Anthimus of Chios
Our Venerable Father Anthimus the New of Chios
Venerable · Wonderworker · Priest · b. July 1, 1869, Chios — d. February 15, 1960, Chios
Commemorated 15 February — Repose of the elder of Chios
Anthimus of Chios (1869–1960), born Argyrios Vagianos, was a Greek priest-monk, healer and spiritual father of the island of Chios, one of the best-loved elders of the twentieth-century Greek Church. Of poor and pious parents, he became a monk of the island's monasteries, served long years as chaplain to the lepers of the Chios leprosarium — among whom his prayers wrought many healings — and in 1930 founded the convent of Panagia Voithia ("Our Lady the Helper") to shelter nuns made refugees by the Asia Minor catastrophe. Renowned in his own lifetime for the gift of healing, the casting-out of demons, and clairvoyant counsel, he reposed on February 15, 1960, and was glorified by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 1992. He is a recently canonised saint, and this entry is authored accordingly (see the notes on his icon and hymns).
Origins and monastic beginnings
He was born Argyrios Vagianos on July 1, 1869, in the district of Saint Luke at Livadia on the island of Chios, the son of devout and humble parents, and grew up in poverty and hardship, working as a shoemaker. Drawn from his youth to the ascetic life, he attached himself to the monastic communities of the island — the tradition names the Monastery of the Holy Fathers (Skete of the Holy Fathers) and the great Nea Moni — and in 1888 received the monastic tonsure and the name Anthimus at the hands of the elder Pachomios. He struggled long as a hermit and novice, was afflicted for years by demonic assaults and bodily illness which he bore with patience, and in 1909 was clothed in the Great Schema. He was ordained to the priesthood, the tradition relates, after his gift of prayer had already become known.
Chaplain of the lepers, and founder
For many years Anthimus served as chaplain of the leper hospital of Chios, giving himself to the care of the sick and the outcast, and it was among the lepers that his gift of healing first became widely known — sufferers were relieved and even cured at his prayer, and demons cast out. A wonderworking icon of the Mother of God, Panagia Voithitria ("the Helper"), was the treasure of his hermitage and the centre of his devotion.
After the Asia Minor catastrophe and the exchange of populations of 1922–1923, which cast great numbers of Greek refugees — nuns among them — upon the islands, Anthimus in 1930 founded on Chios the convent of Panagia Voithia, "Our Lady the Helper," to receive the displaced sisters and to be a house of prayer. There he passed the last thirty years of his life as spiritual father to the community and to the multitudes who came to him from across Greece for healing and counsel.
Repose and glorification
Anthimus reposed at the convent he had founded on February 15, 1960, in his ninety-first year. His holiness had been evident throughout his life, and his tomb at once became a place of pilgrimage and of reported wonders. The Ecumenical Patriarchate entered his name in the calendar of the saints — his glorification (canonisation) proclaimed on 13 August 1992 — and his feast was fixed on the day of his repose. His relics rest in the church of the convent of Panagia Voithia on Chios, where his veneration continues.
Feast and commemoration
February 15 (church date; New Calendar civil February 15 — the day on which the Greek Churches, keeping the New Calendar, celebrate him; Old Calendar civil February 28), the day of his repose, kept in the Church of Greece and the Ecumenical Patriarchate and noted in the OCA and Russian calendars. He is commemorated on the day of the Apostle Onesimus. As a saint glorified in 1992 his cultus is still chiefly of the Greek world.
Iconography
Anthimus is depicted in the type of the modern Greek elder-saint: an aged monk-priest with a long white beard, in the dark monastic rason and epitrachelion, often holding a scroll or blessing, and frequently shown beside the icon of the Panagia Voithia that was the heart of his devotion. All such images are modern works by living or recently living iconographers and remain in copyright; under the icon policy no such image is stored, and none is reproduced here. A public-domain or freely-licensed portrait is wanting.