1. An event that shows how he received hidden calls for the salvation of others, and which recalls the great Apostle of the nations, Paul the Apostle, who heard the voice of the Macedonian: “Come over and help us.”
The ever-memorable Elder, while he was in his cell at the monastery in Patmos, heard a certain Helen from Ikaria calling him to hasten and save her. He did not lose time; he went down to the harbor of the island and, as if by a miracle, found a sailing vessel departing for Ikaria.
Battered by the sea, he arrived at his destination and immediately asked whether there was a certain widow named Helen, and was informed that a few days earlier she had lost her husband. At once he asked to learn the road that led to the house of the widow. He did not seek to rest his weary body, but hastened without delay — the voice of Helen troubled him. As he was walking, he saw a frantic woman running in despair; he called her by name and said to her: “Helen, where are you going? I have come for you.” And the grieving woman came to herself, saw the spiritual father, thought about what she was about to do, and confessed that at that very moment she was going to drown herself in the sea. The woman was saved; the miracle took place, as she herself told me.
His constant journeys and his labors in hearing the confessions of his spiritual children are not easy to record. He ran with all missionary zeal to find and save the lost. His concern for sinners in general shows him to be a good shepherd, an imitator of Christ the Chief Shepherd.
2. A miracle of the healing of a woman with a tumor in Piraeus.
In Piraeus, a woman from Patmos, Niki Trachanidou, née Gambieraki, had heard of his holiness and had obtained oil from the vigil lamp that burned at the Elder’s tomb, and she kept it with reverence in her icon corner. She used to gather certain devout women in her home to read religious books and chant the Supplicatory Canon to the Most Holy Theotokos. One of these women, Mrs. Helen Sakali, a resident of Keratsini, had a tumor on the sole of her foot, and the doctors advised surgery, otherwise the tumor would become malignant and she would risk losing her foot. The woman from Patmos gave her the remedy — the elder’s oil — and, chanting the Apolytikion,* anointed the tumor, which within a few days subsided. She returned to the doctors, and they did not believe that the tumor had disappeared. They affirmed that indeed some miracle had occurred. Then she confessed that she had been healed by the oil of a sanctified man, Elder Amphilochios of Patmos. A few days after the healing she saw the Elder in a dream, and he said to her:
“I helped you and you were healed. Now you must go to Patmos, where I am, and thank me, and say that I am a Saint, because they do not believe in my holiness.”
Sister Euphrosyne assured me that when she went to venerate the Elder’s tomb, she perceived such a fragrance that in her conscience he stands as a patristic saint, who indeed has been sanctified.
3. Elder Amphilochios saved a woman from being struck by lightening.
Another of his spiritual children, Mrs. M.K., told me that in November 1954 she visited the elder on Patmos, and he hosted her at the Sacred Coenobium of the Annunciation. For two days she stayed in the tower of the monastery; on the third day the ever-memorable elder insisted that she no longer sleep in that place, and so it was done. That very night lightning struck exactly where the bed was. Can the saving of a person through the insistence of a spiritual father be considered a mere coincidence?
Note:
* Apolytikion: "Νεκταρίου τον Φίλον και Πατμίων το καύχημα δεύτε πάντες, τιμήσωμεν, ορφανών τον προστάτην, μαναζόντων το στήριγμα. Αμφιλόχιε όσιε, πρέσβευε Χριστώ τω Θεώ υπέρ των ψυχών ημών." (“Friend of Nektarios and pride of the people of Patmos, come, let us all honor him, the protector of orphans, the support of those in struggle. O Venerable Amphilochios, intercede with Christ God for our souls.”)
Source: Archimandrite Pavlos Nikitaras, Elder Amphilochios, pp. 87–91, 6th edition, 1999, published by the Sacred Cell of the Holy Theodores, Mount Athos. Translation by John Sanidopoulos.
4. A Miracle of Saint Amphilochios Makris after the Exhumation of His Sacred Relics
Nun I. recounts:
In the summer of the year 1969, before our blessed Elder fell asleep, while I was at our monastery, I went up one afternoon to his tower. I found him seated in his chair, with the prayer rope in his hand, surely giving and receiving messages from Heaven.
He received me with joy and much fatherly love and listened to the problems that concerned me in fulfilling my duties at the institution. With love and interest he spoke to me about our children and especially about our Most Reverend Bishop.
