In 1979 Saint Philoumenos was appointed guardian of the Monastery of Saint [[Jacob's Well]].<ref name="NOCTOC"/>
===Martyrdom=Death==
[[Image:Hieromartyr of Jacob's Well Philoumenos.gif|right|thumb|]]
The crowning moment St. 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 Father Philoumenos’ earthly [[pilgrimageTel Aviv]] came on [[November 16]]/29, 1979 at had intruded the monastery, 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 the shrine built one finger on each hand. Raby escaped the scene of the site crime undetected.Raby was subsequently found to have acted alone, "without any connection to a religious or political entity."<ref name=Gurevich> David Gurevich, and Yisca Harani. “Philoumenos of [[Jacob's Well]]: The Birth of a Contemporary Ritual Murder Narrative.” Israel Studies, vol. 22, no. 2, 2017, pp. 26–54. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.22.2.02. </ref> The body of the Saint experienced a martyric death at the hands of extremist Jewish Zionists who massacred him with an ax in was handed over to the eveningOrthodox 6 days after his massacre, while he but retained its flexibility and was performing [[Vespers]] at the Well of Jacob where he lived as a loyal guardian of buried in the Holy Places and centuries old way cemetery of lifeMount Zion.<ref name="NOCTOC"/> Saint Philoumenos served in the [[Holy Land]] for 46 years (1933-1979).
The week before his martyrdom, a group of fanatical Zionists had come An investigation launched by the Israeli police initially failed to identify the monastery killer. Raby was arrested on 17 November 1982 as he again attempted enter the Monastery at Jacob's Wellillicitly by climbing over a wall; he was carrying hand grenades. Raby supplied the police with accurate details of his earlier, claiming it as previously unsolved, crimes. These were the murder of Fr. Philoumenos; a March 1979 murder of a Jewish holy place and demanding that all crosses and icons be removed. Of course, gynecologist in Tel-Aviv; the Saint pointed out that murder of the floor upon which they were standing had been built by family of a woman in [[Constantine I|Emperor ConstantineLod, Israel]] before 331 A.D. in April 1979 who claimed to have clairvoyant powers; and had served as an Orthodox Christian assault on a nun at the Jacob's Well holy place for sixteen centuries before the Israeli State was created, and had been site in Samaritan hands eight centuries before thatApril 1982.<ref groupname="note"Gurevich/>The rest of the original church had been destroyed by the invasion of Shah [[w:Khosrau II|Khosran Parvis]] nun was seriously wounded in the early seventh century, at which time the Jews [http://wwwattack.tertullian.org/fathers/antiochus_strategos_capture.htm massacred all Both she and the Christians of Jerusalem].</ref> The group left with threatsgynecologist were attacked by axe, insults and obscenities of the kind which local Christians suffer regularlyaccording to prosecutors.<ref name="NOCTOCJPost 15 Dec 82">{{cite news|title=Charges Filed in Nablus Axe Murder Case|accessdate=18 July 2017|work=Jerusalem Post|date=15 December 1982}}</ref>
After Raby, a few daysnewly religious Jew,<ref name="JPost 2 Dec 82">{{cite news|title=TA eccentric 'confesses' to 1979 murders, on November 16police say|accessdate=19 July 2017|work=Jerusalem Post|date=2 December 1982}}</29ref> was described as unwashed, 1979dressed in worn-out clothing, during and audibly muttered passages of scripture in a strange manner. Psychiatric evaluations found that he was mentally incompetent to stand trial; he and committed to a mental hospital; details of his subsequent whereabouts are restricted by privacy regulations.<ref name=Gurevich/> At a torrential downpourcourt hearing after his arrest, a group broke into an Israeli prosecutor told the court that Raby was convinced that the monastery was the site of the ancient [[MonasticismTemple in Jerusalem|monasteryJewish Temple]], and that he made an attempt on the life of the nun "in response to a divine command. "<ref name="JPost 17 Dec 82">{{cite news|title=Psychiatric Test for Confessed Slayer|accessdate=18 July 2017|work=The saint had already put on his Jerusalem Post|date=17 December 1982}}</ref> ===Erroneous accounts===Initial accounts depicted the murder as an anti-Christian hate attack carried out by a group of Jewish settlers, the result was what ''[[epitrachelion]] for [[VespersMaariv]]'' 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”. <ref name=Gurevich/>
