Section 08: The Monastery and the Last Years

The closing of St. Porphyrios’s earthly life: the founding, in his last decades and against great obstacles of illness and poverty, of the Holy Convent of the Transfiguration of the Saviour at Milesi, the community he raised up to outlast him; and his long-cherished return, in 1984, to the Kavsokalyvia of his youth — to the very Hut of St. George — to die there, as he had always longed to, on the Holy Mountain. The section closes with the account of his repose on December 2, 1991: his dictated farewell letter asking forgiveness, his dying repetition of Christ’s prayer “that they all may be one,” and his hidden burial at the skete.

Tradition: Greek Orthodox / Athonite (canonized 2013)

Contents

File Topic
The Monastery at Milesi The founding of the Holy Convent of the Transfiguration at Milesi: the long search for land, the canonical and presidential recognition (1981), the building begun amid grave illness and poverty, the laying of the foundation stone (1990) and the prayer over the Cross; the community of spiritual daughters he raised up to continue his work
Return to Kavsokalyvia His lifelong longing for Athos and his return in 1984 to the Hut of St. George; the blindness and suffering of his last years; the account of his repose (December 2, 1991): the grave dug to his instructions, the farewell letter asking forgiveness, the dying words “that they all may be one” and “Come, Lord Jesus,” and the hidden burial

How to Use

  • Read The Monastery at Milesi for the founder’s labor of his last decades — love expressed as the building up of a community of the Church.
  • Read Return to Kavsokalyvia for the deeply moving close of his life: the hermit who was driven from the Mountain as a boy returning to it to die, in humility and the longing for unity.
  • His glorification, which followed in 2013, is treated in Section 09: Glorification and Legacy.

Cross-References