Philoumenos of Jacob's Well

Philoumenos (Hasapis) of Jacob's Well (; ; or , 15 October 1913 – 29 November 1979) was the Hegumen of the Greek Orthodox monastery of Jacob's Well, from the city of Nablus (Neapolis) in the West Bank. He was murdered on 29 November 1979 by a mentally ill Israeli Jewish man.

Life Sophocles Hasapis was born on 15 October 1913, in the village of Orounta in the province of Morphou, in Cyprus.

At the age of 14, he and his twin brother, the future Archimandrite Elpidios, left their home to become monks at the Stavrovouni Monastery in Cyprus where they stayed for 6 years and then left for the Holy Land to continue their monastic life and attended the local High School. He was ordained a priest and became a trusted priest of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, later being raised to the office of archimandrite.

In 1979, he was assigned as the guardian of the Monastery of Jacob's Well.

Death Philoumenos was murdered on 29 November 1979. His assailant, Asher Raby (spelled "Rabi" in some newspaper accounts), a mentally ill 37-year-old resident of Tel Aviv, had intruded the monastery and threw a hand grenade inside, which caused substantial damage. Philoumenos is said by investigators to have been fleeing the explosion and fire caused by the grenade when he was pursued by Raby and hit multiple times with an axe. Investigators stated that Philoumenos appeared to have been trying to protect his face with his hands when a blow to his face or head severed one finger on each hand. Raby escaped the scene of the crime undetected. Raby was subsequently found to have acted alone, "without any connection to a religious or political entity."

An investigation launched by the Israeli police initially failed to identify the killer. Raby was arrested on 17 November 1982 as he again attempted to enter the Monastery at Jacob's Well illicitly by climbing over a wall; he was carrying hand grenades. Raby supplied the police with accurate details of his earlier, previously unsolved, crimes. These were the murder of Philoumenos; a March 1979 murder of a Jewish gynecologist in Tel-Aviv; the murder of the family of a woman in Lod, Israel in April 1979 who claimed to have clairvoyant powers; and an assault on a nun at the Jacob's Well holy site in April 1982.

Raby, a newly religious Jew, was described as unwashed, dressed in worn-out clothing, and audibly muttered passages of scripture in a strange manner. Psychiatric evaluations found that he was mentally incompetent to stand trial; he was committed to a mental hospital; details of his subsequent whereabouts are restricted by privacy regulations.

Erroneous accounts Initial accounts depicted the murder as an anti-Christian hate attack carried out by a group of Jewish settlers, the result being what Maariv described as "a wave of hatred" in Greece. Reports indicating that "radical Jews" had tortured Philoumenos and "cut off the fingers of his hand" before killing him had appeared in Greek newspapers. Maariv also quoted an official in the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem asserting that "the murder was carried out by radical religious Jews" claiming that "the Well does not belong to Christians but to Jews".

Gurevich and Harani contended that a 1989 account of the murder, published in Orthodox America, a publication of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, became the basis of an anti-Semitic ritual murder narrative, according to which a group of anti-Christianity Jews first harassed Philoumenos and destroyed Christian holy objects at the monastery, then murdered him. as per the decision of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem in 2009,#tag:ref|"Today, after the completion of thirty years since the day of his martyrdom, based on the Synodic decision of Our Holy and Sacred Synod, we officially place in the Synaxarion, the celebration of this new hieromartyr on this day of his martyrdom, 16/29 November each year, to the benefit of the souls and to the glory of Our Holy Triune God."

Troparion (Tone 4) At Jacob's Well you were proved well named: loving Christ, confessing Him, pouring out your sacred blood. Being faithful in small things you were set over great. Worshipping in Spirit and in Truth, you are now Guardian of the Holy Places forever. Apolytikion

Τῆς Ὀρούντης τὸν γόνον, νήσου Κύπρου τὸ βλάστημα, καὶ ἱερομάρτυρα νέον Ἰακὼβ θείου Φρέατος, Φιλούμενον, τιμήσωμεν, πιστοί, ὡς πρόμαχον τῆς πίστεως ἡμῶν, καὶ ἀήττητον ὁπλίτην Χριστοῦ τῆς ἀληθείας πόθῳ κράζοντες· Δόξα τῷ σὲ δοξάσαντι Χριστῷ, δόξα τῷ σὲ ἀφθαρτίσαντι, δόξα τῷ σὲ ἡμῖν χειραγωγὸν πρὸς πόλον δείξαντι.