Saint Nektarios of Aegina, Metropolitan of Pentapolis
Metropolitan of Pentapolis, wonderworker of Aegina
- Feast day
- November 9
- Lived
- 1846–1920
- Patronage
- Cancer patients and the seriously ill
Saint Nektarios endured decades of slander in silence and is today the saint most invoked in the Orthodox world by those suffering from cancer.
Life
Born in Silivria in Thrace, he worked as a shop boy and schoolteacher before being ordained and rising to Metropolitan of Pentapolis in the Patriarchate of Alexandria. Envy among the clergy produced accusations of ambition; he was dismissed without trial and without explanation, and never once defended himself or accused anyone.
Returning to Greece destitute, he served as a preacher and then for fifteen years as director of the Rizarios Ecclesiastical School in Athens, where he also quietly did the cleaning work of a gardener the school had dismissed, so the man would not be blamed.
Aegina and glorification
In 1904 he founded the Holy Trinity convent on Aegina, where he spent his last years. He died in an Athens hospital in a pauper's ward; when his sweater was placed on the bed of a paralysed man in the next bed, the man got up and walked.
His relics remained fragrant and incorrupt for years, and he was formally glorified in 1961. His hymn Agni Parthene, which he composed, is sung across the Orthodox world.