-revolutionary period, even within the sphere of scholarly research,² although his activity and contribution do not primarily belong to the field of scholarship. This has been emphatically underscored by Professor Gerhard Podskalsky, who included Father Kosmas in one of his strictly scholarly works as the sole exception.

Sufficient evidence of his significance for the enslaved Nation is found in the laudatory words spoken about him by the German researcher himself: "An exceptionally popular missionary and teacher of the Nation." He was a characteristic example of a popular preacher who "possessed a religious piety foreign to academic theology" — "His sermons deeply moved the People both from a national and from a religious perspective" — and for this reason they were regarded as "subversive from a sociopolitical perspective."³ Indeed, it is a fact that, in the mouths of the People and in their Songs, the echo of the sermons of this great teacher of the Nation has been preserved.

Saint Kosmas the Aitolos: His Athonite Paschal Procession to the Enslaved

 

By Stelios Koukos

Every second day of Pascha, in the capital of the monastic state of Mount Athos, Karyes, the procession of the icon of the Axion Estin takes place. Following the morning Paschal services of Matins and the Divine Liturgy, celebrated in the magnificent Church of the Protaton, with its famous frescoes, shining like a full moon in its splendor, the great procession of the wonderworking icon of the Axion Estin is held.

The procession is led by the Greek flag, followed by the hieromonks and deacons, who cense the icon with their thuribles. The icon of the great noblewoman of Mount Athos is protected from the weather by a large umbrella, which also serves as an indication that she is a person worthy of great respect.

The chanters of the Protaton also participate in the entire procession, chanting Resurrection hymns throughout its course.

The icon is initially carried by hieromonks, then by monks, and toward the end of the procession, pilgrims from the world, and in our world, are also permitted to carry it as a blessing. In fact, the first year that I carried it myself, the icon had no weight. After several years, the friend with whom I had carried it together revealed to me that he had experienced the same thing. The second year, however, it had weight.

The Most Holy Theotokos as the Restoration of Fallen Adam and the Redemption of Eve (Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos)

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

(Transcribed Sermon delivered at Vespers for the Leavetaking of the Feast in the Church of the Dormition of the Theotokos, Palaio-Panagia, August 22, 2025.)

We celebrate today as well, beloved fathers and brethren, most honorable rulers, the Leavetaking of the feast of the Most Holy Theotokos, specifically the feast of the Dormition of our Panagia, which is a very great feast of the Theotokos. We have the feasts that refer to Christ the Master, which are called the Despotic Feasts, and we also have the feasts that refer to the Most Holy Theotokos, which are called Theometoric Feasts.

Throughout this entire period, from August 1 until today, and tomorrow, when we will celebrate the services of Matins and the Divine Liturgy, we glorify the all-praised name and person of the Most Holy Theotokos. Every day in the holy churches we celebrate and chant the troparia — not only now, but throughout the entire year, with various feasts — and we clergy, the bishops and preachers, each time during the sacred service that we celebrate, try to contemplate some aspect of the personality of the Most Holy Theotokos. And I can say that we never tire of chanting the troparia for our Panagia and speaking about her.

If you consider it, other priests and clergy do this as well, but personally I have been speaking about our Panagia for more than fifty years. And because I have various archives and keep a record each time of what I say, I observe that only rarely do I repeat myself in sermons that I have given on other occasions. You understand, therefore, that our Panagia is a very great person. She is not simply, as we usually say, our mother who cares for us and loves us, but she has an enormously profound theological significance.