Nektaria: Name Day and Patron Saint

Anastasius Kephalas was born in Thrace in 1846 to a poor family and worked as a boy in a Constantinople tobacco shop, writing sayings of the Fathers on the paper bags for his customers. Tonsured on Chios as Nektarios, he was ordained in Alexandria and consecrated Metropolitan of Pentapolis, but envious men slandered him and he was removed “for reasons known to the Patriarchate,” left without home or income. He never defended himself, but quietly served as a preacher and as director of the Rizarios Seminary in Athens. On Aegina he restored the Holy Trinity Monastery with his own hands and became father to its nuns, telling them he was building a lighthouse whose light would shine to the world. He reposed on November 8, 1920, in a hospital in Athens, and his first miracle came within moments. Glorified in 1961, he is invoked everywhere, and Orthodox Christians pray to Saint Nektarios above all for the healing of cancer.

What the faithful pray for

• healing of cancer
• healing of every illness, especially incurable ones
• patience and forgiveness under false accusation
• justice for the falsely accused
• strength for the sick and their caregivers
• relief from drought
• deliverance from evil spirits

Protection

• the sick with cancer
• the slandered and humiliated
• the island of Aegina
• the possessed and tormented

Miracles

• Moments after he died in a hospital in Athens in 1920, his sweater was laid on the bed of a paralyzed man, who immediately got up, glorifying God. (source)
• When his grave was opened years later, his body was found whole and incorrupt. (source)
• He has often appeared to the sick, saying: ‘Take oil from the lamp over my grave and you will be healed.’ (source)

Read the life of St Nektarios of Aegina