On Thursday, October 1, 2026, the Patriarchate of Jerusalem announced with deep sorrow the repose in the Lord of Archimandrite Justin Mamalos, the longtime Abbot and guardian of the Monastery of Jacob’s Well in Nablus, Samaria. He fell asleep in the Lord after a prolonged illness while receiving treatment at the General Hospital of Patras. He was eighty-five years old.
The Patriarchate of Jerusalem remembered him as the renovator of the Holy Shrine of Jacob’s Well and the founder and renovator of the Church of Saint Photini the Samaritan, whose life and many years of service had become inseparably connected with the complete restoration and preservation of the monastery. In its official announcement, the Patriarchate emphasized that Fr. Justin devoted his strength, his labors, and a great part of his life to the restoration, dignity, and protection of the sacred monastery, leaving behind an honorable legacy through which the memory of his offering would remain alive.
Fr. Justin was born Anastasios G. Mamalos in Agios Prokopios of central Kerkyra. His native island remained a deep part of his identity throughout his long life, although almost his entire adult existence would be spent far from it, in the Holy Land. Accounts published over the years differ somewhat concerning the exact year of his arrival there. Some give 1960, while others give 1961; reports following his repose describe him as having arrived at the Holy Places at approximately eighteen years of age and as having served for sixty-eight years as a member of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre. Since these figures are not entirely consistent with one another, it is safer to say that he came to the Holy Land as a young man in the early 1960s and thereafter devoted his life to the service of the Church there.
His own recollections, preserved in interviews published during his lifetime, give a more personal picture of those early years. He served in different parts of the Holy Land before his life became permanently associated with Jacob’s Well. He learned Arabic and English and acquired some knowledge of Hebrew, becoming deeply familiar not only with the Orthodox communities but also with the people and languages of the region in which he lived and ministered.
Jacob’s Well would eventually become the defining place of his life. The ancient well is traditionally associated with the patriarch Jacob and, above all, with the encounter of Christ with the Samaritan Woman, whom the Orthodox Church venerates as Saint Photini. The Church of Saint Photini stands over the well, and for Fr. Justin the shrine was a place of exceptional significance for Christians, while also possessing importance for people of other religious traditions. In one of his own accounts, he described it as a special place for people of Islamic, Jewish, and Orthodox Christian faith.
His connection with Jacob’s Well was also inseparably connected with the memory of the Hieromartyr Philoumenos. Fr. Justin had known Saint Philoumenos personally and regarded him as a friend. When Saint Philoumenos was brutally murdered at Jacob’s Well on November 29, 1979, the future of the monastery became uncertain. The church was closed and the keys were taken to Jerusalem. Fr. Justin later recalled that he did not initially want to become the guardian of the shrine because he feared that he might suffer the same fate as his predecessor. According to his own testimony, however, he eventually accepted the responsibility. In 1980 he took up the guardianship of the Church of Saint Photini at Jacob’s Well.
He described a dream in which he saw himself repairing the church and serving there for many years. He subsequently went to Jerusalem, received the keys, and began the enormous task of putting the damaged shrine back together. From that point onward, the history of Jacob’s Well and the history of Fr. Justin's life became virtually inseparable.
What he inherited was not simply a monastery in need of ordinary maintenance. The shrine had suffered destruction and neglect, and the church itself remained incomplete. Fr. Justin devoted decades to restoring it and bringing the Church of Saint Photini to completion. The Patriarchate of Jerusalem now specifically identifies him as its founder and as the renovator of the Holy Shrine of Jacob’s Well. His achievement was therefore not merely that of a caretaker who preserved what already existed. He rebuilt and transformed the physical presence of the Orthodox shrine and left behind the great church that stands there today.
Accounts describe the magnitude of the undertaking. Fr. Justin sought resources for the restoration with extraordinary persistence, at times describing himself as having gone out to ask for assistance in order to complete the church. A longstanding account concerning the restoration says that he refused a substantial financial offer from Yasser Arafat and instead sought donations for the project himself because of his concern that accepting such money could create a claim upon the shrine. This particular detail is repeated in Greek Orthodox sources, although it should be regarded as a reported recollection rather than independently documented financial history.
The completed Church of Saint Photini became the visible monument to those decades of labor. But the physical restoration of the monastery tells only part of the story. Fr. Justin's guardianship was carried out under conditions of considerable danger, and he repeatedly became the target of violence.