“I think about him very much,” he told me. “You are doing a lofty work, relieving such a person in his struggle.”
At one moment, while we were speaking, a certain sister from the sewing room came up.
“Elder,” she said, “I brought you a cap to wear.”
With joy he thanked her, and she received his blessing and left. When we were alone, he put on the sister’s cap, and the old one he had removed he gave to me, saying:
“Take it, so that you may have it as a blessing.”
I kissed his hand and took it, deeply moved. It seemed unbelievable to me! I was holding in my hands a treasure! Leaving later for my cell, I carried with me this priceless possession. It was something from him, which his love had offered to me, the unworthy.
I felt my soul filled with gratitude.
Ten years passed. In August 1980, one evening, the brother of my daughter-in-law, Mr. Th. K., with his wife, as they were getting out of a taxi outside their house, their little son Michalakis, then 4 years old, slipped from their hands and, running to cross to the opposite side, was hurled by a truck into the roadside ditch and onto the roots of the trees.
The child, almost lifeless, in the arms of his grandfather, the physician M.K., was taken to the hospital and from there urgently flown via Kos to the KAT hospital in Athens. The struggle was between life and death. The first days passed, and the child continued to live, but like a plant.
But my thoughts were fixed on the cap of our blessed Elder. I believed almost with certainty that it had been given to me for a purpose and that it absolutely had to reach the child.
I waited, however, for an opportunity for safe transport.
Meanwhile, in September, the translation of his relics took place, and in a wondrous way a small fragment of a relic from his sanctified skull came into my hands.
Now my treasure was complete. My conviction was strengthened. There would certainly be results. Indeed, returning to Kalymnos with the holy relic in my hands, I learned that the nun Isidora was departing for medical examinations in Athens.
To her I entrusted the cap, the holy relic, and also water sanctified from the washing of the sacred bones, and she carried them.
That same afternoon, accompanied by my daughter-in-law M.K., they went to the KAT hospital, and in a deeply moving atmosphere, with the mother kneeling before her child’s bed, the help was given.
The sister placed the cap on the child’s head, made the sign of the cross over him with the holy relic, placed it upon him, then anointed him with the sanctified water and prayed.
Later the sister departed, taking with her the sacred items she had brought. But the grace remained and brought wondrous results: the next morning the child had his first awareness of his surroundings. He opened his eyes and cried out, “Mama!” The miracle had taken place!
Source: From the book of Metropolitan Ignatios Triantis of Berat, Avlon, and Kanina, Saint Amphilochios, the Elder of Patmos (1889–1970): Life, Counsels, Testimonies, published by the Holy Monastery of the Annunciation, Patmos. Translation by John Sanidopoulos.
5. A Serbian woman confesses her sins to the spirit of Elder Amphilochios
Patmos. 2019. Summer.
A faithful Orthodox Christian woman from Serbia arrives at the Monastery of the Annunciation on Patmos. She has a deep need to find a spiritual father, an elder, and to make confession. She venerates in the church, lights a candle, and kneels in the reverent stillness of the holy place. She prays. She hopes.
Suddenly, from a high place where the cells of the sisters are located, she sees a priest descending with dignity. She bows with reverence and kisses his hand. The priest gives off a strong and unfamiliar fragrance, so much so that she is troubled: “Is it possible for priests to wear expensive perfumes?” she thinks.
Yet she is struck by the gentleness of his gaze and his sweet, childlike, guileless smile. She decides to speak to him. She humbly confesses everything to him. Some things he already knows and helps her. When she finishes, through tears of compunction and devotion, she receives his blessing and the forgiveness of the Mystery.
As soon as she lifts her head, he is gone.
At that moment, a nun comes toward her.
“Excuse me,” she asks, “did you see the priest who was just here?”
“There is no priest here,” comes the reply. “The monastery’s confessor is not with us today. All the pilgrims have also left. We were waiting for you so we could close.”
“But what are you saying?” the devout woman replies. “The priest who heard my confession, who was with me all this time, to whom I opened my soul…”
The nun understands something.
“What did this elder look like?” she asks.
Certain now, after hearing the description, she shows her a photograph of Saint Amphilochios of Patmos.
“Is this the elder you saw?”
“Yes,” she answers.
