Founding the Evangelismos Convent

In 1937 Amphilochios founded the women’s Holy Monastery of the Annunciation (Evangelismos) on the western side of Patmos — a community that began, under the Italian occupation, as a workshop for knitting and weaving that doubled as a covert school of Greek, and grew into the sisterhood that has carried his spirit into the twenty-first century. This file follows the founding and the community he formed.

Tradition: Greek Orthodox (20th-c. elder; Ecumenical Patriarchate)

From Workshop to Convent

The Convent of the Annunciation grew out of a practical work. During his abbacy of the Monastery of St. John the Theologian (from 1935), Amphilochios established on the western side of Patmos a workshop for knitting and weaving, a trade for the young women of the island (the Sisterhood of the Holy Monastery of the Annunciation, Patmos, biography of the elder, on the origins of the convent as a handicraft workshop; OrthodoxWiki, Amphilochios [Makris] of Patmos, following the sisterhood). This workshop was, from the beginning, more than a source of livelihood. Under the Italian administration, which was suppressing Greek-language education, it served also as a cover under which the children of the island could be taught Greek — a purpose treated fully in the section on the occupation (see Patmos Under Italian Rule). And it was, in the elder’s intention, the nucleus of a monastic community: the young women gathered around the work and around their confessor began to form a sisterhood.

The formal founding of the Holy Monastery of the Annunciation (Evangelismos) is generally dated to 1937 (Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, Synodal Act for the canonization of St. Amphilochios, 29 August 2018, on his founding “the women’s Monastery of the Annunciation in 1937”). The site the monastery of St. John ceded for the purpose lay on the western part of the island, and the community was dedicated to the Annunciation of the Theotokos — the feast of the angel’s greeting to the Virgin, the archetype of the consecrated woman’s fiat, “be it unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38), a fitting patronage for a women’s monastery formed to bring the Gospel of love to birth in ordinary life (the Sisterhood of the Annunciation, biography, on the dedication and the site; Ecumenical Patriarchate, Synodal Act, 2018). [Disputed: whether 1937 marks the informal beginning (the workshop) or the formal canonical establishment of the convent. The workshop began under his abbacy (from 1935); the sisterhood’s account and the shorter secondary summaries variously date the “founding” to the mid-1930s or specifically to 1937, with the Patriarchate’s own summary giving 1937. The distinction is between the seed and the formally constituted monastery; 1937 is the conventional date and is followed here.]

The Interruption of Exile

The founding was immediately interrupted. When the Italian authorities discovered that the workshop was also a school of Greek, they moved against Amphilochios, exiling him from Patmos to mainland Greece in 1937 (see Abbot of Patmos and Patmos Under Italian Rule). The infant community was thus left, in its first years, without the presence of its founder — a hard beginning that the sisterhood’s own memory does not conceal. Amphilochios was permitted to return to Patmos only in 1939, and thereafter, having declined to resume the abbacy, he gave much of his energy to the care and formation of the convent (the Sisterhood of the Annunciation, biography, on his return in 1939 and his devotion to the convent thereafter; Sanidopoulos, “Elder Amphilochios Makris of Patmos,” 2010). The convent that survives him is therefore the fruit of a founding twice-tried — begun under occupation, orphaned by exile, and re-gathered on his return.

The Sisterhood He Formed

The community Amphilochios formed bore the stamp of his own spirit. It was a working, serving monasticism as much as a contemplative one: the nuns kept the handicrafts, and from the beginning the elder directed their labour outward toward the needy — most conspicuously in the establishment of the orphanage on Rhodes after the war, staffed by his nuns under an abbess (see The Nuns and the Mission). At the same time it was a community centered on prayer, on the liturgical life of Patmos, and on the “religion of love” its founder preached — a sisterhood of joy rather than severity, formed in the image of the gentle confessor who guided it (the Sisterhood of the Annunciation, biography, on the character of the community; see The Gospel of Love and Joy).

The convent has endured. It remains a living monastery on Patmos, home to a substantial sisterhood — the accounts at and after his canonization describe a community of some forty or more nuns — and it is the chief guardian of his memory: the compiler of his biography, the keeper of his letters and counsels, and now the shrine of his relics and the center of his cult (the Sisterhood of the Annunciation, biography and publications; Ecumenical Patriarchate, Synodal Act, 2018; see Glorification 2018). It is no exaggeration to say that Amphilochios’s most concrete legacy is this community of women: through them his spirit was transmitted, his sayings preserved, his charities carried on, and his mission extended even to Africa (see The Nuns and the Mission).

The Annunciation and the Elder’s Spirit

That the convent was dedicated to the Annunciation is fitting beyond the accident of a feast. The Annunciation is the moment at which the Word is received in love and consented to in humility — “be it unto me according to thy word” — and the whole of Amphilochios’s teaching was an invitation to receive the love of God and to bring it to birth in one’s life and in one’s care for others (see The Gospel of Love and Joy). The community named for the Annunciation was to be a place where that reception was lived corporately: in prayer, in work, in the care of orphans, and in the quiet extension of the Gospel. The elder gave his sisters not a rule of severity but a spirit of gladness, and the convent has remained recognizably his (the Sisterhood of the Annunciation, biography; Ware, “The Spiritual Guide in Orthodox Christianity,” in The Inner Kingdom, SVS Press, 2000, on the joy that marked all he touched).

See Also

References

  • The Sisterhood of the Holy Monastery of the Annunciation (Evangelismos), Patmos. Biography and counsels of the Elder Amphilochios Makris. Patmos: Holy Monastery of the Annunciation. (The origins of the convent as a workshop; the exile and re-gathering; the character and endurance of the community.)
  • Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. Synodal Act for the canonization of St. Amphilochios of Patmos, 29 August 2018. (The founding of the Convent of the Annunciation in 1937.)
  • OrthodoxWiki. “Amphilochios (Makris) of Patmos.” (The workshop-convent and the community of nuns.)
  • Ware, Metropolitan Kallistos (of Diokleia). “The Spiritual Guide in Orthodox Christianity.” In The Inner Kingdom (Collected Works, vol. 1). Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2000. (The joy that marked his foundations.)
  • Sanidopoulos, John (Mystagogy Resource Center). “Elder Amphilochios Makris of Patmos,” 2010. (Aggregator translation following the sisterhood; used to locate, not as terminal citation.)
  • Scripture: Luke 1:38 (the Annunciation and the Virgin’s fiat).