Paisios of Mount Athos

Arsenios Eznepidis was born on August 7, 1924, in Pharasa, Cappadocia (modern-day Turkey), during the Greco-Turkish population exchange. As a young man, he served as a radio operator in the Hellenic Army during the Greek Civil War, volunteering for frontline duty to spare families with dependents. In 1950, he arrived at Mount Athos and eventually became a monk. On March 27, 1954, he was tonsured as a Rassophore monk named Averkios, and three years later on March 12, 1957, he received the Small Schema and the monastic name Paisios, honoring a Metropolitan of Caesarea from his native village. Paisios spent significant time at various monasteries and hermitages, including periods at Saint Catherine's Monastery in Sinai from 1962-1964. Health challenges, including lung surgery in 1966, led to his long association with the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian in Souroti near Thessaloniki. By 1979, residing at Panagouda hermitage, Paisios became renowned for his spiritual wisdom and miraculous counsel, spending his days assisting visitors and his nights in prayer, resting only two or three hours each night. He was known for his prophetic utterances, healing miracles, and profound spiritual teachings that touched thousands of lives. Paisios died on July 12, 1994, from cancer, and was buried in Souroti monastery next to Saint Arsenios the Cappadocian, whose biography he authored. The Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate canonized him on January 13, 2015—remarkably swift by ecclesiastical standards. Today, he is widely venerated throughout Eastern Orthodox Christian communities, particularly in Greece, Romania, Russia, Serbia, and Syria. He has been declared patron of Australia, spiritual discernment, anxiety relief, and those displaced by conflict.