Nectarios of Aegina

Saint Nektarios of Aegina
Saint Nectarios Metropolitan of Pentepolis
Wonderworker of Aegina
Born	1 October 1846 Selymbria, Thrace
Died	1920 Aegina, Greece
Venerated in	Eastern Orthodox Church
Canonized	April 20, 1961 by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople
Feast	9 November

Saint Nectarios of Aegina (1846–1920),Greek: Άγιος Νεκτάριος Αιγίνης, Metropolitan of Pentapolis and Wonderworker of Aegina, was officially recognized as a Saint by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1961. His Feast Day is celebrated every year on 9 November.

Anastasios Kephalas, later Nectarios, was born on 1 October 1846 in Selymbria (today Silivri, Istanbul) in the Ottoman Empire to a poor family. His parents, Dimos and Maria Kephalas, were pious Christians but not wealthy.

At the age of 14, he moved to Constantinople (Istanbul) to work and further his education. In 1866, at age 20, he moved to the island of Chios to take a teaching post. On November 7, 1876, he became a monk, at age 30, in the Monastery of Nea Moni, for he had long wished to embrace the ascetic life.

Three years after becoming a monk he was ordained a Deacon, taking the name Nectarios. He graduated from the University of Athens in 1885. During his years as a student of the University of Athens he wrote many books, pamphlets, and Bible commentaries.

Following his graduation he went to Alexandria, Egypt, where he was ordained a priest and served the Church of Saint Nicholas in Cairo. He was consecrated Metropolitan bishop of Pentapolis (an ancient diocese in Cyrenaica, in what is now Libya) by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Sophronios in 1889.