Saint Savvas of Kalymnos

Saint Savvas of Kalymnos (also known as Saint Savvas the New) is the patron saint of the Greek island of Kalymnos, where he lived during the last twenty years of his life as the priest and spiritual father of the nuns of the Convent of All Saints. He was a great ascetic, confessor, icon painter, and miracle-worker. He is one of the recently recognized saints in the Ecumenical Patriarchate. He died on 7 April 1947 and his remains were exhumed 10 years later in 1957. The feast dates of St. Savvas the New of Kalymnos are celebrated on various dates in different traditions, 7 April (25 March in the Old Calendar), and the fifth Sunday of Great Lent with St. Mary of Egypt. Saint Savvas was born in 1862 in Herakleitsa, Eastern Thrace the only child of Constantinos and Smaragda both devout people, who were very poor. Upon his baptism he was given the name Vasilios. As a young boy he had a calling for the monastic life and secretly left without his parents knowing for Mount Athos at the age of twelve where he entered St. Anne's Skete. Along with the monastic duties, this is where he learned iconography and Byzantine music. He later traveled to Jerusalem for a pilgrimage to the holy sites. He arrived in 1887 and entered the monastery of St. George Hozeva and lived there for seventeen years as a hermit in the deserted and rugged cliffs. After serving for a period as a novice, he was tonsured a monk and given the name Savvas. In 1890, he joined the brotherhood of the Abbot Kallinikos (from Alatsata of Asia Minor) and in 1902 was ordained a deacon. In 1903, a year later, he was ordained to the holy priesthood by Archbishop Nikodemos from Diokesaria. He spent almost 10 years in the desert by the Jordan where he led an austere life and occupied himself with prayer and iconography. His dwelling consisted of two cells which he reached by ascending up a rope ladder.