St. Nektarios of Aegina
Apolytikion and the Rule of Life
The standard liturgical hymn of his feast, with the short Rule he gave the sisters of Aegina
Contents6 sections
On the feast and the saint
Editor's note
St. Nektarios reposed on the night of November 8/9, 1920, at the Aretaieio public hospital in Athens, after a long illness. His glorification by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople on April 20, 1961 was the first formal canonization of a saint of the modern era in the Greek-speaking Orthodox world, and the festal hymns appointed for him at that glorification have been sung in every Greek-tradition parish ever since.
Summary by PurifyWritten by Purify, not St. Nektarios of Aegina's words.
Below is the Apolytikion in Tone 1, the Kontakion, the Megalynarion, and a short Rule of Life as he gave it to the sisters of the Holy Trinity Monastery on Aegina.
Apolytikion (Tone 1)
The Church's hymnSung by the Church about St. Nektarios of Aegina, not written by him.
O faithful, let us honour Nektarios, divine servant of Christ, offspring of Selybria and guardian of Aegina, who in these latter years was manifested as the true friend of virtue. Every kind of healing wells up for those who in piety cry, Glory to Christ who has glorified you. Glory to him who, through you, has worked wonders. Glory to him who, through you, works healings for all.
Kontakion
The Church's hymnSung by the Church about St. Nektarios of Aegina, not written by him.
Let us, the faithful, honour with one mouth the new bright star of the Church and the new defender, for he is glorified by the unction of the Spirit. Set in Aegina as a fountain of myrrh, by his pure and most ascetic life he has shown himself a treasure of grace divine; for he pours out healings of various kinds upon those who reverently cry: Rejoice, O Father Nektarios.
Megalynarion
The Church's hymnSung by the Church about St. Nektarios of Aegina, not written by him.
Rejoice, O wonder-working Hierarch of Christ, glory of Pentapolis and of Aegina; rejoice, fragrant rose of Selybria; rejoice, O Nektarios, sweet-smelling boast of Orthodoxy in these our latter days.
The Rule of Life he gave the sisters
Editor's note
When St. Nektarios was settling the small community of nuns at the Holy Trinity Monastery on Aegina in the years before his death, he wrote out for them a short Rule. It is plain and brief, with nothing of the formal monastic legislator about it: a few sentences, in his own voice, to women who had given him their lives.
Pray often, my children, that God may give you light. Light is necessary for the soul above all things, and without light the soul cannot live, neither can it be raised to God.
Love one another. He who loves his sister loves God, for God is love. Do not let the sun go down upon your difference with a sister, for the night belongs to the spirit of darkness, and your prayers will be of no profit.
Be humble. Pride is the death of every virtue. The proud soul, however many works it may do, builds upon sand; the humble soul, even with few works, builds upon the rock.
Be patient. The hour of trial is the hour of grace. The Lord prunes the vine that it may bear more fruit. Do not run from the cross He sends, for the cross is the throne on which He sets His friends.
Read the Holy Scriptures every day, even if only a little. Read the Fathers, that you may understand the Scriptures. Pray after you have read, that what you have read may live in you.
Confess often. The frequent confession of small faults is the medicine that prevents the great fall.
Receive Holy Communion as often as your confessor permits. Without Christ joy is not joy, light is not light, love is not love.
A closing word from his correspondence
I bear no ill will to anyone who has injured me; I have prayed God to give them every good. The slander that fell upon me was a heavier trial than the cancer that now afflicts me, but I see that without it I should not have been brought into this quietness, into this poverty, into this nearness to God.