The martyrdom in 1979 of Father Philoumenos at the monastery of Jacob’s Well near ancient Samaria:
What a good shepherd he was, more worthy than some of the episcopate! Yet the policies and needs of the patriarchate saw Father Philoumenos assigned to other positions. Whenever Palestinian faithful were scandalized by some unworthy priest, whenever Orthodox neglect or European money drove the faithful to wonder whether they would not receive better pastoral care from Uniates, it was Father Philoumenos that the Patriarch of Jerusalem sent as the true defender of the Faith, a man of more than blameless life, a man from whom no one could even imagine any immodest or improper word, a man whose faith and integrity were a model for all………
Three things were most remarkable about the blessed martyr. The first might have been partly from nature, but assuredly aided by Grace: this was his soft sweet voice, which I can still hear today. The second was a meticulous fidelity to small things, but specifically to the Divine Service. He never omitted one word of any day’s service. When we were alone in some remote monastery, particularly for Matins, he slowly and carefully chanted each word of every psalm and canon. Not even at the Monastery of St. Sabba was the reading done so well. But when there were pilgrims for the Divine Liturgy and vespers, he made the usual abridgements lest the service be too long and some be tempted to leave. Later on, privately, he would read every word that had not been chanted in the church. Those who stayed with him for some time saw the copies of the menaion, horologion, synaxarion, etc. and noticed that the markers were always in place and the volumes never dusty, which earned the Divine Promise, Well done thou good and faithful servant, because thou hast been faithful over little things, I will set thee over great things Enter thou into the joy of the Lord (Matt. 25:21).
Third, and as unobtrusive, almost secret, was his humility. What a perfect patriarch he would have made, and were the election by the Palestinian faith fill he might well have been. Instead, God gave him an eternal crown and throne among the elders who offer incense before the throne of the Lamb (Rev. 5:8)……..
The glorious martyrdom of this servant of God came to pass in November,1979. The week before, a group of fanatical Zionists came to the monastery at Jacob’s Well, claiming it as a Jewish holy place and demanding that all crosses and icons be removed. Of course, our father pointed out that the floor upon which they were standing had been built by Emperor Constantine before 331 A.D. and had served as an Orthodox Christian holy place for sixteen centuries before the Israeli State was created, and had been in Samaritan hands eight centuries before that, (The rest of the original church had been destroyed by the invasion of the Shah Khosran Parvis in the seventh century, at which time the Jews had massacred all the Christians of Jerusalem.) The group left with threats, insults and obscenities of the kind which local Christians suffer regularly. After a few days, on November 16/29, during a torrential downpour, a group broke into the monastery; the saint had already put on his epitrachelion for Vespers. The piecemeal chopping of the three fingers with which he made the Sign of the Cross showed that he was tortured in an attempt to make him deny his Orthodox Christian Faith. His face was cloven in the form of the Cross. The church and holy things were all defiled. No one was ever arrested.
His body was buried on Mt. Zion, and when it was exhumed after four years, as is customary, It was found to be substantially incorrupt…”
Correction: The Israeli government did finally arrest a mentally disturbed Jewish man, who was not a settler, for this and other crimes. However, nothing was done about the dozens of other people who’d called and made violent threats for weeks to the Archimandrite, before his murder.