Section 09: Legacy and Reception

The closing section, surveying St. Nektarios’ place as one of the most beloved and most-invoked saints of the modern Orthodox world and the sources by which his life is known. Aegina has become a major pilgrimage destination; his relics and icons are widely reported to stream myrrh; he is invoked especially against cancer and slander. The two files cover the modern veneration — the pilgrimage, the myrrh-streaming tradition, the global cult — and the biographies and sources, from his own works and the standard Greek Life to the Patriarchal documents and the modern hagiographies, with the methodological care his story requires.

Tradition: Greek Orthodox (canonized 1961)

Contents

File Topic
The Modern Veneration One of the most popular modern saints (“the saint of the century”); Aegina as pilgrimage; the great church and the relics; the myrrh-streaming tradition, pinned to its sources; his patronage against cancer and slander; the global cult and the 2021 film Man of God
Biographies and Sources His own works as primary sources; the standard Greek Life by Titos Matthaiakis (1955) and the life by Augoustinos Kantiotis; the testimony of the Aegina nuns; the modern English Lives; the Patriarchal documents; the discipline of sourcing a saint whose injustice left little record and whose cult transmits a miracle-tradition

How to Use

  • Read The Modern Veneration for the shape and scale of the cult today.
  • Read Biographies and Sources for a sober survey of how his life is known and how this collection has weighed its sources.
  • For the life itself, return to Section 01: Foundations.

Cross-References