Bessarion of Agathonos, born Andreas (Andrew) Korkoliakos, was a Greek monastic priest and confessor of the twentieth century, remembered for his pastoral and philanthropic ministry in central Greece and for his long association with the Monastery of the Dormition of the Theotokos at Agathonos, near Lamia. He was born in 1908 at Petalidi in Messenia, in the southwestern Peloponnese, and entered the monastic life as a young man. He reposed on January 22, 1991, and was formally numbered among the saints by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in 2022.
According to the accounts of his life, Andreas moved to Kalamata around the age of eighteen, where he came under the guidance of spiritual fathers and resolved to become a monk, receiving the monastic name Bessarion. He was subsequently ordained to the diaconate and the priesthood and raised to the dignity of archimandrite. In 1935 he came to Karditsa at the invitation of the local Metropolitan Ezekiel, where he devoted himself to pastoral work and to charitable activity, including service connected with the local hospital.
During the German occupation of Greece in the Second World War, the tradition relates that Bessarion aided members of the resistance and intervened to save children who had been seized by the occupying forces. After 1955 he settled at Agathonos Monastery, drawn there in connection with Father Germanos Demakos, and there he served for the remainder of his life as a confessor and spiritual father to monks and laity alike. He became widely known in the region of Phthiotis as a merciful and approachable elder.
Bessarion died on January 22, 1991, at the 'Sotiria' Hospital in Athens. When his grave was opened in March 2006, his body was reported to have been found in a remarkably preserved state, an event that drew considerable public attention and prompted discussion over whether the preservation was a natural process or a sign of sanctity. The Ecumenical Patriarchate, under Patriarch Bartholomew, inscribed him among the saints on June 14, 2022, and his feast is kept on January 22, the day of his repose.