The Patriarchate of Jerusalem remembered him as the renovator of the Holy Shrine of Jacob’s Well and the founder and renovator of the Church of Saint Photini the Samaritan, whose life and many years of service had become inseparably connected with the complete restoration and preservation of the monastery. In its official announcement, the Patriarchate emphasized that Fr. Justin devoted his strength, his labors, and a great part of his life to the restoration, dignity, and protection of the sacred monastery, leaving behind an honorable legacy through which the memory of his offering would remain alive.
Fr. Justin was born Anastasios G. Mamalos in Agios Prokopios of central Kerkyra. His native island remained a deep part of his identity throughout his long life, although almost his entire adult existence would be spent far from it, in the Holy Land. Accounts published over the years differ somewhat concerning the exact year of his arrival there. Some give 1960, while others give 1961; reports following his repose describe him as having arrived at the Holy Places at approximately eighteen years of age and as having served for sixty-eight years as a member of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre. Since these figures are not entirely consistent with one another, it is safer to say that he came to the Holy Land as a young man in the early 1960s and thereafter devoted his life to the service of the Church there.
His own recollections, preserved in interviews published during his lifetime, give a more personal picture of those early years. He served in different parts of the Holy Land before his life became permanently associated with Jacob’s Well. He learned Arabic and English and acquired some knowledge of Hebrew, becoming deeply familiar not only with the Orthodox communities but also with the people and languages of the region in which he lived and ministered.
Jacob’s Well would eventually become the defining place of his life. The ancient well is traditionally associated with the patriarch Jacob and, above all, with the encounter of Christ with the Samaritan Woman, whom the Orthodox Church venerates as Saint Photini. The Church of Saint Photini stands over the well, and for Fr. Justin the shrine was a place of exceptional significance for Christians, while also possessing importance for people of other religious traditions. In one of his own accounts, he described it as a special place for people of Islamic, Jewish, and Orthodox Christian faith.
His connection with Jacob’s Well was also inseparably connected with the memory of the Hieromartyr Philoumenos. Fr. Justin had known Saint Philoumenos personally and regarded him as a friend. When Saint Philoumenos was brutally murdered at Jacob’s Well on November 29, 1979, the future of the monastery became uncertain. The church was closed and the keys were taken to Jerusalem. Fr. Justin later recalled that he did not initially want to become the guardian of the shrine because he feared that he might suffer the same fate as his predecessor. According to his own testimony, however, he eventually accepted the responsibility. In 1980 he took up the guardianship of the Church of Saint Photini at Jacob’s Well.
He described a dream in which he saw himself repairing the church and serving there for many years. He subsequently went to Jerusalem, received the keys, and began the enormous task of putting the damaged shrine back together. From that point onward, the history of Jacob’s Well and the history of Fr. Justin's life became virtually inseparable.
What he inherited was not simply a monastery in need of ordinary maintenance. The shrine had suffered destruction and neglect, and the church itself remained incomplete. Fr. Justin devoted decades to restoring it and bringing the Church of Saint Photini to completion. The Patriarchate of Jerusalem now specifically identifies him as its founder and as the renovator of the Holy Shrine of Jacob’s Well. His achievement was therefore not merely that of a caretaker who preserved what already existed. He rebuilt and transformed the physical presence of the Orthodox shrine and left behind the great church that stands there today.
Accounts describe the magnitude of the undertaking. Fr. Justin sought resources for the restoration with extraordinary persistence, at times describing himself as having gone out to ask for assistance in order to complete the church. A longstanding account concerning the restoration says that he refused a substantial financial offer from Yasser Arafat and instead sought donations for the project himself because of his concern that accepting such money could create a claim upon the shrine. This particular detail is repeated in Greek Orthodox sources, although it should be regarded as a reported recollection rather than independently documented financial history.
The completed Church of Saint Photini became the visible monument to those decades of labor. But the physical restoration of the monastery tells only part of the story. Fr. Justin's guardianship was carried out under conditions of considerable danger, and he repeatedly became the target of violence.
In interviews, Fr. Justin himself stated that there had been thirty-two attempts on his life. A 2018 interview records him giving this figure while describing his nearly four decades of service at the monastery. Later reports likewise repeated the number. Because the figure comes principally from his own testimony and from accounts based upon it, it is best understood as his own account of the attacks he endured rather than as a formally documented tally.
