Amphilochios of Patmos

Amphilochios of Patmos (1889-1970), born Athanasios Makris, was a Greek monastic elder, priest, and confessor who served as abbot of the Monastery of St John the Theologian on Patmos and founded the women's Monastery of the Annunciation on the same island. He is remembered as a spiritual guide who sustained Orthodox education and the Greek language in the Dodecanese during the period of Italian occupation and who established orphanages and other charitable works. He reposed on Patmos on April 16, 1970, and was glorified by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 2018.

Born on Patmos on December 13, 1889, to Emmanuel and Irene Makris, he entered the Monastery of St John the Theologian as a young man in March 1906 and was made a rassophore monk with the name Amphilochios in August of that year. He was tonsured to the Great Schema in 1913 and ordained to the diaconate in 1919, later being raised to the priesthood. He served at the monastery's dependencies, including on the island of Kos, and acted as a confessor throughout the Dodecanese.

Elected abbot of the Monastery of St John the Theologian in 1935, Amphilochios devoted much of his energy to education and charity. According to his biographers, he organized instruction in the Greek language for local children under the cover of a workshop for knitting and weaving, a measure tied to the conditions of Italian rule over the islands. This educational activity led to his exile to mainland Greece by the Italian authorities in 1937; he spent the following years on the mainland and in Crete before returning to Patmos in 1939.