The Hermitage of Saint Christodoulos in Evia

Limni is a town and a community in the northwestern part of the island of Evia (Euboea), Greece. At the end of the beach of Limni is the Hermitage of Saint Christodoulos. It is the location where Saint Christodoulos lived the last years of his ascetic life at the end of the 11th century.

Saint Christodoulos was the founder of the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian on Patmos. After pirate raids on Patmos, he fled to Limni in the year 1092, together with Patmos monks and residents. He resided in this cave of Limni until the end of his life in 1093. After his death, monks from Patmos took his relics and transferred them to the island of the Apocalypse.

 

The stay of Saint Christodoulos in Evia was, according to scholarly research, of short duration. There is information that a pious and wealthy resident of Euripos offered his luxurious residence to the Saint, who transformed it into a monastery, although the concerns of the Saint—due to the large property of the monastery on Patmos—required his presence not in the desert but near the world. Moreover, in Evia there has always existed a tradition according to which Saint Christodoulos remained practicing asceticism in a cave at the western edge of the town of Limni (Elymnion).

 

During his stay in Euripos, the Saint composed his “Testament” and his “Codicil” (March 1093). In order for this Testament to have legal force, it was signed by seven officials of the episcopal authority and of the city of Euripos (Halkidos), namely: Leon, presbyter and sakellarios of the city of Euripos; John, presbyter and notary of the see of Euripos; Michael … of the see of Euripos; Basil, the humble deacon … and notary of Euripos; and others.

 

More specifically, Metropolitan John of Rhodes, in his work “Life and Conduct of Our Venerable Father Christodoulos,” recounts the stay and repose of Saint Christodoulos in Euripos, which occurred in the year 1093 A.D., as well as the translation of his holy relic and its transfer to Patmos, writing the following:

 

“And the Venerable One arrives there together with the brotherhood, to that place where the water of the sea flows outward and then recedes again, forming a certain narrow strait of the sea, which the ancients called the Euripos strait.

There, having become the object of admiration for all and having been deemed worthy of the proper honor—as though he were an Angel in a mortal body—he exhorted his flock not to grow weary at the frequent relocations, nor to resist foolishly the will of God, who orders all things in wisdom.

But one of the monks, because he could not endure the hardships nor the harshness and toil of virtue, like Judas among the Twelve he departed from the company of the brethren and replaced that spiritual gathering with a garden, which he rented. And just as the devil entered into Judas and drove him to betrayal, in the same way an evil demon tormented the monk who had separated himself from the brotherhood, and the illness of the faint-hearted brother was reported to the Father.

He, being gentle and without malice, giving way to anger, took the holy Gospel and came in the evening to the one who was raging and beside himself. He read the words of the Holy Spirit for the sick, and immediately the condition of the sufferer improved. The sick man no longer desired to occupy himself with planting trees and watering gardens, but became eager instead for cultivating the soil of virtue, thus returning once again to the flock from which he had wrongly been cut off.

After a short time had passed, he prophesied to those who followed him that he would depart to the Lord; that the Hagarenes would not dwell to the end on the islands; and that his close friend would not neglect them, but that as soon as the turbulence of the sea ceased, they would return again to the spiritual fold.

He therefore asked them to take his dead body with them from that foreign land and to place it in the church for which he had labored greatly.

Having foretold these things to those with whom he associated, and having sanctified them all with farewell words, he delivered his spirit to God on the 16th of March.

At the same time, with the fulfillment of the prophecy and the disappearance of the pirates from the sea by the power of the ruler, his good disciples remembered the prophecy of the virtuous shepherd and prepared to set sail.

But when those who inhabited that land heard that they would be deprived of that precious body, they gathered from the surrounding areas and openly declared that under no circumstances would they allow it. For they thought it foolish and utterly senseless to permit others to carry it away wherever they wished, since he had been for them a savior, a physician, and a healer of every illness. For this reason, they guarded the body strictly.

But the prophecy of the blessed one was not to be proven false. Therefore, when night had advanced, escaping the attention of the guards, they lifted the body onto their shoulders, placed it on a ship, and, having obtained calm seas, arrived at the island. There they disembarked the sacred relic with a solemn procession, praising God and filling the air with fragrance.

And now, whole and incorrupt, the relic lies in the church of the Apostle, and it pours forth streams of miracles; and those who touch it with faith perceive a fragrance of myrrh, and by the touch alone are sanctified and delivered from every bodily affliction.”