Venerable Philotheus of Karyes

Philotheus of Karyes was an Athonite ascetic who lived in the cell of Iagari near Karyes, the administrative center of Mount Athos. According to the synaxarion preserved in the Orthodox Church in America's Lives of the Saints, he was granted the gift of clairvoyance because of the purity of his life, and he is remembered chiefly as the spiritual father of Saint Nectarius. He is commemorated on December 5.

Little biographical detail survives. The sources record no dates of birth or death for Philotheus and do not state his century directly. His period is inferred from that of his spiritual son: Nectarius of Bitolya and Mount Athos performed his monastic obedience under Philotheus and the Elder Dionysius and reposed on December 5, 1500, which places Philotheus's activity in the later fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.