“He is Saint Amphilochios — the true elder of our monastery — who, although he dwells in the heavenly tabernacles, often comes to earth to be with us. Nothing is impossible for him.”
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
The ever-memorable Elder, while he was in his cell at the monastery in Patmos, heard a certain Helen from Ikaria calling him to hasten and save her. He did not lose time; he went down to the harbor of the island and, as if by a miracle, found a sailing vessel departing for Ikaria.
Battered by the sea, he arrived at his destination and immediately asked whether there was a certain widow named Helen, and was informed that a few days earlier she had lost her husband. At once he asked to learn the road that led to the house of the widow. He did not seek to rest his weary body, but hastened without delay — the voice of Helen troubled him. As he was walking, he saw a frantic woman running in despair; he called her by name and said to her: “Helen, where are you going? I have come for you.” And the grieving woman came to herself, saw the spiritual father, thought about what she was about to do, and confessed that at that very moment she was going to drown herself in the sea. The woman was saved; the miracle took place, as she herself told me.
His constant journeys and his labors in hearing the confessions of his spiritual children are not easy to record. He ran with all missionary zeal to find and save the lost. His concern for sinners in general shows him to be a good shepherd, an imitator of Christ the Chief Shepherd.
2. A miracle of the healing of a woman with a tumor in Piraeus.
In Piraeus, a woman from Patmos, Niki Trachanidou, née Gambieraki, had heard of his holiness and had obtained oil from the vigil lamp that burned at the Elder’s tomb, and she kept it with reverence in her icon corner. She used to gather certain devout women in her home to read religious books and chant the Supplicatory Canon to the Most Holy Theotokos. One of these women, Mrs. Helen Sakali, a resident of Keratsini, had a tumor on the sole of her foot, and the doctors advised surgery, otherwise the tumor would become malignant and she would risk losing her foot. The woman from Patmos gave her the remedy — the elder’s oil — and, chanting the Apolytikion,* anointed the tumor, which within a few days subsided. She returned to the doctors, and they did not believe that the tumor had disappeared. They affirmed that indeed some miracle had occurred. Then she confessed that she had been healed by the oil of a sanctified man, Elder Amphilochios of Patmos. A few days after the healing she saw the Elder in a dream, and he said to her:
“I helped you and you were healed. Now you must go to Patmos, where I am, and thank me, and say that I am a Saint, because they do not believe in my holiness.”
Sister Euphrosyne assured me that when she went to venerate the Elder’s tomb, she perceived such a fragrance that in her conscience he stands as a patristic saint, who indeed has been sanctified.
3. Elder Amphilochios saved a woman from being struck by lightening.
Another of his spiritual children, Mrs. M.K., told me that in November 1954 she visited the elder on Patmos, and he hosted her at the Sacred Coenobium of the Annunciation. For two days she stayed in the tower of the monastery; on the third day the ever-memorable elder insisted that she no longer sleep in that place, and so it was done. That very night lightning struck exactly where the bed was. Can the saving of a person through the insistence of a spiritual father be considered a mere coincidence?
Note:
* Apolytikion: "Νεκταρίου τον Φίλον και Πατμίων το καύχημα δεύτε πάντες, τιμήσωμεν, ορφανών τον προστάτην, μαναζόντων το στήριγμα. Αμφιλόχιε όσιε, πρέσβευε Χριστώ τω Θεώ υπέρ των ψυχών ημών." (“Friend of Nektarios and pride of the people of Patmos, come, let us all honor him, the protector of orphans, the support of those in struggle. O Venerable Amphilochios, intercede with Christ God for our souls.”)
Source: Archimandrite Pavlos Nikitaras, Elder Amphilochios, pp. 87–91, 6th edition, 1999, published by the Sacred Cell of the Holy Theodores, Mount Athos. Translation by John Sanidopoulos.
4. A Miracle of Saint Amphilochios Makris after the Exhumation of His Sacred Relics
Nun I. recounts:
In the summer of the year 1969, before our blessed Elder fell asleep, while I was at our monastery, I went up one afternoon to his tower. I found him seated in his chair, with the prayer rope in his hand, surely giving and receiving messages from Heaven.
He received me with joy and much fatherly love and listened to the problems that concerned me in fulfilling my duties at the institution. With love and interest he spoke to me about our children and especially about our Most Reverend Bishop.
“I think about him very much,” he told me. “You are doing a lofty work, relieving such a person in his struggle.”
