Father Porphyrios was born in 4906 into a very poor but pious family in the village of Agios Ioannis in Karystia on the island of Euboea. His entire education consisted of two years of primary school. According to him, he learned to read and write by reading the Gospel and church service books. In order to financially support the family, his father left for the construction of the Panama Canal. Little Evangelos, that was the name of the Elder, worked in the garden and grazed several sheep belonging to their family in the nearby fields. There he read the Life of St. John Kolov[3]·. The holy image of this monk sank deeply into his soul, and he decided to imitate it.

Still very young, at the age of 43-44, he went to Holy Mount Athos. There he stayed at the skete of Kausokalivia[4] and became a novice in a cell where two very kind, but strict elders lived. He lived with them for 5-6 years. There Father Porphyrius learned what the monastic life is, what "perfect," "joyful," as he said, obedience is, what pure love for God is. There, he, a sincere and pure youth, received the gift of clairvoyance. Unexpectedly, Father Porphyrius fell very seriously ill, and God showed that He wanted to send him into the world, so that he could, according to the grace given to him, inspire, enlighten, console and instruct people there. The young monk returned to his homeland, to the island of Euboea, and stayed at the monastery of St. Charalampus in Avlonari. There his serious illness passed. At the age of twenty, he met Archbishop Porphyrios of Sinai, who, amazed at the young monk's lofty gifts, ordained him a hieromonk, giving him his name – Porphyrios. Imagine, he described the monastery on Sinai to the archbishop in detail, although he himself had never been there!

When the Monastery of Agios Charalampios was handed over to the nuns, Father Porphyrios moved to the Monastery of Agios Nikolaos in Vathia, on Aegina. In 4940, the Elder arrived in Athens, where he was appointed rector of the Church of St. Gerasimos at the polyclinic located near Omonia Square[5]. There he served God and people for 33 years, living in humble obscurity and performing great feats for the glory of God. He helped thousands of people to find the peace of God. Father Porphyrius even helped doctors, making, thanks to his gift of clairvoyance, accurate diagnoses. By the grace of God, he healed many sick people. All this was done by an illiterate, by worldly standards, but perfectly knowing the holy letter of God, the Elder. "Who are wise are the fishers of manifestation"[6], is sung in the troparion to the Holy Trinity.

After finishing his service in the Church of St. Gerasimos and retiring, Father Porphyrios lived for several years at the Church of St. Nicholas in Calissia, in Penteli.

Finally, he moved to Melisi in Malakasa, located about 39 kilometers from Athens towards Lamia, and then another five kilometers on the road to Oropos. There he lived as humbly as before, enduring many of his illnesses, which God in His love granted him, according to the words of the Apostle, like a thorn in the flesh... so that he would not be puffed up[8]. Melisi became a place of real mass pilgrimage. The elder strove for obscurity, but God glorified him. "The world," he wrote later, "considers me a good man, and everyone says that I am a saint. But I feel like the most sinful person in the world... and I ask everyone who knew me to pray for me."

The Elder humbly reposed in his cell in the skete of Kavsokalyvia on the Holy Mountain on December 2, 1991. He received a message from God that his end was near, and he wished to humbly end his life away from the world, in the peace and quiet of God.

No one, except for the inhabitants of Kafsokalyvia, knew about his death. His burial took place very simply, modestly, in a monastic way, on the land that the Most Holy Theotokos chose as Her domain.

When, five years after Father Porphyrius' death, I came to pray at his grave, his remains were no longer in it. The monks from his cell told me that they had dug up and hidden his relics at night, without informing anyone about it. Now no one knows where they are. Such was the testament of Father Porphyrius: he did not want a pilgrimage to begin to his relics.

Do you want to get even closer to the spirit-bearing image of the Elder? Read the following reliable testimonies of his holiness, which I have selected from several books about him.

One of the spiritual children of the Elder writes: "Father Porphyrius repeatedly told me one extraordinary, amazing incident that happened to him shortly before he left the Holy Mountain. At that time he asceticized in the skete of Kavsokalyvia. One day, Father Ioannikii, the elder of the cell and a fellow countryman of Father Porphyrius, sent him to collect snails, which serve as festive lenten food for the ascetics[9]. These snails live mainly in rocks and on the steep slopes of mountain gorges. In order to please his Elder, Father Porphyrius, who was still young at that time, filled his sack to the brim with snails, for which he had to climb up a very dangerous, rocky, almost inaccessible slope. On the way back to the skete, he crossed the riverbed, to which a rocky scree descended. When Father Porphyrius climbed a little up the slope, the stones under his feet suddenly began to crumble and threatened to drag him along with them. Being in such a hopeless situation, moreover, it began to get dark, he exclaimed: "Most Holy Virgin!" "And I did not understand what happened at that moment," the Elder told us, "but some force snatched me out of this scree and in the twinkling of an eye carried me to the opposite bank of the gorge. When I came to my senses, I saw that I was standing on a high rock, next to which there was a path leading to the skete."

"We first heard about Father Porphyrios from the then layman and graduate student of the University of Thrace, and now a priest and teacher of physics at the same university, Father George Anagnostopoulos. On October 4, 1980, we came to the Elder in Oropos, where he lived in a very modest cell made of concrete blocks. My wife and I talked to him for about an hour. We were struck by the following: before we could tell Father Porphyrius about any of our difficulties, he had already given us examples of exactly the same cases from the lives of other people. In this way, he solved all our perplexities, although we practically did not ask him anything.

When we got up to leave, the holy Elder with a quiet, joyful, affectionate fatherly smile took my husband by the hand exactly where she was sick, although we did not say a word to him about the illness. And they were not going to talk, since the course of treatment was under the supervision of our doctor. My husband had inflammation of the elbow joint. He was injected with cortisone and took strong anti-inflammatory drugs. When Father Porphyrius took him by the elbow, for a few seconds my husband felt a kind of warmth permeating his whole body, in addition, he began to feel a little sick, as if from seasickness, but very soon all this passed, and he felt that the pain in his arm suddenly stopped completely. My husband could not restrain himself and with tears in his eyes said to the Elder: "Geronda, this was revealed to you." Naturally, after that, my husband threw away all the pills and did not go to the doctor with this problem anymore."

"One woman came to Father Porphyrius for the first time to consult about a serious family problem. She wanted both her husband and children to hear what the Elder would say to her, so she put a small tape recorder in her purse to record their conversation. Arriving at Father Porphyrios, she saw that he already had a lot of people, stood aside and began to wait for her turn. Soon she heard voices from the crowd of people standing in front: "The elder ordered that a woman with a tape recorder come to him now." She was completely confused, because no one except her knew that she had a tape recorder in her purse. Everything was revealed to Father Porphyrios."

After the death of the Elder, many of his spiritual children began to write articles about him in various periodicals and publish very good books. In them, they told about their own meetings with Father Porphyrios, cited incidents from the lives of other people, both clergy and laity, who knew the Elder closely. In the lives of many, many people, Father Porphyrius played a very important role. Orthodox people loved these books so much that some of them went through several editions. Various stories about the Elder, conversations with him, his advice and explanations of difficult questions, amazing memories of him by his children, words of gratitude – such was their content. These books provided me with invaluable spiritual help, they further kindled in my heart my love for Father Porphyrius and the desire to be with him more often.