Message of His Eminence Metropolitan Aetolia and Acarnania and Damascenes for the Feast of Saint Nektariostranslated

My beloved Fathers and Brothers,

My beloved children in the Lord,

Today our Church solemnly honors the memory of Saint Nektarios, Bishop of Pentapolis, the miracle worker, the Saint of our century, as he is called. He was born in 1846 in Silivria, Thrace. At a young age of 14, he went to Constantinople, where he worked as a clerk and later as a pedagogue at the school of Metochi of the Holy Sepulcher. In 1876 he became a monk at the New Monastery of Chios with the name Lazarus and was ordained a deacon, named Nektarios.

In 1881 he came to Athens, where at the expense of the Patriarch of Alexandria Sophronius IV, he studied theology and after his ordination as an elder, he was the patriarchal commissioner in Cairo.

In 1889 he was ordained Metropolitan of Pentapolis. His action as Metropolitan was amazing and because of him, he was a main candidate for the Patriarchal throne of Alexandria. However, due to envious accusations and dirty slanders against Patriarch Sophronius, the humble Nektarios, in order not to grieve the old Patriarch, returned to Greece.

He was the Preacher of Evia, Fthiotidos, Phokidos and director of the Rizareio Ecclesiastical School. St...