Repose (1964)

Father Nikephoros reposed on 4 January 1964 at the Saint Barbara Antileprosy Station in Aigaleo, Athens, at the age of seventy-four, after some fifty years lived within the leprosaria of Chios and Athens. His disciple Eumenios, who had attended him for seven years, was with him at the end and composed his funeral oration. The date, 4 January, would become his feast.

Tradition: Greek Orthodox (20th-c. Cretan monk; glorified 2012)

The Date and Place of Death

Father Nikephoros reposed on 4 January 1964, at the Saint Barbara Antileprosy Station in Aigaleo, western Athens, where he had lived since the transfer from Chios in 1957 (Monk Simon, Nikephoros the Leper, Athens, 2007, via Orthodox Church in America, “Saint Nikephoros the Leper,” oca.org; OrthodoxWiki, “Nicephorus the Leper”). He was seventy-four years old, consistent with the birth year of 1890 (ibid.; on the chronology, see The Sources for His Life). The date is well attested and, as the death of a hospital patient in modern Athens, rests on documentary rather than merely traditional ground; it is one of the fixed points of the biography and became, without alteration, the date of his liturgical commemoration (Orthodox Church in America, “Saint Nikephoros the Leper — Troparion & Kontakion,” oca.org; on the feast, see Glorification 2012).

The End of a Life Wholly Given

Nikephoros died as he had lived for half a century: a leper among lepers, blind and paralyzed, in the poverty of a hospital cell. There was nothing outwardly triumphant in the death — no dramatic scene, no last public act. The tradition marks precisely this hiddenness: the man the world had shut away as a “leper” died unknown to it, and would become famous only after death, when the cult his disciple and fellow-patients had begun to nurture spread through the Greek Church (Monk Simon, Nikephoros the Leper, 2007, via oca.org; Metropolitan Neophytos of Morphou, “St. Nikephoros the Leper,” Part 1, orthochristian.com/164755). The whole arc of the life — fear of Spinalonga, flight, tonsure, and fifty years of borne affliction — closed in obscurity, and the veneration that followed reads that obscurity as the very form of his sanctity (see Legacy).

Eumenios at the End

His disciple Eumenios (Saridakis), who had served him for the seven years since 1957, was the closest human presence at the end and became the guardian of his memory. Eumenios composed a funeral oration / encomium for his elder, and it was Eumenios who, in the decades that followed, carried and transmitted the memory of Nikephoros’s holiness — and who reported, in later life, that Nikephoros continued to help him after death (Metropolitan Neophytos of Morphou, “St. Nikephoros the Leper,” Part 2, orthochristian.com/164914; John Sanidopoulos, “Saint Nikephoros the Leper Resource Page,” johnsanidopoulos.com; on Eumenios, see The Disciple Eumenios Saridakis). The continuity of witness across the death is a distinctive feature of Nikephoros’s case: the disciple who watched him die lived another thirty-five years, keeping and spreading the memory, so that the cult never lost contact with an eyewitness (see Contemporary Testimony).

The Feast of 4 January

Because the day of a saint’s repose is traditionally the day of his feast, Nikephoros is commemorated on 4 January — the anniversary of his death (Orthodox Church in America, “Saint Nikephoros the Leper,” oca.org; OrthodoxWiki, “Nicephorus the Leper”). The date places his commemoration within the Nativity–Theophany season of the Church’s year, in the days between the two great feasts; it is the fixed liturgical point around which his rapidly-growing cult is organized (on the hymnography and the cult, see A Healer-Saint of Our Time).

See Also

• The Relics and the Healings — the exhumation and what followed the death
• Transfer to Saint Barbara (1957) — the place where he died
• The Disciple Eumenios Saridakis — the disciple at his deathbed
• Glorification 2012 — the feast of 4 January and the glorification

References

• Monk Simon (Monachos Simon). Nikephoros the Leper: The Radiant Athlete of Patience. Athens, 2007. (Repose 4 January 1964 at Saint Barbara, Aigaleo, age 74. Cited via the English digests below.)
• Orthodox Church in America. “Saint Nikephoros the Leper” and “Saint Nikephoros the Leper — Troparion & Kontakion.” oca.org/saints. (The repose and the feast of 4 January.)
• OrthodoxWiki. “Nicephorus the Leper.” orthodoxwiki.org. (Death date; feast.)
• Metropolitan Neophytos (Masouras) of Morphou. “St. Nikephoros (Tzanakakis) the Leper,” Parts 1–2. orthochristian.com/164755, /164914. (The hidden death; Eumenios’s encomium and continuing witness.)
• John Sanidopoulos. “Saint Nikephoros the Leper Resource Page.” johnsanidopoulos.com. (Eumenios’s funeral oration.)