The Monk Theophanes the New

Commemorated on August 19

The Monk Theophanes the New, a native of the city of Ianina, lived during the XV Century. He accepted monastic tonsure in early youth on Holy Mount Athos at the Dokhiar monastery. He was afterwards chosen hegumen of this monastery because of his lofty virtuousness. In saving his own nephew from the Turks, who by force had taken Constantinople and there established the Moslem religion, Saint Theophanes with the help of God set free the youth, hid him in his own monastery and gave him blessing for monastic tonsure. The brethren, fearing revenge on the part of the Turks, began grumbling against the saint, and he, not wanting to be the cause of discord and dissensions, he humbly withdrew with his nephew from the Dokhiar monastery, quit the Holy Mountain and went off to Beroeia. There, in the skete monastery of Saint John the Forerunner, Saint Theophanes built a church in honour of the MostHoly Mother of God. And as monks began to gather, he gave them a common-life monastic rule. When the monastery flourished, the saint withdrew to a new place at Nausa, where he made a church in honour of the holy Archangels and founded there also a monastery. To the very end of his days Saint Theophanes did not forsake guiding the monks of both monasteries, both regarding him as their father in common. In a revelation foreseeing his own end and giving his flock a final farewell, the saint died in extreme old age at the Beroeia monastery. Even during life the Lord had glorified his humble saint: saving people from destruction, he quelled a tempest by prayer, and converted sea water into drinking water. And the saint even after death never has forsaken people with his graced help.