[[Image:Philoumenos.jpg|left|thumb|]]
:"They burst into the monastery and with a hatchet butchered Archimandrite Philoumenos in the form of a [[cross]]. With one vertical stroke they clove his face, with another horizontal stroke they cut his cheeks as far as his ears. His eyes were plucked out. The fingers of his right hand were cut into pieces and its thumb was hacked off. These were the fingers with which he made the [[sign of the Cross]]. The murderers were not content with the butchering of the innocent monk, but proceeded to desecrate the church as well. A crucifix was destroyed, the sacred vessels were scattered and defiled, and the church was in general subjected to sacrilege of the most appalling type."<ref name="ALL SAINTS">All Saints of North America Russian Orthodox Church. ''[http://www.allsaintsofamerica.org/martyrs/nmphilou.html Holy Hieromartyr Philoumenos].''</ref>
The piecemeal chopping of the three fingers with which he made In a 2017 article in the journal [[Sign Israel Studies]], researchers David Gurevich and Yisca Harani found that false accounts blaming the slaying on "settlers" and "Zionist extremists" persisted even after the arrest of the Crossassailant and his confinement in a mental institution, and that there were "patterns of [[Blood libel|ritual murder]] showed that he accusation in the popular narrative." The same theme was tortured echoed in an attempt to make him renounce his parts of the [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Eastern Orthodox Christian Faith]] community and by some secular sources, including ''Blackwell's Dictionary of Eastern Christianity'', the ''Encyclopedia of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflic''t, ''[[The Spectator]]'' and ''[[The Times Literary Supplement|Times Literary Supplement]],'' as well as Wikipedia.<ref groupname="note"Gurevich/><ref>It was later determined that {{Cite web|title = Lynne Rienner Publishers {{!}} Encyclopedia of the person that did Israeli Palestinian Conflict|url = https://www.rienner.com/title/Encyclopedia_of_the_Israeli_Palestinian_Conflict|website = www.rienner.com|access-date = 2016-02-24|quote = ... a radical Rabbi settler and his followers came to the actual murder was an American Jewmonastery ... Instead of being imprisioned for this criminal act by the Israeli government, he was merely deported extremists came back to the Uand tortured and killed ..S. where he freely walks no one was ever arrested or tried for the streetscrimes. ([}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1 = William Dalrymple|title = The Spectator|url = http://wwwarchive.spectator.orthodoxchristianityco.netuk/forumarticle/index.php22nd-october-1994/14/topicif-i-forget-thee-0-jerusalem|date = 21 October 1994|page = 14|quote = a settler had poisoned his dogs,322.msg2891.html#msg2891 OrthodoxChristianity.net]. December 04attacked him with an axe, 2002. ''(Online Forum)''then incinerated his remains with a grenade.}}</ref><ref name>{{cite book|author1=Ken Parry |author2=David J. Melling |author3=Dimitri Brady |author4=Sidney H. Griffith |author5=John F. Healey |title = The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity|year = 2001|isbn = 9780631232032|url = http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/tocnode?id=g9780631232032_chunk_g978063123203220_ss1-39|quote ="NOCTOCwas murdered by Zionist extremists determined to remove Christians entirely from this sacred Jewish site"}}</ref>
The body Gurevich and Harani contended that a 1989 account of the Saint was handed over to murder, published in ''Orthodox America'', a publication of the [[Russian Orthodox 6 days after his massacreChurch Outside Russia]], but retained its flexibility became the basis of an anti-Semitic [[Blood libel|ritual murder]] narrative, according to which a group of anti-Christianity Jews first harassed Philoumenos and was buried in destroyed Christian holy objects at the cemetery of Mount Zionmonastery, then murdered him.<ref name="NOCTOC"Gurevich/> Saint Philoumenos served in the [[Holy Land]] for 46 years (1933-1979).
==Glorification==
