The Civil Registry Death Record of Saint Nektarios

The Civil Registry Death Record of Saint Nektarios:
The Celebration of the Translation of His Relics and the Construction of His Church on Aegina

Estia, 
Friday, November 9, 2018

By Eleutherios G. Skiadas

“A Saint Among Us” was the common sentiment and customary expression of the faithful when, in 1961, the Ecumenical Patriarchate canonized Metropolitan Nektarios of Pentapolis, known in the world as Anastasios Kefalas (October 1, 1846 – November 9, 1920). And rightly so, since many were still living who had known him, had conversed with him, and had heard his teachings or spiritual counsel. Moreover, the fact that the likeness of a Saint had been preserved in photographs was an additional reason for the strange feelings this evoked.

Yet long before the decision of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, it was the faithful themselves — the people bearing the name of Christ — who had already accorded him the honors of a saint. Apart from Aegina, where he ended his earthly life and left behind blessed memories, his reputation had spread throughout the entire country. For this reason, at the initiative of the people of Aegina, he was already being commemorated as a Saint during the 1940s and 1950s. In Athens, on the very day of his repose, services were held at the Church of the Holy Unmercenaries in Thissio and at the Church of Saint Eleutherios in Pedion tou Areos.

The First Ecumenical Synod: Description and Significance (St. Nektarios of Aegina)

The First Ecumenical Synod: Description and Significance

By St. Nektarios, Metropolitan of Pentapolis

Arius

Arius was born in Libya around the middle of the third century A.D. He studied in Alexandria and became a follower of Origen, of Meletius, and of Lucian the Presbyter, head of the Antiochian School. His broad education, his philosophical training, and his skill in the knowledge of the divine Scriptures made him very well known, while his grave appearance, his somewhat proud manners, his imposing stature, and his handsome countenance inspired in all respect and sympathy. At first, after leaving Meletius, he was ordained deacon of the Church of Alexandria by its Bishop Peter.

From this period already there appears the strength of his character and his persistence in his convictions. Later, when Peter of Alexandria denounced the associates of Meletius and did not accept their baptism, Arius rose up for the first time, reproaching what had been done and protesting against this measure of his Bishop. Consequently, he was expelled from Alexandria. But afterwards, when the mild-mannered Achillas succeeded the deceased Peter, Arius, having asked forgiveness, was received back into the Church, and in the year 312 was ordained Presbyter.

The Reasons for the Anger of Westerners Against Photios (An Article by St. Nektarios of Aegina)

Introduction

By John Sanidopoulos

The following article titled The Reasons for the Anger of Westerners Against Photios was written in 1897 and published in the Thracian Yearbook by Metropolitan Nektarios Kephalas of Pentapolis (later Saint Nektarios of Aegina), at a time when he was Director of the Rizarios Ecclesiastical School in Athens and actively engaged in the formation of Orthodox clergy. The work belongs to the genre of Orthodox theological–historical apologetics and was composed as a systematic exposition of Orthodox ecclesiology through the lens of the Photian controversy.

Nektarios wrote in a period marked by intensified Roman Catholic missionary and apologetic activity in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans, as well as renewed debates over papal primacy, synodal authority, and the legitimacy of the filioque. In response, Greek Orthodox theology of the late nineteenth century sought to articulate its identity with clarity and historical grounding. Saint Photios the Great emerged in this context as a paradigmatic figure: defender of synodal governance, guardian of the unchanged Creed, and representative of the Eastern understanding of primacy as one of honor rather than universal jurisdiction.

Saint Nektarios the Wonderworker of Aegina in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

Saint Nektarios is considered by all the faithful of the Orthodox Church as one of its most beloved saints. Not only because God performs numerous miracles through him every day – “healings flow forth everywhere” and “abundant healings of the sick flow forth miraculously every day with the grace of God,” according to the well-known late elder hymnographer Gerasimos Mikragiannanitis – but also because he is a Saint of our time, “the Saint of the twentieth century,” and indeed no less than the other great holy hierarchs of the Church who lived in earlier times. And this means that with Saint Nektarios, on the one hand, we feel the grace of God abundantly, mainly through his holy relics, which are understood as a “fountain of healings” and “diffusing a heavenly scent and a divine fragrance to all,” on the other hand, we receive an answer to the reasonable question that is posed: “why do we not have great saints today?” The old Hymnographer therefore points out this equality of Saint Nektarios with the previous great saints, even giving the explanation: Nektarios tried to follow in the footsteps of the ancient saints, with the purity of his life, that is, in reality to live according to the gospel of Christ. “By the light of your works, you manifest the light of the gospel, father, wondrously to all the people." “You followed, Nektarios, the footsteps of the ancient high priests of Christ, with the purity of your life, and you appeared equal to them and a partaker of their glory.”

