16th century
Saint Theophanes the New
A sixteenth-century Athonite abbot, remembered for rescuing his nephew from being taken as a janissary.
Biography
Theophanes was born in Ioannina in the early sixteenth century and as a young man went to Mount Athos, becoming a monk at Dochiariou monastery. His virtue led the brotherhood to make him abbot after the previous elder's death, and as abbot he cared for his monks with fairness and fatherly love.
When his sister sent word that the Turks had seized her son to make him a janissary, Theophanes travelled all the way to Constantinople and managed to free the boy before he was made to change faith, bringing him back to Athos. He spent his last years as a hermit near the Skete of the Forerunner, where he died.