THE LION OF JUDEA LAND ARCHIMANDRITE IOUSTINOS OF JACOBS WELL
STATEMENTS OF ARCHIMANDRITE IOUSTINOS OF JACOBS WELL:
I have been attacked many times. I have survived 32 attempts on my life by Zionism. I carry the physical scars of 6 courts-martial (meaning they also beat him severely, leaving marks on his body). I have 5 courts-martial from the "Muslim Brotherhood" and 18 attempts; this is not because they are Muslims, but because they are Zionism's informants and they are also paid by the Zionists!!!
The late Archimandrite Ioustinos (in the world Anastasios G. Mamalos, born in 1941, with references to origins from Corfu or Ikaria) arrived in the Holy Land around 1960–1961 and previously served at other pilgrimage sites, such as Bethlehem and Beit Jala, before assuming in 1980 the guardianship and abbacy of the holy shrine of Jacob’s Well in Nablus (Neapolis of Samaria).
Succeeding the Holy Venerable
Martyr Philoumenos
Martyr Philoumenos (Hasapis), who met a martyr’s death by axe on 29 November 1979 at the hands of Asher Raby within the shrine itself, Father Ioustinos undertook the ministry with absolute self-denial. His sojourn, lasting more than forty to forty-five years, was transformed from the very first moment into a daily, unceasing struggle for survival, as the fury of fanatical extremists who claimed the sacred place broke upon his person.
During the long years of his ministry he survived more than thirty murderous attacks, reaching thirty-two attempts upon his life, as he himself repeatedly declared in interviews with Pemptousia and the Orthodoxia News Agency in 2019 and elsewhere. He repeatedly suffered savage beatings with iron bars, clubs, knives and axes, which inflicted upon him serious fractures, permanent bodily injuries, severe cranio-cerebral traumas and wounds to the head, leading him to successive hospitalizations. The monastery was regularly targeted with stones, gunfire, rockets, hand-grenades and arson attempts, such as the one with gasoline in 2021, while the invaders continually committed acts of vandalism, destroying icons, windows and sacred vessels; the very door of the shrine bore more than fifty to fifty-six holes from bullets and grenade fragments. In one of the attacks, in 1982, the same murderer of Saint Philoumenos returned, assaulted with an axe and hand-grenades, severely wounding a nun, and Father Ioustinos resisted heroically, saving his own life and capturing the intruder. The attacks originated from extremist elements, both fanatical Jews, as in the case of the murderer of Saint Philoumenos, and Palestinian or Muslim extremist elements in later incidents.
Beyond the physical violence, Father Ioustinos endured systematic psychological warfare, blackmail and pressure aimed at forcing him to abandon the site. Despite threats against his life and alluring offers of enormous sums of money to leave Jacob’s Well and surrender the keys, he remained unmovable in his post, as a true Confessor of the Faith. For years he lived in a state of isolation, often as the sole monk in the place, without electricity or water, guarding the church himself day and night under difficult conditions, raising the Greek flag daily and drawing strength from prayer and the protection of the Saints. Even when they poured gasoline over him and sought to burn him together with the monastery, or when he received stonings that left open wounds upon his head, he never yielded for a single moment.
He spoke flawless Arabic with the local dialect, English and a little Hebrew, and was known as the “father of the poor” for his constant philanthropic service to the local Arab population.
Despite successive hospitalizations and the heavy damage to his health, the late Archimandrite Ioustinos succeeded not only in keeping the shrine alive, but also in completing the gigantic work of reconstructing the Church of Saint Photini the Samaritan Woman above the Well. Precisely because of his long-standing philanthropy and selfless care for the Arab poor of the region, he had gained the respect and trust of the local community and of the Palestinian leadership; thus in 1998 he obtained the crucial building permit directly from Yasser Arafat. Through personal labours, by his own art painting many icons and frescoes, and with unceasing faith, he raised the magnificent church, which was inaugurated in 2009 (with further completion of phases until 2018); he himself declared that God had deemed him worthy to inaugurate the church after the thirty-two attempts. The Patriarchate of Jerusalem described him as the renovator of the shrine and the founder of the church. The Well, approximately forty-one metres deep, is a place of common reverence for Christians, Jews, Samaritans and Muslims, as the well of the Patriarch Jacob and the site of the encounter of Christ with the Samaritan Woman according to the Gospel of John. The sacred relics of Saint Philoumenos are kept within the church.
Thus this invincible Confessor and Martyr of Orthodoxy delivered to the Church and to the whole world a living monument of faith, sacrifice and glory, having guarded until the end the holy Jacob’s Well with his blood, his sweat and his unshakeable devotion. Father Ioustinos fell asleep in the Lord on 1 October 2026 at the age of eighty-five, after a prolonged illness, in the “Saint Andrew” Hospital in Patras; the Patriarchate of Jerusalem expressed profound sorrow and is examining the transfer of his sacred remains to the Holy Land.
