St. Porphyrios

St. Porphyrios was born Evangelos Bairaktaris on 7 February 1906 in the Greek village of Saint John of Euboea, into a poor farming family. Drawn from boyhood to the monastic life, he ran away to Mount Athos at about the age of twelve and became a monk there, though ill health later obliged him to leave the Holy Mountain. Ordained a priest, he served for decades as a confessor and chaplain, most notably at a polyclinic in Athens.

From his youth he was granted unusual spiritual gifts of discernment and healing, seeming to read the hearts and even the hidden ailments of those who came to him, yet he wore these gifts with deep humility and constant self-effacement, pointing all to the love of Christ. His warm and gentle counsel, later gathered in the book Wounded by Love, has touched many. He died on Mount Athos, to which he had returned, on 2 December 1991. The Ecumenical Patriarchate canonized him in 2013, and his memory is kept on that day.