While still being an infant, he was left orphaned and his grandparents looked after him and his two siblings; a brother and a sister. His brother did not treat him very well and noticing that this was a problem his grandparents gave him to a Turkish family to look after him at an early age. When he was seven years old, his grandmother, being a devout Christian, took him on a pilgrimage to an ancient and famous monastery in the Pontos area; the Panagia Soumela.