At one moment, while we were speaking, a certain sister from the sewing room came up.
“Elder,” she said, “I brought you a cap to wear.”
With joy he thanked her, and she received his blessing and left. When we were alone, he put on the sister’s cap, and the old one he had removed he gave to me, saying:
“Take it, so that you may have it as a blessing.”
I kissed his hand and took it, deeply moved. It seemed unbelievable to me! I was holding in my hands a treasure! Leaving later for my cell, I carried with me this priceless possession. It was something from him, which his love had offered to me, the unworthy.
I felt my soul filled with gratitude.
Ten years passed. In August 1980, one evening, the brother of my daughter-in-law, Mr. Th. K., with his wife, as they were getting out of a taxi outside their house, their little son Michalakis, then 4 years old, slipped from their hands and, running to cross to the opposite side, was hurled by a truck into the roadside ditch and onto the roots of the trees.
The child, almost lifeless, in the arms of his grandfather, the physician M.K., was taken to the hospital and from there urgently flown via Kos to the KAT hospital in Athens. The struggle was between life and death. The first days passed, and the child continued to live, but like a plant.
But my thoughts were fixed on the cap of our blessed Elder. I believed almost with certainty that it had been given to me for a purpose and that it absolutely had to reach the child.
I waited, however, for an opportunity for safe transport.
Meanwhile, in September, the translation of his relics took place, and in a wondrous way a small fragment of a relic from his sanctified skull came into my hands.
Now my treasure was complete. My conviction was strengthened. There would certainly be results. Indeed, returning to Kalymnos with the holy relic in my hands, I learned that the nun Isidora was departing for medical examinations in Athens.
To her I entrusted the cap, the holy relic, and also water sanctified from the washing of the sacred bones, and she carried them.
That same afternoon, accompanied by my daughter-in-law M.K., they went to the KAT hospital, and in a deeply moving atmosphere, with the mother kneeling before her child’s bed, the help was given.
The sister placed the cap on the child’s head, made the sign of the cross over him with the holy relic, placed it upon him, then anointed him with the sanctified water and prayed.
Later the sister departed, taking with her the sacred items she had brought. But the grace remained and brought wondrous results: the next morning the child had his first awareness of his surroundings. He opened his eyes and cried out, “Mama!” The miracle had taken place!
Source: From the book of Metropolitan Ignatios Triantis of Berat, Avlon, and Kanina, Saint Amphilochios, the Elder of Patmos (1889–1970): Life, Counsels, Testimonies, published by the Holy Monastery of the Annunciation, Patmos. Translation by John Sanidopoulos.
5. A Serbian woman confesses her sins to the spirit of Elder Amphilochios
Patmos. 2019. Summer.
A faithful Orthodox Christian woman from Serbia arrives at the Monastery of the Annunciation on Patmos. She has a deep need to find a spiritual father, an elder, and to make confession. She venerates in the church, lights a candle, and kneels in the reverent stillness of the holy place. She prays. She hopes.
Suddenly, from a high place where the cells of the sisters are located, she sees a priest descending with dignity. She bows with reverence and kisses his hand. The priest gives off a strong and unfamiliar fragrance, so much so that she is troubled: “Is it possible for priests to wear expensive perfumes?” she thinks.
Yet she is struck by the gentleness of his gaze and his sweet, childlike, guileless smile. She decides to speak to him. She humbly confesses everything to him. Some things he already knows and helps her. When she finishes, through tears of compunction and devotion, she receives his blessing and the forgiveness of the Mystery.
As soon as she lifts her head, he is gone.
At that moment, a nun comes toward her.
“Excuse me,” she asks, “did you see the priest who was just here?”
“There is no priest here,” comes the reply. “The monastery’s confessor is not with us today. All the pilgrims have also left. We were waiting for you so we could close.”
“But what are you saying?” the devout woman replies. “The priest who heard my confession, who was with me all this time, to whom I opened my soul…”
The nun understands something.
“What did this elder look like?” she asks.
Certain now, after hearing the description, she shows her a photograph of Saint Amphilochios of Patmos.
“Is this the elder you saw?”
“Yes,” she answers.
“He is Saint Amphilochios — the true elder of our monastery — who, although he dwells in the heavenly tabernacles, often comes to earth to be with us. Nothing is impossible for him.”
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