An Eyewitness Account of the Translation of the Relics of Saint Nektarios

By Archimandrite Timotheos Kalaberidis

I came to the Monastery in October 1952, at the age of 55. The following year – specifically on September 2, 1953 – the Translation of the Sacred Relics of Saint Nektarios took place.

The translation, as it was decided in the summer, took place after dusk. It would have been 8-9, it was basically night. We had no electricity. We worked with lamps with petrol oil. Everyone, all around, with lit candles and lamps. At the beginning, the service was read. After we took out the holy relics, we placed them in basins. We washed them with rosewater and other perfumes. Some relics had the cloth stuck to them. We cleaned them. We did a Pannychida and placed them in the church for veneration. The fragrance that emitted all around cannot be described. What a thing that was! Amazing! We placed them in the middle of the church, the skull and the rest of the relics. We also put there the hierarchal miter, the staff and the dikirion and trikirion. People passed by and kissed them with emotion. The Bishop told me and Father Amphilochios Makris to take care of the decorum of the relics.

When Saint Dionysios of Zakynthos Welcomed Saint Nektarios to Aegina

Monastery of Saint Menas in Aegina

When Saint Nektarios (+ 1920) went to Aegina and was climbing the hill to go to his Monastery, where he settled permanently, he met Saint Dionysios of Aegina (+ 1622) who appeared to him on the way. He, as is known, was once Bishop of Aegina and now his relics are preserved intact in Zakynthos. In Aegina, the chapel and his cell are still preserved. He practiced asceticism there, when he was Bishop of Aegina.

"Come, Nektarios," he said to him. "I am waiting for you." Behind him, however, stood a soldier. Nektarios asked Saint Dionysios:

"And who is this?"

"It is Menas," he answered. "He also lives here."

Saint Nektarios, the Most Beloved of Saints

By Archimandrite Ananias Koustenis

Today we celebrate our much-loved and popular Saint Nektarios, Bishop of Pentapolis, the Wonderworker, the Myrrhgusher and our protector.

On this day, September 3, 1953, there took place in Aegina, the island, the translation of the sacred and grace-flowing relic of our Saint, where he had been buried, in his Monastery. And since then, every year, on September 3, our Church celebrates this memory and festivity. And she finds an opportunity and an occasion to glorify God and to honor the Saint and to show his love, his miracles and everything else that this great and wonderworking hierarch of the Church and father and teacher offers to our country and to the world, who, with his infinite miracles, became a doctor without borders.

And as the modest Synaxarion of September 3 says, "and he reaches everywhere." The Saint reaches out everywhere and heals.

The Special Bond Between Saint Nektarios and Saint Amphilochios

1. When Saint Nektarios built the monastery for his spiritual daughters in Aegina, a newly ordained young deacon would regularly come and officiate with him; this was the future Elder Amphilochios Makris, who at the time was a spiritual child of Saint Nektarios. Saint Nektarios discerned the holiness of Amphilochios and that the Holy Spirit dwelt within him. He had revealed this to the nuns of the monastery, when they asked Saint Nektarios why he allowed a young man to come and liturgize with him and commune the nuns, since the monastery was avaton to men, that is, no man was allowed on the grounds of the monastery except their elderly spiritual father, who also allowed only Elder Amphilochios Makris and Elder Philotheos Zervakos. The Saint replied to them that though they had a point in wondering why he allowed this, still "this young man Amphilochios will one day be venerated as a Saint."

January 15, 1889 - The Day Saint Nektarios Was Ordained Metropolitan of Pentapolis

Photo of St. Nektarios taken on the day of his ordination as Metropolitan of Pentapolis.

 

Saint Nektarios was ordained to the priesthood by Patriarch Sophronios IV on March 23rd 1886 in the Patriarchal Church of Saint Savvas. The same year he was awarded with the office of Archimandrite by the Metropolitan of Nubia as mandated by Patriarch Sophronios IV. On the 15th of January in 1889, the titular Metropolitan Neilos of Pentapolis having reposed, the Patriarch of Alexandria Sophronios IV (1798-1899) elevated Archimandrite Nektarios to Metropolitan of Pentapolis.

