Archimandrite Vasileios Gontikakis, a Prominent Athonite Figure and Author, Has Reposed

On September 17, 2025, the former abbot of the Sacred Monastery of Iviron on Mount Athos, Archimandrite Vasileios Gontikakis, passed away at the age of 90. Hospitalized in Thessaloniki since August 27th, after falling and suffering a spinal injury at his monastery before Vespers on the eve of the feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos, Elder Vasileios gave up his spirit to God. On September 18, the funeral service took place, when he was buried in the cemetery of the Monastery of Iviron.

The ceremony was attended by the abbots of the monasteries of Mount Athos, representatives of the Holy Community, representatives of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, as well as the Churches of Greece and Cyprus, along with a large number of spiritual children of Archimandrite Vasileios. He was a major figure of Athonite monasticism, as well as an important scholar and teacher of Orthodox theology.

As Archbishop Hieronymos of Athens and All Greece said about him: "He was an authentic witness to the Orthodox tradition in the modern world, noble and at the same time courageous in matters concerning the Church and society, a truly free and genuine man."

The current abbot of the Sacred Monastery of Iviron is Archimandrite Nathanael, who succeeded Elder Vasileios.

Brief Life of Archimandrite Vasileios Gontikakis

Father Vasileios was born on February 8, 1936 in Heraklion, Crete, the second of eight children of the mathematician and director of the Korais school, Konstantinos Gontikakis. His mother Chryse was from Asia Minor. He studied theology in Athens. He joined the Zoe brotherhood from his student years and became a probationary member. However, he left it shortly after his graduation, influenced by Demetrios Koutroumbis who introduced him to the patristic and liturgical theology of our Church. The other students of Koutroumbis who also left the Zoe are Anastasios Giannoulatos (later Archbishop of Albania), Fr. Eusebios Vittis, Fr. Gregory Hatziemmanouil (of the Koutloumousian Cell of Saint John the Theologian), Christos Yannaras and Panagiotis Nellas.

During a visit to Mount Athos as a fourth-year student in 1958, he met Saint Paisios, with whom he began to correspond, and from then on he loved Mount Athos. After his military service, he became a Small Schema monk at the Monastery of Saint George Epanosifis in Crete and was ordained a deacon and presbyter by Archbishop Eugenios of Crete in 1961. After teaching in Secondary Education for a year, in 1962 he went to Paris for postgraduate studies at Saint Sergius and also at the Theological School of Lyon. At the same time, he was taught iconography by Leonid Ouspensky. However, he did not complete his doctoral thesis, because he was consumed by the desire to leave. After serving for six months in Brussels as a recotr, in 1965 he came to Mount Athos, to the Skete of the Honorable Forerunner under Iviron, to the Hut of the Holy Martyrs James, Dionysios and James, to become a monk near Saint Paisios, who since 1964 had been practicing asceticism in a hut he had built next to the old kyriakon of the Skete. He earned his living from iconography. From 1966, Fr. Gregory Hatziemmanuil also practiced asceticism with him.

In 1968, the Sacred Community of Mount Athos called on Venerable Paisios to man the then idiorrhythmic Monastery of Stavronikita, which had been left with three monks and was half-ruined. He took with him Fr. Vasileios, Gregory and some others, tonsured Fr. Vasileios into the Great Schema and they settled there, with Fr. Vasileios as abbot of the new monastery. The brotherhood grew rapidly in this poor and small monastery, and Fr. Vasileios devoted himself to its restoration, finding money from various sources and doing personal work together with his subordinates. This was also the beginning of our modern renaissance of Mount Athos, since after the coenobiation of Stavronikita, the remaining seven idiorrhythmic monasteries were also converted into coenobiums, while other monasteries were manned with new brotherhoods. The Stavronikita Monastery became a pole of attraction for a multitude of young people and intellectuals, as Fr. Vasileios presented the Orthodox Church and its theology in a lively and attractive way, without the restraints with which they had been associated until then. In the 1980s and 1990s, he was the best-known Athonite voice to the outside world and gave dozens of speeches to large audiences, mainly students and young people.

In 1990, he took over the until then idiorrhythmic Monastery of Iveron, where he was established as abbot by the then Metropolitan of Philadelphia, the current Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, on its feast day, on August 15/28. There he devoted himself with zeal to the revival and reorganization of its monastic life, but also to the publication of many books that highlight its spiritual and cultural heritage, with the collaboration of leading scientists and artists. In 2005, he resigned from the abbotship, handing over the baton to Fr. Nathanael. However, he continued to participate in the life of the brotherhood with the advice that came from his rich spiritual experience and knowledge. During a feast, this year, he had an accident, underwent surgery, but could not withstand the postoperative complications and fell asleep in the Lord on the morning of September 17, 2025, full of joy and divine light.

Because his being had been baptized in the font of Athonite monasticism, he refused twice to be ordained a bishop and to shepherd either the Diocese of Kissamos and Selinos, or that of Leros and Kalymnos. He pioneered many interventions of the Athonite state, working in parallel with Greece to find resources for the restoration of the Athonite institutions. Due to his keen ecclesiastical conscience, he helped the Ecumenical Patriarchate in many and varied ways, so that the lamp of the Phanar would continue to illuminate our unceasing the ecumene, and he never said no when they asked for his help.

He also made a mark in Orthodox theology with his sermons and books (mainly with the first, titled "Eisodikon" or "Hymn of Entry"), presenting it as an experience that comes after much ascetic struggle and through participation in the mysteries, worship and hymnography of our Church. He promoted the Holy Fathers, especially Abba Isaac the Syrian (Iveron Monastery carried out the critical edition of his works) and pointed out their relationship with great philosophers and artists, such as Heraclitus and Dostoevsky, whom he greatly loved. Thus, he built bridges to many restless spirits of our time who connected with him.

Below are a list of his book, all but two of which have appeared in more than one edition, and most translated into English:

Hymn of Entry

A Propos of the Great Council of the Orthodox Church

Beauty and Hesyhia in Athonite Life 

Beauty Will Save the World: An Athonite View

Abba Isaac the Syrian: An Approach to His World

Christian Life as True Marriage

Ecology and Monasticism

Europe and the Holy Mountain

From Heraclitus to Elder Porphyrios

From St Isaac the Syrian to Dostoyevsky

From the Old Adam to the New 

Hagia Sophia: The Light of our History

Hymn of Dismissal: "Now All Things Are Filled With Light"

I Came That They May Have Life, and Have it Abundantly

Institution and Charism in the Orthodox Church

Pindar and the Greeks: From the Ancient World to the New Creation

The Divine Liturgy as a Theophany of the Holy Trinity

The Fayyum Portraits: From the Humanity of Ancient Greece to the Divine-Humanity of the Divine Liturgy

The Health That Conquers Death

The Meaning of Typikon

The Light of Christ Shines Upon All" Through All the Saints

The Parable of the Prodigal Son

The Saint: An Archetype of Orthodoxy

Time and Space on the Holy Mountain 

Imprints
 

Theological Commentary on the Frescoes of the Monastery of Stavronikita

The Holy Mountain and the Education of our People

Beauty and Tranquility in the Athonite State

Liturgical Method

The Light of Christ Shines On All

The King of Glory

The Great Idea of a Small People

Heraclitus: Eternal Glory of Mortals