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As a young man, he received [[monasticism|monastic]] [[tonsure]] on Mount Athos at the Docheiariou monastery. He was later chosen [[igumen]] of the monastery because of his lofty virtue. In giving refuge to his own nephew (who had been forcibly converted to [[Islam]]) from the Turks who had captured Constantinople, St. Theophanes, with the help of God, freed the youth, hid him in his own [[monastery]] and blessed him to enter the monastic life.
The brethren, fearing revenge on the part of the Turks, began to grumble against the [[saint]]. Not wanting to be the cause of discord and dissension, He he humbly withdrew with his nephew from the Docheiariou monastery, quit the Holy Mountain and went to Beroea. There, in the skete monastery of St. [[John the Forerunner]], St. Theophanes built a [[church]] in honor of the Most Holy [[Theotokos]]. And as [[monk]]s began to gather, he gave them a cenobitic monastic rule.
After the monastery flourished, the saint withdrew to a new place at Naousa, where he made a church in honor of the holy [[Archangel]]s and founded there also a monastery. To the very end of his days St. Theophanes did not forsake guiding the monks of both monasteries, both of which regarded him as their common father.