The physical evidence of those attacks remained visible at the monastery. Reports noted that the entrance door of the shrine bore dozens of marks from gunfire and grenade fragments; one account counted fifty-six such holes. Other reports describe attacks involving stones, axes, grenades, and other weapons.
Fr. Justin also recalled one particularly serious incident in 1982. A man whom he identified in his interview as having been involved in the violence surrounding the monastery returned and attacked one of the nuns with an axe, seriously injuring her. He subsequently returned to the monastery, climbing over the wall with a ladder and carrying grenades and the axe with which he had attacked her. Fr. Justin's recollections convey the extraordinary circumstances under which the monastery was maintained during those years.
The danger did not disappear with the passing of time. In August 2021, Fr. Justin again found himself in immediate danger during an attack on the monastery. In a contemporary report published at the time, journalist Maria Giachnakis recounted that Fr. Justin contacted her while under attack and pleaded for assistance, saying that oil was being thrown on him and that the monastery was being set on fire and that his attackers wanted to burn him as well. The report also stated that he had been stoned only days earlier and had previously been hospitalized and abducted, and that he still bore marks from earlier attacks on his head.
That account is especially important because it was recorded during Fr. Justin's lifetime, when these events were actually occurring. It shows that his perseverance at Jacob’s Well was not simply a matter of remaining at a historic monastery for many years. Even in his advanced age he continued to live at a shrine where he had personally experienced violence and where the safety of the monks and nuns could not be taken for granted.
His response to this danger was remarkably consistent. In another interview, he spoke of his determination to remain at the Well as long as God permitted him to do so. His words were simple: he would care for the Well and the church for as long as God allowed him. In a later interview, he declared that he would remain there “until my last breath” and that the Greek presence would remain.
His life at Jacob’s Well was therefore marked by a kind of stubborn fidelity. He had inherited a place wounded by violence and associated with the recent martyrdom of a friend. He feared that he might meet the same fate, yet accepted the keys and returned. He spent decades rebuilding the church and protecting the shrine, even though attacks continued around him. The decision to remain became one of the defining characteristics of his life.
The physical evidence of those attacks remained visible at the monastery. Reports noted that the entrance door of the shrine bore dozens of marks from gunfire and grenade fragments; one account counted fifty-six such holes. Other reports describe attacks involving stones, axes, grenades, and other weapons.
Fr. Justin also recalled one particularly serious incident in 1982. A man whom he identified in his interview as having been involved in the violence surrounding the monastery returned and attacked one of the nuns with an axe, seriously injuring her. He subsequently returned to the monastery, climbing over the wall with a ladder and carrying grenades and the axe with which he had attacked her. Fr. Justin's recollections convey the extraordinary circumstances under which the monastery was maintained during those years.
The danger did not disappear with the passing of time. In August 2021, Fr. Justin again found himself in immediate danger during an attack on the monastery. In a contemporary report published at the time, journalist Maria Giachnakis recounted that Fr. Justin contacted her while under attack and pleaded for assistance, saying that oil was being thrown on him and that the monastery was being set on fire and that his attackers wanted to burn him as well. The report also stated that he had been stoned only days earlier and had previously been hospitalized and abducted, and that he still bore marks from earlier attacks on his head.
That account is especially important because it was recorded during Fr. Justin's lifetime, when these events were actually occurring. It shows that his perseverance at Jacob’s Well was not simply a matter of remaining at a historic monastery for many years. Even in his advanced age he continued to live at a shrine where he had personally experienced violence and where the safety of the monks and nuns could not be taken for granted.
His response to this danger was remarkably consistent. In another interview, he spoke of his determination to remain at the Well as long as God permitted him to do so. His words were simple: he would care for the Well and the church for as long as God allowed him. In a later interview, he declared that he would remain there “until my last breath” and that the Greek presence would remain.
His life at Jacob’s Well was therefore marked by a kind of stubborn fidelity. He had inherited a place wounded by violence and associated with the recent martyrdom of a friend. He feared that he might meet the same fate, yet accepted the keys and returned. He spent decades rebuilding the church and protecting the shrine, even though attacks continued around him. The decision to remain became one of the defining characteristics of his life.
