Prayer of an Old Man

Lord, you know that I have already reached old age. Help me to realise this reality more deeply, so that I may not become tyrannical or boring or burdensome or unsympathetic and hateful to those around me and especially to my occasional co-workers.

Deliver me from insisting on my outdated ideas with senile stubbornness. I do not ask You to improve my judgment or memory. You gave me these invaluable gifts to a certain extent in my productive age. I thank You for this precious gift of Your goodness. Now, as my entire biological, psychological and spiritual existence is declining, the decline of my judgment and memory is bound to naturally follow. Often this situation diminishes me, saddens me, humiliates me beyond imagination and not rarely does it humiliate me in my own eyes, forcing me to constantly apologise for my small or large blunders and gaffes. Of course, I do not fully understand this alteration. However, You, Lord, You know how much my diminution and shrinkage are also necessary to me at this point. I humbly accept it, because You know. And since You know, I do not need to know the deeper “why”. Besides, I cannot understand it. So why should I be sad and suffer for this? Should I not humbly accept the corruption of my nature? And should I not also humbly submit to the order, which You, with such kindness for Your creatures, and therefore for me, have determined?

Seal my chatty lips with an inviolable seal so that I may not burden others with boring, meaningless and without any interest or meaning, retold stories of outdated events of some distant and forgotten years of an insignificant era. At the same time, however, soften my reactions and judgments about the judgment and memory of others. And never allow me to feel pangs of jealousy about the freshness of memory and the power of judgment of others. Make me, on the contrary, rejoice in it and thank You wholeheartedly for the flowers of youth, when I happen to be among them and smell their fragrance.

Enighten me with the meaning of the words of Your Apostle: “Even though our outward man is decaying, but the inward man is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). And may I strive to live this reality.

Finally, support my faltering and unsteady steps with Your “high arm,” so that I may no longer roll on, attached to the earth and contemplate “earthly things,” but instead have my gaze fixed on Heaven and help me contemplate the heavenly realities, until I rest in Your loving divine embrace.

My Lord, Lord, I thank You. Amen.

+ Elder Eusevios Vittis (+December, 2009) Memory Eternal!

“Toward the last years of his life, I had the blessing to speak with him in private and pray together. Those piercing, blazing eyes! Elder Eusebios, the mystic, the poet, the Seer of God, as they called him! This Meeting burns still in my heart!  I have also met a number of his spiritual children and know firsthand how much he helped them in all their lives’ trials and tribulations, how Father-like he stood by their side! May we have his blessing!” (Little city hermit)

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A distinguished scholar and theologian, yet humble; a tireless writer knowledgeable of many foreign languages and translator of ascetic texts; a holy spiritual father who dedicated his life to the salvation of the soul of his fellow man; a true Father of the Church, divinely illumined, frequently included in the ranks of Saint Paisios and Saint Porphyrios. This is how his disciples and spiritual children remember hieromonk Father Eusebios Vittis, who reposed at the age of 82, in his hesychastirion (skete) in Faya Petra of Sidirokastro (Greece), where he spent the final years of his life in prayer. “He was very humble. He did not want his name to be put on any of his books and he signed them with a pseudonym “Kehri” (translation: millet seed), signifying something “utterly unimportant.”

Hieromonk Eusebios Vittis came from Ptolemaida. He began his priestly work as a clergyman in Sweden. The lack of Orthodox priests in this country at the time made him decide to become a priest. His ordination took place in Stockholm. He then travelled all around the country to serve the various emerging Greek communities. Soon he started leading his life as a part-time janitor in a retreat house and diocese center belonging to the (Evangelical-Lutheran) Church of Sweden. He cared for the Orthodox and all people indeed without pay. He bought an old house in the forest a few kilometers away from his work and turned on of the rooms there to a chapel. The Holy Hesychastirion (Skete) of St. Nicholas in Ratvik, Sweden is entirely his own work. There he withdrew in 1973, with the aim of devoting himself to prayer, meditation and writing. Fr. Eusebios kept the Athonite schedule, and as recorded in the bulletin of the Metropolis of Sweden and all Scandinavia (1979), the monastery was seen throughout the years as being “the sleepless lamp of the Metropolis of Sweden and a place of spiritual healing for the faithful.” The visitors of the holy hesychastirion found comfort, rest for the soul, and the road leading toward salvation.

In 1980 Fr. Eusebios returned to Greece, in obedience to his spiritual father, and retreated to a hermitage in Faia Petra, Sidirokastro. He spent the last years of his life on earth in prayer and confession. Christ is Risen!

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Another Prayer of an Old Man …

Psalm 71 

I have a safe place in you, O Lord. Let me never be ashamed. …³ Be a rock to me where I live, where I may always come and where I will be safe. For You are my rock and my safe place. … ⁵ For You are my hope, O Lord God. You are my trust since I was young. ⁶ You have kept me safe from birth. It was You Who watched over me from the day I was born. My praise is always of You. …

⁹ Do not let me fall by the way when I am old. Do not leave me alone when my strength is gone. ¹⁰ For those who hate me talk against me. Those who want to kill make plans together. ¹¹ They say, “God has turned away from him. Run and catch him, for there is no one to take him out of trouble.”

¹² O God, do not be far from me! O my God, hurry to help me!  …

¹⁷ O God, You have taught me from when I was young. And I still tell about Your great works. ¹⁸ Even when I am old and my hair is turning white, O God, do not leave me alone. … ²⁰ You have shown me many troubles of all kinds. But You will make me strong again. And You will bring me up again from deep in the earth. …