Life and Monastic Withdrawal
Gerontios was abbot of the Bouleuterion Monastery on Mount Athos, an early foundation that Orthodox tradition associates with the era of Saint Athanasios the Athonite. Because the monastery lay near the seashore, it was exposed to repeated barbarian raids, and the monks abandoned it for more inaccessible places on the Holy Mountain. Tradition links this departure to the raids of the Catalan Company in the early fourteenth century, dated by one account to 1302.
With his disciple, Gerontios ascended to the upper part of the area that would later be known as the Skete of Saint Anna, seeking a life of stillness and prayer. There he constructed a hesychasterion and a church dedicated to Saint Panteleimon, on the site where a chapel of that dedication still stands. He is remembered as having lived a most wondrous life and as reposing at an advanced age.
The Spring of Holy Water
According to the account preserved in the Orthodox sources, Gerontios found water in a completely arid place through a revelation of the Panagia, the Mother of God, in answer to his prayers. The spring is said to continue flowing to the present day, and the monks use its water as holy water (agiasmos).
Mystagogy relates a further tradition that, when his disciple began to use the water for gardening contrary to divine instruction, the spring ceased; upon renewed prayer it flowed again farther down from their hermitage. These details are reported as part of the saint's traditional account rather than as documented history.
Legacy
Although the Skete of Saint Anna was formally established as an institution in 1686 with a relic of Saint Anna, and its central church (kyriakon) was built in 1680 during an enlargement under Patriarch Dionysius III of Constantinople, Gerontios is venerated as the skete's first founder. The community that grew from his settlement is said to have produced about fifteen saints and many virtuous fathers.
Gerontios maintained a spiritual friendship with his contemporary Saint Maximus Kavsokalybites (commemorated January 13), an association recorded in the Life of Saint Maximus. The liturgical service honoring Gerontios was composed by the monk Gerasimos.
