Venerable Savvas The Of Kalymnos

Venerable Savvas the New of Kalymnos (born Vasilios) was born in 1862 into a poor family in the village of Herakleitsa in Eastern Thrace. Drawn to monasticism from childhood, at twelve he secretly fled to Mount Athos and entered the skete of Saint Anna. After twelve years there, he made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1890 and was tonsured a monk at the Monastery of Saint George Choziba, where he also learned iconography and Byzantine chant. Ordained a priest, he served at the Patriarchal School of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem and practiced asceticism in the caves of the Choziba wilderness, before living on Patmos and Athos, and spending two years near Saint Nectarios of Aegina. In 1926 he settled at the Convent of All Saints on Kalymnos, where for twenty-two years he served as father-confessor, caring for the poor, widows, and orphans, painting icons, and laboring physically to the end of his life so as not to eat bread without work. He reposed on March 25 (April 7), 1948; witnesses reported his soul ascending. When his relics were uncovered in 1957 they gave off a miraculous fragrance. He was glorified by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople on February 19, 1992. His feast is kept March 25 (April 7), and also the Fifth Sunday of Great Lent.