The Ordination of Saint Nektarios as Metropolitan
 

In Codex 66 of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, and specifically on page 394, there is a handwritten record of the Act of election of the new Metropolitan of Pentapolis, in calligraphic letters according to the custom of the time, covering almost the entire said page. Among other things, we read the following: "At the prompting and with the permission of His All-Holiness and Beatitude the Pope and Patriarch of the great city of Alexandria and all of Africa" there gathered in the Church of Saint Nicholas in Cairo, besides himself, the former Archbishop of Kerkyra Antonios Hariatis and the Archbishop of Sinai Porphyrios Maroudas, and they proceeded to the election of the new Metropolitan of Pentapolis. Three names made up the so-called Triprosopos, i.e. the three candidates from which the new Metropolitan of Pentapolis would be chosen. The aforementioned codex describes the process as follows:

Homily on the Entrance of the Most Holy Theotokos in the Temple (St. Nektarios of Aegina)

The following homily was delivered by Saint Nektarios the Wonderworker, Metropolitan of Pentapolis, during a vigil on November 20/21, 1904, for the feast of the Entrance of the Most Holy Theotokos in the Temple, which took place in the Church of Panagia Kapnikarea in Athens.

"Today" our Holy Church chants "is the prelude of God's pleasure and the proclamation of man's salvation." Glad tidings for humanity, who deeply groaned under the weight of sin and existed under the tyranny of the devil. Glad tidings for all those who by Adam lived and died, for the salvation of the entire human race has been accomplished. The divine promise given to the first-formed held the salvation of the first-formed and their descendants of the world who accepted the Son of the promise.

Saint Nektarios and the Nun Who Was Noetically in Church (St. Ephraim of Katounakia)

Saint Ephraim of Katounakia said the following story about Saint Nektarios:

A young woman went to Saint Nektarios in Aegina to become a nun, let's say, she was a novice, and he said to her:

"My child, be a shepherd, for we have five to ten little sheep: graze them."

"Well, may it be blessed."

The Dental Visitation of Saint Nektarios to Elder Ambrose Lazaris

Elder Ambrose Lazaris (+ 2006) had a special relationship with Saint Nektarios, who had appeared to him several times.

We know of several cases when the Saint and Father Ambrose communicated.

One night, therefore, the Elder told a young priest, who had been his spiritual child from a layman, to go the next day at noon to Spyrou Merkouri Street, where the Elder lived at the time, to take him to the dentist.

Saint Nektarios and the Prophetic Word for Elder Simon Arvanitis

By Monk Zosimos

Panagiotis [the baptismal name of Elder Simon Arvanitis (+ 1988)] visited Mount Athos a few times. When he was young he liked to go on long journeys. Once he started from Athens and walked to Ouranoupolis. There he put his clothes on his back and swam to Mount Athos!

The Elder would later tell George Pantazis that at the age of 16 he went with a friend to Kavsokalyva of Mount Athos.

There the Fathers were gathered and waiting for Metropolitan Nektarios Kephalas to arrive, our well-known Saint Nektarios [the Bishop of Pentapolis and Wonderworker], who would be visiting them.

The Nephew of Saint Nektarios Recalls a Miraculous Rescue by his Uncle

Anastasios Kephalas was the 13th and the youngest child of Haralambos Kephalas, who was the brother of Saint Nektarios. Saint Nektarios was not only an uncle to Anastasios, but a godfather, since it was he who baptized him. Saint Nektarios reposed in Athens on November 8th 1920, and Anastasios, who was 12 years old at the time, was the last living relative to speak with him. Anastasios had a 3 hour conversation with Saint Nektarios on his deathbed.

Below is an excerpt from an interview Manolis Melinos conducted with Anastasios for his book I Spoke With Saint Nektarios, in which Anastasios relates a miracle by his uncle Saint Nektarios on his behalf when he was a soldier in Albania in 1940.

A Previously Unknown Photo of Saint Nektarios Has Been Published - The Tragic Story Behind the Rare Photo

A previously unknown photo of Saint Nektarios has been brought to light by the website Αγιορειτική Φωτοθήκη (Hagiorite Gallery). The photo shows Saint Nektarios as the Metropolitan of Pentapolis (1889-1890) standing next to the seated Patriarch of Alexandria Sophronios IV (1798-1899).

Under the patronage of Patriarch Sophronios of Alexandria, Nektarios went to Athens from Chios to study in 1882; and upon completion of his studies in 1885 he went to serve under the Patriarch in Egypt.

Saint Nektarios was ordained to the priesthood by Patriarch Sophronios IV on March 23rd 1886 in the Patriarchal Church of Saint Savvas. The same year he was awarded with the office of Archimandrite by the Metropolitan of Nubia as mandated by Patriarch Sophronios IV.