METROPOLITAN OF CRETE EVMENIOS (+ 1981)
OF THE GENUINE ORTHODOX CHURCH OF CRETE
On the 30th anniversary of his passing to the Lord
This year, it is completed 30 years from the death of the “martyred” bishop of the local Church of G.O.C. of saint- birth large island of Crete. Emmanuel Sifakis (in world) was born in 1909 in St Barbara, Heraklion by pious parents. After his general and high school education and worked in his homeland as a cobbler. Of his youth, and coming from a family of Orthodox zealots, he was a genuine child of the Church of Christ and remained faithful to the paternal traditions in the enforcement of the New Papal calendar.In 1946, he takes the plunge and embraces the unique state (monastic), embedded in the Savior Transfiguration Monastery in Kouvara Attica, under the spiritual guidance of St. Father Matthew Bishop of Vresthenis.
On 20/10/1946 he was ordained deacon and hieromonk by his Elder, St. Matthew. In 1949 he was sent to Crete to serve the persecuted Orthodox.There, the Blessed Eumenios develops great missionary and ecclesiastical action, defending- despite the fierce persecution of the Orthodox by the innovative church- confession with great dedication and zeal. During the 1960's, he was forced because of intense persecution of the ecumenist and Pope- friend New Calendarist "Archbishop of Crete" Eugene Psallidakis he was menial to go to Greece where he served as vicar in the parish of Saints Constantine and Helen in Kaparelli, Thebes.
It is worth mentioning that in his home built with great effort the Church of All Saints, who unlawfully and forcibly appropriated the Ecumenists Eugene and "launched" with the protection of the guns of the Gendarmerie! The martyr Hierarch dragged in court 11 times on charges of "usurping authority" and was imprisoned and stayed for 8 years now physically limited at home! It is admirable the zeal of G.O.C. of Crete and the persecution lasted until the 1980's and then it begins to erect the churches of the G.O.C., who now co-God-figure on twenty (20).
On 4th February 1973 "The Lamp is on the light" and the desire of the G.O.C. of Crete to see their Shepherd as their bishop, becomes a reality at the Monastery of his repentance and in the Chapel of Saints 99 Fathers of Crete he was ordained Hierarch by the Holy Synod of Archbishop of Athens and All Greece, Andreas. His age now is great and the state of health very precarious but not an obstacle for Bishop Evmenios, who laid the foundation for subsequent large intellectual development of the Apostolic Church of Crete.
On December 2, 1981, after a long illness, which endured with great patience, rested from their labors manifold to the Church of Christ was buried in his hometown led by Archbishop Andrew, two bishops and other clergy.
May his memory, be eternal!
2011/11/01