Methodia of Kimolos
Our Venerable Mother Methodia of Kimolos
Venerable · b. 1865 — d. 1908
Commemorated 5 October — Repose (1908); glorified 1991
Methodia of Kimolos (1865–1908) is the ascetic saint of the small Cycladic island of Kimolos. Born Irene, a daughter of Jacob Sardis and his wife Maria, she was married to a sailor to please her parents and widowed when his ship was lost off Asia Minor; she then received the monastic tonsure from Archbishop Methodios of Syros in the church of Panagia Hodegetria on her island, taking the name Methodia. Her ascetic struggle was severe, and the women of the islands sought out her cell as a refuge, finding in her counsel healing for the soul; God granted her also the grace of working miracles. She reposed in peace on Sunday, October 5, 1908, and was glorified as a saint in 1991; her feast is kept on the day of her repose.
Origins and early life
The saint was born on Kimolos, the little island beside Melos in the western Cyclades, on November 10, 1865, to devout parents, Jacob (Iakovos) Sardis and his wife Maria. The family was large — three sons and five daughters — and the second of the daughters was baptized Irene. From childhood she was drawn to the things of God and was constantly in church. When she came of age she did not wish to grieve her parents, and so accepted the marriage they wished for her, to a sailor by trade; and even as a married woman her zeal for the church remained undimmed. Her married life was brief: on one of his voyages her husband was shipwrecked near the coast of Asia Minor and drowned, and never returned to Kimolos.
Monastic life and ascetic struggle
Widowed, Irene turned wholly to the life she had always inclined toward. She was tonsured a nun in the church of Panagia Hodegetria on Kimolos by Methodios, the archbishop of Syros (under whose see the island then lay), and received from him the name Methodia in place of Irene. Her joy at the tonsure, the account of her life records, knew no bounds, and she set herself to keep the commandments of the Gospel with her whole soul. Her ascetic labours — fasting, vigil and unceasing prayer — were severe beyond the common measure, and she became a living example to the islanders.
The report of her virtue travelled far beyond Kimolos, and a multitude of women came to stay near her, seeking in her a spiritual refuge and a safe harbour from the storms of life. Her inspired words were refreshment and healing to afflicted souls, and she guided those who came to her onto the path of repentance. To her other gifts God added the grace of working miracles, exercised quietly within the small world of her island.
Repose and glorification
Having lived a holy life, Methodia reposed in peace on Sunday, October 5, 1908, in her forty-third year. Her memory remained green on Kimolos, kept alive by the women she had guided and by the miracles associated with her, and in 1991 — the OCA records the date as October 5, 1991, the anniversary of her repose — she was formally glorified as a saint. A proper service was composed for her, and she is honoured as the particular boast of Kimolos, whose "offspring and adornment" her hymns name her.
Feast and commemoration
October 5 (church date; Old Calendar civil October 18), the day of her repose, on which the 1991 glorification was also proclaimed. Hers is a Greek commemoration — she is the local saint of Kimolos and is carried in the modern Greek synaxaria (saint.gr, verified live) — and the OCA has adopted her on the same day, styling her "Righteous Methodia" where the Greek books call her ὁσία (venerable); the classification here follows the Greek usage, with the OCA's style recorded. She shares the day with the martyr Charitina of Amisus, the principal saint of the universal calendar.
Iconography
Methodia is depicted in the modern iconography of the Cyclades as a nun in the full black monastic habit and veil, her face framed austerely, holding the cross of her profession and sometimes a prayer rope or scroll; icons of her stand in the churches of Kimolos, where her memory is chiefly kept. All known icons are twentieth-century or later works still in copyright — the one free-licensed candidate on Wikimedia Commons is a photograph of a modern printed icon whose underlying rights are not addressed by the photographer's licence — so no image is stored, and she is listed among the wanted icons.
Disputed questions
- Age at repose. The Greek account and the OCA both say she died "at the age of 43"; by the transmitted dates (born November 10, 1865; died October 5, 1908) she was forty-two, some five weeks short of her forty-third birthday. The traditional figure is best read as "in her forty-third year."
- Glorifying authority. The sources consulted record the fact and date of the 1991 glorification but not, explicitly, the synod that issued the act; the attribution (Patriarchate of Constantinople) is left for verification rather than asserted.