On Monday, 9 March 2020, there gathered, under the presidency of His Most Divine All-Holiness, the Holy and Sacred Synod in their programmed three-day working session.
After the reading of the Minutes of the preceding session, the endorsement of the order was signed.
More precisely, the Holy and Sacred Synod, accepting the recommendation of the Regular Committee, included in the List of Saints of the Orthodox Church the blessed Hagiorite Elders who in many ways are full of grace by God and are recognized for their venerable life and conduct:
a) Daniel the Katounakiotis, who was from Smyrna, a worthy and genuine continuator of Venerable Nikodemos the Hagiorite and the other venerable Kollyvades Fathers, author of pleasant spiritual discourses, a favorite friend of the holy and wondrous Hierarch Nektarios the Bishop of Pentapolis, mentor of the widely-known and beautifully-sounding sacred Brotherhood of the Danielites who until today keep his traditions and deposits (the day of his annual sacred commemoration will be the 7th of the month of September).
b) Joseph the Hesychast, who struggled hard in these latter days, becoming a participant of divine illumination and the fullness of divine grace, raised to the level of monastic, teaching the practice of watchfulness and a most-precise new embodiment of Palamite theology regarding the uncreated light, a model of obscurity and quietude, a worthy continuator of the philokalic tradition, a measure of ecclesiology in a time of troubles when extreme zeal was dividing and breaking apart from the bosom of the Church many reverent monks and Christians, contributing to the well-known spiritual renewal of many on the Holy Mountain which still continued throughout the twentieth century, through the virtues and asceticism of his distinguished disciples and Elders (the day of his annual sacred commemoration will be the 16th of the month of August).
c) Ephraim the Katounakiotis, a leading figure of contemporary Athonite monasticism, who was shown to be a theologian and educator of the Desert, he was called the "giant of Athos," he empirically experienced the vision of the uncreated light (the day of his annual sacred commemoration will be the 27th of the month of February).
Thus, the Holy Mother of the Great Church of Christ boasts in the Spirit-bearing and Grace-filled harvest of Sacred Athos, and thereby fulfills the announcement that was previously made by His Most Divine All-Holiness the Patriarch, during his most recent pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain, in the month of October of last year 2019, by including them in the list of saints of the Church, the venerably living Hagiorite Fathers.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
