Nectarios of Aegina (; 1 October 1846 – 8 November 1920), Metropolitan of Pentapolis and Wonderworker of Aegina, is one of the most renowned Greek saints, venerated in the Eastern Orthodox Church and officially recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1961. His feast day is celebrated every year on 9 November. Life Anastasios Kephalas (), later Nectarios, was born on 1 October 1846 in Selymbria, to a poor family. His parents, Dimos and Maria Kephalas, were pious Christians but not wealthy. At the age of 14, he moved to Constantinople, modern-day Istanbul, to work and further his education. In 1866, at age 20, he moved to the island of Chios to take a teaching post. On November 7, 1876, he became a monk, at age 30, in the Monastery of Nea Moni, for he had long wished to embrace the ascetic life. Three years after becoming a monk, he was ordained a deacon, taking the name Nectarios. He graduated from the University of Athens in 1885. During his years as a student of the University of Athens he wrote many books, pamphlets, and Bible commentaries. Following his graduation he went to Alexandria, Egypt, where he was ordained a priest and served the Church of Saint Nicholas in Cairo. He was consecrated Metropolitan bishop of Pentapolis (an ancient Diocese in Cyrenaica, in what is now Libya) by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Sophronios in 1889. He served as a bishop in Cairo for one year. Nectarios was very popular with the people, which gave rise to jealousy among his colleagues. They were able to persuade his superior that Nectarios had ambitions to displace the Patriarch. Nectarios was suspended from his post without explanation. He then returned to Greece in 1891, and spent several years as a preacher (1891–1894). He was then director of the Rizarios Ecclesiastical School for the education of priests in Athens for fifteen years. He developed many courses of study, and wrote numerous books, while preaching widely throughout Athens. In 1904, at the request of several nuns, he established Holy Trinity Monastery for them on the island of Aegina. Nectarios ordained two women as sub-deaconesses in 1911. Up to the 1950s, a few Greek Orthodox nuns also became monastic sub-deaconesses. In 1986, Christodoulos, the Metropolitan of Demetrias and later Archbishop of Athens and all of Greece, ordained a woman sub-deacon in accordance with the "ritual of Saint