In the beginning of August 1938, the steamer “Samos”, carrying out the dull itinerary of Piraeus-Alexandroupolis-Kavala-Thessaloniki, reaches Daphne, the small port of Mount Athos. Among the few passengers to disembark is eighteen-year old George Karambelas from the village Constantines of Messinia.

The only son of the suffered widow Dimitra (†1973), who had lost her husband Michael (†1921) in the Asia Minor front of Greece’s war on Turkey only two years after her marriage, left his mother and his home in Piraeus behind to live as a monk in the Garden of Virgin Mary, “between heaven and earth”.

Following a brief pilgrimage in the blessed Athonite land, he decided to join a Kalyva (dwelling) in St. Anne’s Skete, that of the Nativity of the Mother of God. There leading the ascetic life were the austere elder Gregory, former army officer, hieromonk Joachim along with monks Stephen, Paisius and Gregory.

George was tried out as a novice for two years. In autumn 1940, a short time before the outbreak of Italy’s war on Greece. he was tonsured a monk and received the name of Cherubim.

Nevertheless, God had other plans for him. In October 1942, elder Gregory was forced to send him to Athens as Fr. Cherubim’s life was in danger by acute tonsillitis with complications to the heart and kidneys and he needed to be operated on.

In such turbulent times (German-Italian occupation, Greek resistance, civil war), he was unable to return to the Holy Mountain. Meanwhile, the brethren of elder Gregory had been dispersed. Fr. Cherubim was thus obliged to settle temporarily in his family home in Piraeus.

There he became spiritually related to prominent ecclesiastical personalities, whose insisting pleads led him to be ordained deacon during Great Lent, on April 2, 1944. His ordination to priest-Archimandrite was to follow much later, on December 20, 1955.

In 1947, Fr. Cherubim, along with the theologians Constantine Pouloupatis (later Archimandrite Ignatius) and George Karamantzanis (later Archimandrite Athinagoras) founded in Piraeus the monastic and missionary brotherhood of “The Paraclete” (Holy Spirit), organised in the cœnobitic way to serve the congregation in an Orthodox pastoral and catechistical manner.

According to the wishes of the founding fathers the selection of a name for the brotherhood was left to the will of God. All three of them prayed warmly and then Fr. Cherubim opened the New Testament at random. His eyes fell on the following quotation: “But when the Paraclete comes… the Spirit of truth…” (John 15, 26). Instantly, all three knew in their hearts that it was God’s will to name the brotherhood after the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, that of the Paraclete.

However, Fr. Cherubim, marked indelibly by his Athonite experience, always longed for the founding of a monastery, a traditional Orthodox resort for the therapy and sanctification of souls. He instilled his pious desire to the other two fathers. And thus, fifteen years from the founding of the brotherhood. “God in his love and multifarious wisdom”, as Fr. Cherubim wrote later, “using different ways, hard at times”, made their wish come true.

In 1962, following an extensive search and a lot of prayer, they bought a piece of land at the site of Metochi in the Oropos region. Only three kilometres from the seaside of the gulf of Euboea, it presented a serene landscape adorned with cypress, pine and olive trees. The site’s name (metochi=dependency) implies that it used to be an old monastery dependency, belonging possibly to the Holy Monastery of the Dormition of Virgin Mary in mount Penteli. Besides, a few ruins and remnants of an old water duct indicate the settlement of ascetics at some unknown time.

The foundation of the Monastery was laid in 1963, when the Holy Mountain was celebrating its millennium. This was a blessed coincidence for the beginning of the Monastery, not all irrelevant to its subsequent history and spiritual identity. It should be noted that, during the decade 1968-1978, it was a dependency of the Athonite Monastery of St. Paul. Its official recognition from Church and State, as an independent cœnobitic monastery, came in 1978. The Monastery was thus placed under the jurisdiction of the Metropolis of Attica.

As defined in article 2 of its charter, the purpose of the Monastery is the sanctification and the perfection in Christ of all its fathers by leading an accurate monastic life, as laid down by the Holy Fathers in their God-given and eternal monastic codes, and consolidated by the Holy Synods in their sacred and unshakeable canons, inspired and supervised by the Paraclete Holy Spirit. Who guides the Church “into all the truth” (John 16,13)

On June 19, 1978, the late Metropolitan Dorotheus (†1993) installed the Monastery’s founder, Fr. Cherubim, as its first abbot. Unfortunately, he was to remain in this position only for one year. On August 22, 1979, following an operation in London, his weak heart led him to depart early to the Lord. He was only fifty-nine years old. Five days later, he was buried in the centre of his Monastery’s courtyard, next to where the Katholikon would be built later on.

Those who were fortunate enough to have known elder Cherubim closely, had seen his plainness and gentleness, his love and humbleness, his indulgence and forbearance and had also admired his monastic morals, his patience of Job during trials, as well as his insight and perceptiveness. Throughout his life, he remained conscious of his Athonite spiritual descent. His word always evoked the air of the Garden of Virgin Mary, while his writings revealed to us many unknown figures and aspects of Athonite monasticism with his books “Contemporary ascetics of Mount Athos” and “Recollections of Mount Athos”. Besides, it was his strong wish that the Monastery of the Paraclete should follow the Athonite typicon (order) and constitute a spiritual oasis for the crowded desert of Athens. He wanted it to be a testimony of Orthodoxy and coenobitic monasticism next to the Greek capital.

Second abbot to serve from 1979 to 1980 was the first disciple of ever memorable Fr. Cherubim, Archimandrite Ignatius (Pouloupatis, 1927-1987), who had struggled hard with his elder to make the Monastery a reality. He is remembered for his mild character, his scholarship, his vast theological knowledge and his abundant service to the church.

Present abbot of the Monastery, having completed twenty years in office, is Archimandrite Timothy (Sakkas, born in 1933).

During the last two decades, the Monastery tripled its buildings thanks to its fathers’ personal labour and immeasurable sacrifices. The most important achievement of the period, a crowning blessing of the Paraclete, was the erection of the Katholikon. Its founding stone was laid on Sunday of Orthodoxy, 1987. The church was concluded in 1990.

It is of traditional monastic style, designed by Fr. Romanus (Alexopoulos) and modelled after the churches of Mount Athos and Meteora. A chapel of the Holy Angels occupies the southem side of the inner narthex. Fathers of the Monastery have crafted all the icons of the church…

Read more about the Holy Monastery of the Paraclete: www.imparaklitou.gr/index.php/en/the-monastery/history