Apostasy and Repentance
According to the accounts of his life, Nicholas was orphaned of his father at seventeen and, lacking a trade, took service with a wealthy Muslim as a camel-herder, together with six other young Orthodox Christians. The sources relate that during a plague these companions, believing they had lost their families and possessions, embraced Islam in order to survive.
His mother's refusal to receive him in Muslim dress — telling him that she had given birth to a Christian, not a Turk — is remembered as the turning point that drove him to repentance. He thereafter sought out an Athonite spiritual father at Smyrna, who directed him to Mount Athos.
Monastic Life on Mount Athos
On the Holy Mountain, Nicholas submitted himself to the elder Hatzi-Stephanos at the Skete of Saint Anna, in the hut dedicated to Saint John the Theologian. At his tonsure his name was changed from Nikolaos to Nektarios.
The sources describe him giving himself wholly to the ascetic life in continual repentance for his earlier denial of Christ. Resolved to wash away that fall by the confession of martyrdom, he obtained his elder's blessing and set out, with Hatzi-Stephanos accompanying him, to return to the place of his apostasy.
Martyrdom
Back at Vryoulla, Nektarios presented himself before the local judge and openly confessed his return to Orthodox Christianity. He was imprisoned and brought before the military commander and governor, who threatened him with death; he refused to recant. The accounts relate that he was brought again before the governor some days later and tortured, yet remained firm.
Before his execution he asked the Christians who were strengthened by his witness whether Holy Communion might be brought to him. He was then sentenced and led to the place of execution, where he was beheaded on July 11, 1820, at the age of twenty-one.
Relics and Veneration
The accounts relate that the saint's body was cast into a dry well and covered with stones so that the Christians could not recover it. His elder Hatzi-Stephanos managed to carry the saint's skull back to the Skete of Saint Anna, and a portion of his relics was given to his mother, through which miracles are said to have been worked.
He is locally honored on Mount Athos. His countrymen annually keep his feast at the Church of Saint George the Great Martyr in New Ionia, a suburb of Athens, where a processional icon depicting scenes from his life is venerated. A portion of his relics is also kept at the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Washington, D.C.
