Saint Makarios the confessor, abbot of the holy Monastery of Pelekiti
Celebration date: 01/04
Saint Makarios, born Christoforos, was born in Constantinople at the end of the 8th AD. century (probably 785 AD). At a young age he was orphaned by both his parents and his upbringing was taken over by a pious uncle, who took care of his godly upbringing and education. Because he had an inclination towards the monastic state, he left the world and took refuge in the monastery of Agios Ioannou the Theologian, the chosen Pelekiti, in Triglia in Prussia. There he became a monk and was renamed Makarios.
The young monk began to devote himself to exercise and prayer. His divine ordination elevated him to the abbot of the monastery. Saint Makarios became a spiritual father for everyone, not only for the monks but also for the faithful who fled to him to consult him, receive his wish and be healed in soul and body, since the Holy God rewarded him with the gift of miracles.
The fame of Osios reached Patriarch Tarasius (784 – 806 AD) (see February 25), who sent to him the patrician Paul, who had previously been healed by Osios, to heal the patrician’s wife as well as well as him. After that, Patriarch Tarasios transferred Osios to Constantinople and ordained him elder.
When the heresy of the iconoclasts broke out in the Church under Emperor Leo V of Armenia (813-820 AD), Osios, because he was a defender of paternal piety, was locked up in prison where he remained until the emperor’s death. He was freed by the emperor Michael Traulos (820 – 829 AD), Leo’s successor, who, however, as he failed to change the Saint’s pious attitude in favor of the holy icons, exiled him to the island of Afusia, in the Sea of Marmara. There Saint Makarios, in the midst of hardships and deprivations, slept in peace (about 820 AD).
After the Ascension of the Holy One, the monks of the Pelekiti monastery appointed the monk Sergius the Enclosed as abbot.
