[2] Vasileios was born in 1892 in the village of Cesniero (Τσεσνειριω, modern Çeşnigir) in Bursa, of the Metropolis of Nicomedia, in northwestern Anatolia.

[1] On December 3, 1914, he took monastic vows being renamed Benedict, and on the following day he was ordained deacon by Metropolitan Keladion of Ptolemaida.

[1][3] Recalled to Jerusalem in 1946, he was elected a member of the Holy Synod, and given special responsibility for the patriarchate's legal and financial affairs, a field in which he displayed marked aptitude.

Starting in 1961, after undertaking a North American tour to raise funds,[8][note 2] the structure was completely rehabilitated, including repair of the foundations and cisterns, and restoration of the interior and exterior walls.

He died of a heart attack in Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital, where he was recovering from a stroke he had suffered 10 days earlier.