The Monk Martyr Ephraim was born on September 14, 1384, and lost his father in early childhood. His mother was a pious woman. She raised Ephraim and his six siblings alone. At the age of fourteen, Saint Ephraim went to the monastery of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos and lived there for twenty-seven years in prayer and abstinence. In the monastery, he took the priesthood and became the guardian of the monastery. It is not known whether there were other monks in the monastery or whether he lived alone.
On his birthday, in September 1425, on the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, he was captured by Muslim pirates. They tortured the saint, forcing him to renounce Christ. He refused, and they tortured him for eight months, letting the wounds on his body heal a little and then torturing him again. On May 5, 1426, he was brought into the courtyard of the monastery and hung upside down from a tree. This tree has been preserved to this day. Nails were driven into his arms and legs, and his body was pierced with a red-hot sharp iron rod.
This is how this holy monk martyr betrayed the spirit to the Lord, and five hundred years later people learned about his sufferings and discovered his relics. The Lord glorified him for the sufferings he had endured and blessed him with the gift of miracle-working. He became a famous physician of souls and bodies, and now there are hundreds of written testimonies accumulated since the day his relics were found.

In 1950, the Greek nun Sister Makaria, feeling that the Lord wanted her to rebuild the monastery of the Annunciation, destroyed by pirates in the XV century, asked the bishop's permission and set to work. I felt that this place was sacred. She worked here every day, clearing the rubble, and in her prayers asked God to reveal to her who the monks of the past were and how they lived here.
One morning, Sister Makaria was working in the monastery yard, and suddenly an urgent thought came to her head: “Dig the earth in this place and you will find what you are looking for.” A little more time passed, and again the same thought came to her. She turned to a young worker who came to the monastery to fix something, but for some reason it seemed inconvenient to explain to him the true purpose of the search, and she asked him to dig at that place, ostensibly with the intention of finding an ancient monastery well. He refused, objecting that water could be found in other places rather than here, and for several hours he dug in various places to no avail, where he considered it necessary. At the end of the day, he returned to the place where Sister Makaria had asked him to dig.
Very soon they dug up a hearth, three small windows and a dilapidated wall–signs that there had once been a monastic cell here. While clearing the stones, the worker acted so vigorously that she had to ask him not to hurry. He didn't obey until she said: “Perhaps someone is buried here, and you risk hitting his remains with a shovel. I beg you to be careful.” He looked at her in surprise and said, “Do you really think we're going to find someone's remains here?” Sister Makariya remembers:
I was almost sure, I could almost see this monk with my inner eye. We continued our blessed work, and now, at a depth of one hundred and seventy centimeters, we saw the head of this man of God. When it was completely dug out, we were surrounded by the most subtle fragrance. The employee was pale, he couldn't even speak. I asked him to leave me alone, and he left. I venerated the relics of the saint with great reverence and felt with all my being that he had to endure suffering. I was filled with holy joy, as if I had found a heavenly treasure.
For some reason, I knew in advance that he was a monk. Carefully brushing off the sand, I saw the well-preserved border of his cassock. The clean fabric was artfully sewn in the old-fashioned way, with threads more than a millimeter thick. The ground around his hands and feet was hard, and there were prints on it... I tried to brush the dirt off his fingers, but they turned out to be so fragile that they began to crumble. It started to rain, the grave got wet quickly, and I decided to leave the relics lying in the rain. The rain streamed in soft silver droplets, cleansing the grave and the body of the saint.
In the evening, while reading the all-night service, all alone in this holy place, I suddenly heard the sound of footsteps. Someone was walking from the courtyard, where there was a grave, to the temple. I already knew it was him, that unknown saint. His footsteps echoed in my ears, and I was terribly scared. The blood rushed to my head, I froze, not even able to turn around. Suddenly, a calm voice came from behind: “How long are you going to keep me out there?” I turned around and saw him. He was tall, dark-haired, with round, heavy-lidded eyes. A black curly beard completely covered his neck. He held a lamp in his left hand and blessed me with his right.
At these words, my fear instantly disappeared, replaced by an extraordinary joy, as if I had met an old good friend. I said, “Forgive me, tomorrow at dawn I will take care of your holy relics.” He disappeared into thin air, and I continued reading the evening service....
In the morning, I reverently cleaned the earth from the relics, washed them and, placing them in the temple, lit an unquenchable lamp next to them. That night I dreamed that this monk had come again. He was standing near the temple, holding in his hands a large, elaborately made silver icon. There was a candlestick next to the icon, and I lit a wax candle. Then he said, “Thank you very much. I am Ephraim.”
Over the next few years, St. Ephraim revealed the story of his martyrdom to Macarius and others, appearing to them in visions and dreams.
Since 1950, Mother Makariya, who later became abbess, worked on the restoration of the monastery. She and the sisters conducted monastic services and took care of the hundreds of pilgrims who came daily to pray at the church at the relics of the Saint. On April 23, 1999, Abbess Makariya departed to the Lord.