Icon with water-gilding on natural linden wood. The wood has been prepared in heat and gilded with gold leaf 24K, in accordance with traditional Byzantine techniques. The icon has been painted with egg-tempera paints for best performance and endurance of colors used. The colors were chosen based on studies and analyses of older icons by renowned iconographers, after ARTIS had first conducted conservation treatments on them.
Saint Porphyrios was born on February 7th, 1906 AD in Evia. He became a monk at the age of fourteen years old on Mount Athos, ultimately receiving the Great Schema. Not long after, God granted him the grace of clairvoyance. At nineteen years old, he became gravely ill, which forced him to leave Mount Athos forever. He returned then to Evia, where he went to the Monastery of Saint Haralambos Levkon. A year later, in 1926 AD, at the age of twenty years old, he was ordained a priest at Saint Haralambos Kymis. At twenty-two years old, he was given permission to hear confessions and, a little later, he was elevated to the status of archimandrite. In the summer of 1979 AD, he established a hermitage at Milesi, with the dream of building a monastery. After laying the foundation of the main church of the Monastery of the Transfiguration, on February 26th, 1990 AD, he was accounted worthy to see his dream become reality. Indeed, in June of the next year, he was informed of his impending death, and so he departed for the hut of Saint George in Kafsokalyvia of Mount Athos, where he gave up his spirit to the Lord. His memory is honoured on the 2nd of December.
