Savvas the Fool-for-Christ, Saint (†1349)
Saint Savvas was born in Thessaloniki around the year 1280. He became a monk at an early age as a disciple of a strict elder in a Vatopaidi cell at Karyes. He lived a severe ascetic life with extreme temperance in food and drink and all things. The raids of the Catalans forced him to leave Mount Athos, and he wandered about the islands of the Aegean Sea and in Ephesus, ending up in Cyprus. He decided to follow the way of foolishness for Christ’s sake, living a rare, indescribable, unusual and unbelievable life, persistently avoiding any sort of human honor. Several times he was found worthy to see Christ in the uncreated light. He returned to the Holy Mountain, settling at Vatopaidi Monastery, where he continued to avoid any display of praise. During the civil war (1341–1347), he was persuaded to lead a peace-seeking delegation to Constantinople, which, as he had foreseen, was unsuccessful. He remained at the Monastery of Chora, where he was sorely pressed from all sides to accept consecration as Patriarch, especially from the Emperor John VI Cantacuzenus, a spiritual child of the Saint, but again he expressly refused this honor. He reposed peacefully around 1349.