Fr. Justin was also remembered for his concern for the poor. Greek Orthodox sources came to call him “the Father of the Poor.” The title appears repeatedly in accounts of his life and became closely associated with his reputation among the people of the region. Some reports attribute the designation to Yasser Arafat, although that attribution is not independently established by a primary source. What is clear from the repeated accounts is that his ministry was not limited to the walls of the monastery. His concern extended to people living in poverty and difficulty around him.
This aspect of his ministry is significant. Fr. Justin lived for decades in a region marked by political, religious, and social tensions, yet he became known not simply as the guardian of a Greek Orthodox shrine but as a priest who had relationships with the surrounding population. His fluency in Arabic and his long familiarity with local society allowed him to function within the life of the region rather than as someone isolated from it. The title “Father of the Poor” reflects the memory that many people retained of this side of his ministry.
Despite spending nearly all of his adult life in the Holy Land, Fr. Justin never forgot Kerkyra. Greek reports repeatedly emphasize his attachment to Agios Prokopios, his birthplace. In 2019, pilgrims from the Sacred Metropolis of Kerkyra visited Jacob’s Well and met the Archimandrite who had served there since 1980. The meeting brought together two parts of his life that had remained connected despite the enormous distance between them: the island where he was born and the Holy Land to which he had given his life.
His relationship with Saint Philoumenos also remained strong throughout his later years. Fr. Justin repeatedly spoke about the Hieromartyr and about the circumstances of his martyrdom. He knew him personally, succeeded him as guardian of the shrine, and spent the remainder of his life serving at the very place where Saint Philoumenos had been killed. When pilgrims and journalists visited Jacob’s Well, Fr. Justin would speak about his predecessor and show the place where he had suffered and died. Accounts published after Fr. Justin's repose have again highlighted this extraordinary continuity between the two men.
His later years were not free from physical suffering. He underwent major heart surgery in Greece and subsequently returned to the Holy Land to continue his service. Even after such serious health problems, he remained identified with Jacob’s Well and continued to regard the protection of the shrine as his responsibility.
The final illness eventually brought him back to Greece. He was hospitalized at the General Hospital of Patras, where he died on October 1, 2026, after a prolonged illness, at the age of eighty-five. The Patriarchate of Jerusalem immediately announced that arrangements were being made for his body to be returned to the Holy Land so that his funeral service and burial could take place there. At the time of the Patriarchate's initial announcement, the date and place of the funeral had not yet been announced.
There is something deeply fitting in the fact that Fr. Justin's earthly life ended in Greece while his final resting place was to be sought in the Holy Land. He had come from Kerkyra as a young man and spent the greater part of his life at the Holy Places. He became identified with one particular shrine so completely that the history of Jacob’s Well during the final decades of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first cannot easily be told without his name.
For more than four decades, he was the guardian of the place where Christ met the Samaritan Woman. He was also the successor of the Hieromartyr Philoumenos, the man who returned to a shrine from which others had fled, and the priest who undertook the enormous work of restoring the monastery and completing the Church of Saint Photini. He endured threats, attacks, hospitalization, and illness, yet continued to regard the Well as a sacred trust placed in his hands.
His own words perhaps best express the spirit with which he approached that trust: “Many tried to kill me, but I am still here. I will take care of this well and the church, as long as God allows me.”
Now he is no longer there to open the doors of the monastery, receive pilgrims, speak about Saint Philoumenos, or watch over the ancient Well. But the church that he spent decades restoring remains, and the Orthodox presence that he struggled to preserve remains as well. The monastery bears the visible mark of his labor, while the memory of his life remains bound to the place he refused to abandon.
The Patriarchate of Jerusalem, in announcing his repose, spoke of the “precious legacy” he left behind through his labor for the Holy Shrine of Jacob’s Well. That legacy is not simply a building. It is the memory of a monk who gave the greater part of his life to one of the most revered shrines of the Holy Land, who remained there through extraordinarily difficult circumstances, who carried forward the memory of the Hieromartyr Philoumenos, and who sought to preserve the place entrusted to him for those who would come after him.
From Agios Prokopios of Corfu to Nablus, from a young man arriving in the Holy Land to an elderly monk still standing guard over Jacob’s Well, the life of Archimandrite Justin Mamalos was shaped by a single, enduring vocation: to remain faithful to the place and the monastery entrusted to him. He spent his life at the Well, and now he has departed from it only in death.
