Venerable · 1506–1579
Gerasimos of Cephalonia
Venerable Gerasimos of Cephalonia
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Why they are a saint
Gerasimos of Cephalonia was an athonite-trained monk of Cephalonia; island patron. He is in popular devotion asked for the mentally ill. The years given for this life are 1506–1579. This memory is kept in the Greek Church; the faithful look to his monastic life as a pattern of repentance and prayer.
Life
Saint Gerasimos was born in Trikkala in the Peloponnese, became a monk on Zakynthos and a schemamonk on Mount Athos. He went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Sinai, Antioch, Damascus and Egypt, and served as a lamp-lighter at the Holy Sepulchre; Patriarch Germanus of Jerusalem ordained him deacon and priest.
After forty days in solitude by the Jordan, he lived as a hermit on Zakynthos for five years and then on Cephalonia, first in a cave. At Omala he restored a church and founded a women's monastery, where he lived in toil and vigil for thirty years and was granted the gift of healing the sick and casting out unclean spirits. He fell asleep in the Lord on August 15, 1579, at 71. Two years later his relics were found fragrant and incorrupt; August 16 commemorates their uncovering in 1581.
Sources: OCA Lives of the Saints. Retold in our own words.
Traditional patronage
The cited source names no specific patronage.
Patronage / why chosen as patron
Orthodox Christians usually take Gerasimos of Cephalonia as a patron when they bear the name Gerasimos at baptism. Those who share his calling as a monastic also ask his prayers.
Prayer
O holy Gerasimos of Cephalonia, pray to God for us.
A short general prayer to a saint, not a liturgical text. No public-domain troparion for this saint is included.
Do not confuse with Gerasimos of the Jordan.