ABSTRACT. The Holy Mountain of Athos testifies on the beauty and accessibility of the Christian ideal – salvation, through the known and consecrated saints from the calendar of Christian perfection, as well as through the humble labourers who conceived themselves, being known only by God Whom they worshiped and entrusted their lives and needs. The Athonite Fathers are a living testimony of the fact that holiness or deification is not a theoretical ideal but a natural and possible existential state. The condition of its acquisition is to completely deny the old man and his deeds and to practice the Christian virtues which brings man close to God and culminates in full union with Him. Such a sublime example of deified life is Saint Porphyrios the Kapsokalyvite (1906-1991), who proved to be an “earthly angel” among men receiving the canonization by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 2013. One of Saint Porphyrios’s distinct virtues was bearing the trials and tribulations with hope and the sufferings and illnesses with nobility and dignity even if he had fully tasted their ‘cup’ ever since childhood.

Keywords: Saint Porphyrios the Kapsokalyvite; The Holy Mountain of Athos; spiritual art; human troubles; salvation