May his memory be eternal.
Patriarchate of Jerusalem — Official announcement of his repose
Contemporary 2021 account of Fr. Justin's appeal during an attack on Jacob's Well
This aspect of his ministry is significant. Fr. Justin lived for decades in a region marked by political, religious, and social tensions, yet he became known not simply as the guardian of a Greek Orthodox shrine but as a priest who had relationships with the surrounding population. His fluency in Arabic and his long familiarity with local society allowed him to function within the life of the region rather than as someone isolated from it. The title “Father of the Poor” reflects the memory that many people retained of this side of his ministry.
Despite spending nearly all of his adult life in the Holy Land, Fr. Justin never forgot Kerkyra. Greek reports repeatedly emphasize his attachment to Agios Prokopios, his birthplace. In 2019, pilgrims from the Sacred Metropolis of Kerkyra visited Jacob’s Well and met the Archimandrite who had served there since 1980. The meeting brought together two parts of his life that had remained connected despite the enormous distance between them: the island where he was born and the Holy Land to which he had given his life.
His relationship with Saint Philoumenos also remained strong throughout his later years. Fr. Justin repeatedly spoke about the Hieromartyr and about the circumstances of his martyrdom. He knew him personally, succeeded him as guardian of the shrine, and spent the remainder of his life serving at the very place where Saint Philoumenos had been killed. When pilgrims and journalists visited Jacob’s Well, Fr. Justin would speak about his predecessor and show the place where he had suffered and died. Accounts published after Fr. Justin's repose have again highlighted this extraordinary continuity between the two men.
His later years were not free from physical suffering. He underwent major heart surgery in Greece and subsequently returned to the Holy Land to continue his service. Even after such serious health problems, he remained identified with Jacob’s Well and continued to regard the protection of the shrine as his responsibility.
The final illness eventually brought him back to Greece. He was hospitalized at the General Hospital of Patras, where he died on October 1, 2026, after a prolonged illness, at the age of eighty-five. The Patriarchate of Jerusalem immediately announced that arrangements were being made for his body to be returned to the Holy Land so that his funeral service and burial could take place there. At the time of the Patriarchate's initial announcement, the date and place of the funeral had not yet been announced.
There is something deeply fitting in the fact that Fr. Justin's earthly life ended in Greece while his final resting place was to be sought in the Holy Land. He had come from Kerkyra as a young man and spent the greater part of his life at the Holy Places. He became identified with one particular shrine so completely that the history of Jacob’s Well during the final decades of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first cannot easily be told without his name.
For more than four decades, he was the guardian of the place where Christ met the Samaritan Woman. He was also the successor of the Hieromartyr Philoumenos, the man who returned to a shrine from which others had fled, and the priest who undertook the enormous work of restoring the monastery and completing the Church of Saint Photini. He endured threats, attacks, hospitalization, and illness, yet continued to regard the Well as a sacred trust placed in his hands.
His own words perhaps best express the spirit with which he approached that trust: “Many tried to kill me, but I am still here. I will take care of this well and the church, as long as God allows me.”
Now he is no longer there to open the doors of the monastery, receive pilgrims, speak about Saint Philoumenos, or watch over the ancient Well. But the church that he spent decades restoring remains, and the Orthodox presence that he struggled to preserve remains as well. The monastery bears the visible mark of his labor, while the memory of his life remains bound to the place he refused to abandon.
The Patriarchate of Jerusalem, in announcing his repose, spoke of the “precious legacy” he left behind through his labor for the Holy Shrine of Jacob’s Well. That legacy is not simply a building. It is the memory of a monk who gave the greater part of his life to one of the most revered shrines of the Holy Land, who remained there through extraordinarily difficult circumstances, who carried forward the memory of the Hieromartyr Philoumenos, and who sought to preserve the place entrusted to him for those who would come after him.
From Agios Prokopios of Corfu to Nablus, from a young man arriving in the Holy Land to an elderly monk still standing guard over Jacob’s Well, the life of Archimandrite Justin Mamalos was shaped by a single, enduring vocation: to remain faithful to the place and the monastery entrusted to him. He spent his life at the Well, and now he has departed from it only in death.
May his memory be eternal.
Patriarchate of Jerusalem — Official announcement of his repose
Contemporary 2021 account of Fr. Justin's appeal during an attack on Jacob's Well
