Glorification (2017)

On the initiative of the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate under Patriarch Bartholomew, Elder Iakovos Tsalikis was numbered among the saints in November 2017, twenty-six years after his death, with his feast set for 22 November. The glorification was solemnly celebrated at his own Monastery of St. David in Evia in June 2018, with the Patriarch and some thirty bishops.

Tradition: Greek Orthodox (20th-c. elder; glorified 2017)

The Act of the Ecumenical Patriarchate

The Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, meeting under Patriarch Bartholomew, resolved in November 2017 to enter Elder Iakovos Tsalikis into the calendar of the saints, and appointed his commemoration for 22 November (OrthoChristian, “Canonization of Elder Iakovos (Tsalikis)…,” orthochristian.com/112968.html and orthochristian.com/113492.html; Pemptousia, “Elder Iakovos Tsalikis Canonized,” November 2017). [Disputed: popular sources give the synodal date of the glorification variously — some reporting the decision on or announcement of 17 November 2017, others 27 November 2017; the reliable facts, on which the sources agree, are that the Ecumenical Patriarchate glorified him in November 2017 and set his feast on 22 November. The collection reports the month and the feast as secure and flags the exact synodal day as variously given.]

The glorification came as a canonical act of the Church of Constantinople because the Monastery of St. David and the region of Evia fall within the historic jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate — the “New Lands” of northern and Aegean Greece administered by the Church of Greece on the Patriarchate’s behalf — so that it belonged to the Patriarch of Constantinople, as first among the Orthodox primates, to proclaim the new saint. Iakovos was thus glorified by the same Patriarchate, and in the same period, that glorified St. Sophrony of Essex (2019) and other contemporary elders — part of a notable series of glorifications of twentieth-century figures under Bartholomew.

What the Glorification Recognized

In the Orthodox understanding, the glorification did not create Iakovos’s sanctity or certify a biography but recognized and ratified a cult already alive — the testimony of the faithful, expressed in decades of veneration and in the hundreds of reported miracles gathered since his death, that grace was and is at work through him (on this theology of glorification, see the flagship treatment in St. Xenia of Petersburg; on the miracles, The Relics and Reported Miracles). The warrant was the living cult and its fruits: a man revered as holy in his lifetime by the thousands who came to him, whose veneration only intensified at his tomb, and whose intercession was credited with numerous documented wonders. The Church, weighing this testimony, ratified what the faithful had long held — that the humble abbot of the ruined monastery was a saint.

The speed of the recognition — glorification within twenty-six years of death — is itself notable, and reflects both the strength of the cult and the confidence of the Church in a case so recently and richly witnessed. It stands in instructive contrast to the ancient saints of thin and contested attestation whom the repository treats elsewhere: here the Church proceeded not despite the sources but on the strength of an unusually abundant and traceable body of testimony (see The Sources for His Life).

The Liturgical Celebration of 2018

The glorification was solemnly celebrated the following year at Iakovos’s own monastery. On 2–3 June 2018, at the Monastery of Venerable David the Elder in Evia, the proclamation of the new saint was liturgically observed with great solemnity, headed by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and concelebrated by some thirty bishops from the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Churches of Greece and Cyprus (OrthoChristian, “Canonization of St. Iakovos (Tsalikis) of Evia celebrated by Patriarch Bartholomew with 30 bishops,” orthochristian.com/113492.html, on the June 2018 celebration and the thirty concelebrating hierarchs). The presence of the Patriarch himself, at the remote mountain monastery that Iakovos had raised from ruin, and the concelebration of so many hierarchs, marked the entry of the humble abbot into the calendar of the universal Church.

For the celebration, the customary liturgical furniture of a new saint was prepared: an icon of St. Iakovos and a service (akolouthia) with hymnography for his feast — the latter the province of hymnographers such as Haralambos Bousias, who had earlier composed the synaxarion Life (see The Sources for His Life; on the iconography and hymnography, A Contemporary Elder of Evia). From that point the Church has kept his memory liturgically each 22 November.

The Feast

St. Iakovos of Evia is commemorated on 22 November, the day after the feast of the Entrance of the Theotokos on which he reposed (see Repose (1991)); by the older-calendar reckoning the day corresponds to 5 December. His feast is kept above all at the Monastery of St. David, where his relics rest and where the great annual pilgrimage in his honor draws the faithful, and increasingly across the Greek Orthodox world and the diaspora, where his veneration has spread rapidly since his glorification (see A Contemporary Elder of Evia).

See Also

• Repose (1991) — the death on 21 November whose morrow became his feast
• The Relics and Reported Miracles — the cult and miracles that grounded the glorification
• A Contemporary Elder of Evia — the living veneration since 2017
• St. Xenia of Petersburg — the theology of glorification as ratification of a cult
• St. Sophrony of Essex — glorified by the same Patriarchate in the same period

References

• “Canonization of St. Iakovos (Tsalikis) of Evia celebrated by Patriarch Bartholomew with 30 bishops.” OrthoChristian.com, orthochristian.com/113492.html. (The June 2018 celebration at the Monastery of St. David; Patriarch Bartholomew and some thirty concelebrating hierarchs.)
• “Canonization of Elder Iakovos (Tsalikis) to be liturgically celebrated by primates of Constantinople and Greece in early June.” OrthoChristian.com, orthochristian.com/112968.html. (The November 2017 synodal act and the planned June celebration.)
• “Elder Iakovos Tsalikis Canonized.” Pemptousia, pemptousia.com, November 2017. (The glorification by the Ecumenical Patriarchate; the feast of 22 November.)
• “Iakovos of Evia.” Reference summary used to locate the glorification (November 2017) and the feast (22 November; 5 December old calendar); followed to the Patriarchate’s reporting. (Note: the exact synodal day is variously given as 17 or 27 November 2017.)