One of the oldest monasteries of Attica (from the 10th century) is that of the Annunciation of the Virgin on the mountain of Amomon (known today as Nea Makri). During the Ottoman domination, atrocious massacres took place in the monastery, while one of the martyrs was Saint Ephraim.
The Holy Relic of the Holy Martyr Ephraim was miraculously found a few decades ago. In 1945, the holy late nun Makaria (who deceased in 1999), went to the ruins of the ancient monastery of the Annunciation of Mount Amomon, at the northeastern foothills of the Penteliko. By a divine impulse, she formed a small cell there and began to clean the ruins of the old Temple to reconstruct it. There, she many times was thinking, that in those lands had lived over the years, Holy Monks, and she was praying to meet someone of them, or someone of them to be revealed. A voice, in the beginning soft, but over the time stronger in her soul, was telling her “Dig and you will find what you want” and miraculously was revealed to her a point of the monastery's forefront.
Thus, on January 3, 1950, having a worker for other works in the monastery, she made him dig to the point where her soul indicated her. The worker was negative, he wanted to dig anywhere else than at this point; finally after the pleas and prayers, the worker was convinced and started digging. The point there had a half-broken fireplace, a wall, and things that showed that there once was a monk's cell. Reaching at 1.70 meters depth of digging, the first finding was found; a head, and the whole place got a scent ... (it was 1/3/1950, 9 in the morning) slowly and with caution the abbess Makaria took out the relic and placed it in a locker that was above the grave. It was obvious that he was a clergyman because his cassock had remained intact. The Saint appeared in her sleep and thanked her, saying his name, Ephraim.
Since then the monastery of Saint Ephraim is one of the biggest pilgrimages in Attica and all over Greece.
Saint Ephraim, with origin from Trikala of Thessaly, found shelter since he was a young man, in the monastery, in order to avoid the mass kidnapping of children. In 1424 the Turks invaded the Monastery of the Annunciation and slaughtered all the Fathers of the Monastery. The Saint was absent in a cave on the mountain for prayer, and just returned to find the dead bodies of the Fathers, and after he buried them, he mourned gravely.
The following year, in 1425, the barbarians returned and found the saint. They arrested him and tortured him for eight months with great fury and barbarity.
Finally he was hung upside down by an old mulberry that existed at the monastery's precinct (preserved today) and he was bored, with a large wood lit, on the belly, in the area of the bull, then he was nailed to the tree with large nails. The Saint being on fire continued to pray and ended his life martyrically by the Turks on May 5, 1426, at the age of 42 years.
The nunnery of Saint Ephraim celebrates each year on the date of Saint Ephraim (5 May), January 3 (date of the finding of the Holy Relics of the Saint) as well as the Annunciation (March 25).
The monastery, which belongs to the Holy Metropolis of Kifissia, owes its present status to the late Abbess Makaria.
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