St. Evmenios Saridakis

Who was St. Evmenios Saridakis?

St. Evmenios Saridakis was a Greek Orthodox priest-monk from the island of Crete who spent more than forty years at the Hospital for Infectious Diseases in Athens, the old leprosy hospital at Agia Varvara. He came there as a patient, sick with leprosy. He was healed, and he stayed, as chaplain, nurse, confessor and friend to people most of the world had shut out. Athenians of every kind came to the hospital chapel to confess to him and ask his prayers. He reposed on May 23, 1999.

The Ecumenical Patriarchate recognized him as a saint in April 2022. The Orthodox Church keeps his feast on May 23, and calls him Venerable Eumenios the New. We honor him here as the Orthodox Church honors him.

The life of St. Evmenios Saridakis

A mountain village in Crete

He was born in 1931 in Ethia, a mountain village in the Monofatsi district of Heraklion, the eighth child of a poor and devout family. As a boy he went to the small Monastery of the Great Martyr Niketas near his village, and he became a monk at seventeen. At his tonsure he received the name Sophronios; when he was ordained a hieromonk, a priest-monk, he took the name Eumenios, or Evmenios as it is often written in English.

Trials

His church's life does not hide his sufferings. As a young priest he went through a long and frightening spiritual affliction, which his biographers describe as demonic, and he was freed only after prayers, vigils and exorcisms in Cretan monasteries, among them Koudouma on the south coast and Panagia Kalyviani. Then his skin began to break down, and he was sent to Athens to be examined. It was leprosy.

The hospital at Agia Varvara

At the Hospital for Infectious Diseases he was treated and healed. Seeing the pain around him, he decided to stay. He served at the hospital church of the Holy Unmercenaries, the healing saints Cosmas and Damian, and gave the sacraments to people with leprosy and tuberculosis whom few would touch.

His spiritual father there was the monk Nikephoros, a leper, blind and paralyzed by the disease. Evmenios lived in the cell next to his and nursed him until Nikephoros died on January 4, 1964. Years later, when the old monk's remains were taken up, Evmenios gathered them into their first reliquary, and every January 4 he held a memorial for him. The Ecumenical Patriarchate canonized St. Nikephoros the Leper in 2012.

A confessor for Athens

The orthochristian.com report on his canonization says he served for more than four decades as father confessor to everyone at the hospital, and that many people testified to his clairvoyance and his closeness to the saints. People remember his laughter, even in confession. St. Porphyrios, the great elder of Athens, called him "the hidden saint of our time."

Metropolitan Neophytos of Morphou in Cyprus told of a prayer Evmenios used to say. It began, "Lord Jesus Christ, I want You to save all people," and went on to name every group he could think of, Christians of every confession, people of other religions and none, all the dead since Adam. Asked how he knew what God felt, he answered: "If your heart becomes one with Christ's heart, you feel what He feels."

Repose and canonization

He reposed in Athens on May 23, 1999. His body lay in the hospital church of the Holy Unmercenaries, where crowds came to venerate it, and he was buried in his home village in Crete. On May 31, 2021, the Holy Synod of the Church of Crete agreed unanimously to ask for his canonization, and the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate recognized him as a saint in April 2022.

Miracles of St. Evmenios

• Healings and help after his death: reported. The report of his canonization says he has continued to work many miracles since his repose. The Orthodox Church does not require a formal miracle process like the Catholic one; it glorifies saints whose holy life and the veneration of the faithful are already known.
• Gifts during his life: reported. Many who knew him spoke of his clairvoyance and of visits from the saints, among them St. Nikephoros, who, Evmenios said, came to comfort him in his pain.

Symbols of St. Evmenios in art

He is a new saint, and his icons are still being painted. They show him as he looked: a gray-bearded hieromonk in a black habit and soft monastic cap, wearing the priest's stole, often with a prayer rope or a chalice for the Communion he brought to the sick. Some icons pair him with St. Nikephoros the Leper.

Feast day and where he is honored

His feast is May 23. He is honored above all at the hospital church at Agia Varvara where he served, and in Crete, where he is buried in Ethia. See our feast days page for other saints of May.

Prayer to St. Evmenios

The Orthodox Church has a service with hymns in his honor, which we have not been able to quote from an official text. His own prayer can be ours: "Lord Jesus Christ, I want You to save all people."

Let us ask St. Evmenios to pray for people with leprosy and every disease that isolates, for hospital chaplains, nurses and caregivers, for confessors, and for all who suffer in body and soul. St. Evmenios, pray for us.