On Sunday 21 July 2019, Elder Nektarios Marmarinos reposed in the Lord at the age of 98. He is most noted as being the founder of the Monastery of Saint Patapios in Loutraki.
Elder Nektarios, known as Kyriakos in the world, was a spiritual child of Elder Ieronymos of Aegina, who taught him the art of hesychasm and increased in him the love for the divine services and the monastic life. It was while he was in Aegina that he was inspired to one day build a monastery for women in imitation of his beloved Saint Nektarios of Aegina.
He attended seminary in Corinth. It was while he was a student that he learned of the cave where the relics of Saint Patapios were discovered incorrupt in 1904 in nearby Loutraki. One day he visited the cave with a fellow student and prayed to Saint Patapios: "My Saint, help me to build here a monastery! I want to see a monastic sisterhood continuously glorifying the Lord to make an acceptable offering of incense before the throne of Your majesty."
After this he would frequently visit this cave with a bed covering to rest on after his vigils. Saint Patapios appeared to him in a dream. He saw the Saint sitting radiantly on his coffin, with calmness and a brilliant splendor. He then heard him say three times: "The monastery will happen, yes, it will happen!" Fr. Nektarios began the architectural design of the monastery in 1947, after his ordination.
Not long after this Metropolitan Prokopios of Corinth got sick and went to the hospital. Fr. Nektarios visited him on January 23, 1951 to pray over him. Once the Metropolitan saw him, he became very moved and said:
"Saint Patapios told me in my sleep that he wants his Monastery to happen! We cannot do otherwise!"
Then he gave the following instructions:
a. For the chancellor of the Metropolis, Metropolitan Gabriel Kalokairinos, to get the keys to the cave which the priests of Loutraki had and give them to Fr. Nektarios.
b. For no priest to serve there without permission from the Metropolis.
c. For the Monastery to be recognized quickly after he proposed this to the Holy Synod.
d. To help financially to make sure this happens and for nuns to occupy the Monastery by August 1952.
Metropolitan Prokopios is considered the great founder of the Monastery. He fell asleep in the Lord on December 3, 1964 and is forever commemorated there with a plaque at the entrance. Upon his death he donated his entire vast library of books as well as other possessions from the Metropolis.
In 1952 Fr. Nektarios Marmarinos built the all-female monastery on the site of the discovery of the relics of St. Patapios in 1904. The local people initially resisted this idea since the location of the monastery is very difficult to reach even to this day. After the founding of the monastery, Sister Patapia was nominated as Abbess, with Fr. Nektarios Marmarinos as its spiritual leader. Today, there are some forty nuns living in the cells of the foundation and the current abbess is Mother Isidora. They are very philanthropic and run an old age home for women.
In 1977 Fr. Nektarios also founded a men's monastery dedicated to the Apostle Paul on Mount Gerania, which today has no monks. With this he also established the male Monastery of Saint Nicholas the New in Malagari and the male Monastery of the Three Hierarchs in Parachora near Loutraki.
In 2006 the city of Corinth presented him with the golden key to the city, and Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens and All Greece presented him with a gold medal for his missionary activity.
From 1940 until his death Fr. Nektarios taught catechism classes every Sunday, and every week would travel throughout the villages of Corinth teaching the people the gospel of the Lord. Every Friday he would go the Monastery of Saint Patapios in Loutraki to confess the nuns. Every Sunday he celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Monastery of the Three Hierarchs in Parachora.