⭐ Travel Guide for Island Crete ⛵, Greece❗ - The Tomb of Saint Eumenios Saridakis in Ethia

The Tomb of Saint Eumenios Saridakis in Ethia

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In the churchyard of the Panagia in Ethia, in the Asterousia Mountains, lies the tomb of Saint Eumenios Saridakis. He was born in the village in 1931, was baptised Konstantinos and was the eighth child of Giorgos and Sofia Saridakis. He lost his father at an early age and spent much of his childhood in the village church and the surrounding chapels.

As a young man, he went to the cave monastery of Agios Nikitas, below Achendrias on the southern side of the Asterousia Mountains. There he lived alongside Elder Ierotheos and the monastery’s two other monks. In 1951 he became a monk and took the name Sophronios. He was called up for military service in 1954. During his service, he developed the first symptoms of Hansen’s disease, also known as leprosy, and was admitted to the Infectious Diseases Hospital in Agia Varvara, Attica.

After recovering, he chose to stay with the people who had shared his illness. There he met the Cretan monk Nikephoros Tzanakakis, later known as Saint Nikephoros the Leper, who had been transferred to Agia Varvara after the leprosy hospital on Chios closed. Nikephoros had lost his sight and had difficulty moving. Sophronios cared for him daily and looked to him for spiritual guidance until Nikephoros died in 1964.

In 1975 he was ordained a priest with the name Eumenios and took charge of the Church of Saints Cosmas and Damian on the hospital grounds. He celebrated services there for years and continued to care for patients. Gradually, people from Athens and farther afield began coming to him for confession and advice. Among them was the future Metropolitan Neophytos of Morphou, who met him in 1981 at the age of eighteen and later wrote down his memories of him.

Eumenios died on 23 May 1999 at Evangelismos Hospital in Athens. His body was taken back to Ethia and buried in the churchyard of the Panagia, beside the church he had attended as a child. On 14 April 2022, following a request from Metropolitan Makarios of Gortyna and Arkadia supported by the Holy Eparchial Synod of the Church of Crete, the Ecumenical Patriarchate canonised him as Saint Eumenios the New. The same Patriarchal and Synodal Act established 23 May as his annual feast day. His tomb in Ethia is now a place of pilgrimage.