Venerable Philotheus

Life

Born in Chrysopolis in Macedonia. The Turks seized him from his widowed mother and, together with another brother of his, cast them into prison. The Most Holy Theotokos miraculously delivered them from prison and transported them to a monastery in Neapolis in Asia Minor. His mother later found her sons as monks and herself was tonsured a nun. Philotheus crossed over to the Holy Mountain, where he practiced asceticism first in the Monastery of Dionysiou and then in the wilderness. A wondrous ascetic and a great conqueror of demonic power. He reposed peacefully in the eighty-fourth year of his life. He directed that he not be buried but that his body be cast into the forest for the birds and wild beasts. Later a fisherman at night saw a great light in the forest and, being cold, went to warm himself, thinking it was a fire. But the light was not from fire but from the wonderworking relics of Saint Philotheus.