Venerable Dionysius

Life

The founder of the Monastery of Saint John (Dionysiou) on Athos. A native of Korytsa in Albania. His older brother Theodosius withdrew to the Holy Mountain, where in time he became abbot of the Monastery of Philotheou. When he grew up, Saint Dionysius came to his brother at Philotheou, who tonsured him as a monk. By the Providence of God, Theodosius, while engaged in monastic business in Constantinople, was elected and consecrated as Metropolitan of Trebizond. To Dionysius, however, a wondrous light began to appear every night at the place where he later built the monastery of Saint John the Forerunner. Interpreting the appearance of that light as a sign from heaven that a monastery should be built there, Dionysius went to Trebizond to his brother and to Emperor Alexius Comnenus to seek help. The emperor gave him both money and a charter, which is preserved in the monastery to this day. In the year 1380 Dionysius founded the monastery of Saint John the Forerunner. But when sea pirates once plundered the monastery, Dionysius went again to Trebizond, and there he ended his life in the seventy-second year of his age. And the Monastery of Dionysiou continues to prosper and flourish to this day. In that monastery there is an icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, called "The Akathist," which Emperor Alexius Comnenus gave to Dionysius. According to tradition, before that icon the Akathist to the Theotokos, composed by Patriarch Sergius, was read for the first time.