+ Father Gregorios, 19 November, 2019 — 6th year Memorial service

Memory Eternal, dearest Father!

“Love in Christ is a sacrificial Love, a self-sacrificing, self-denying Love, Agape. You sacrifice everything for the person you love, “your neighbour”. By “our neighbour”, we mean every person as God’s Image, even our enemy. By “love” we do not mean that we should do whatever the other person wants us to do, but to love him with Christ’s burning and flaming Heart, for his salvation” (+ Elder Gregorios Papasotiriou)

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This is how we have always felt his love! For years, Gerondas Gregorios of blessed memory offered his prayers with tears and his never-to-be-forgotten spiritual guidance. My rebirth in Christ ((John 3:4), my new life literally started with his guidance about 40 years ago. I feel so unworthy of such a blessing!

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“Father Gregorios, born Dimitrios Papasotiriou, was born on February 16, 1940 in Paleokomi, Serres, to pious parents, Alexios and Efthymia.

From his childhood, he was characterized by an inclination for life in Christ and very early he felt the divine call for the priesthood and complete dedication to the Lord through the monastic calling. Thus, after completing his studies at the Theological School of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, he came to the Holy Metropolis of Kassandria, where he was ordained a deacon and priest by the blessed Metropolitan Synesios Visvinis. During his stay in Polygyros, the Elder, together with other fathers under the guidance of Fr. Spyridon Trantelis (later Metropolitan of Lagadas), formed a group that served the people of God, as well as the children of the Polygyros boarding school for boys, with much love and self-sacrifice.

From his student years, the Elder particularly loved Mount Athos. He visited it very often and was particularly associated with the Holy Monastery of Saint Dionysios and the blessed Hegumen Fr. Gabriel, who became his spiritual father for a number of years. However, the main turning point in the Elder’s spiritual journey was his acquaintance with Saint Paisios the Athonite. He became connected to him with an unbreakable spiritual bond, becoming his disciple and striving throughout his life to imitate his holy life. In fact, Saint Paisios also became his godfather during the monastic tonsure of Elder Gregory in the cell of the Holy Cross in the year 1977.

In the year 1970, the flame of hesychia led Father Gregory to the then dilapidated Metochion of the Holy Monastery of Saint Dionysios in Metamorphosis, Chalkidiki, where, with the blessing of the local Bishop, he settled in a monastic cell-barn next to the Church of the Holy Forerunner.

This place from then on became the arena of his great ascetic struggles and the base for his priestly-pastoral ministry here in Chalkidiki. Only God knows his ascetic labors and efforts in order to serve the people of God with the pilgrimages, the preaching, the confession, the holy services, the vigils, the divine Liturgies. Saint Porphyrios, who attended a divine Liturgy in 1974, commented: “When Father Gregory serves the Holy Liturgy, all of God is within him and all of Father Gregory is within God.”

With the encouragement or rather the command of Saint Paisios, the life of the Monastery begins in 1975. The Holy Monastery of Dionysios grants the necessary area for the construction of the Holy Hesychasterion. The blessed Abbots Fr. Gabriel and Fr. Charalambos supported Elder Gregory with great love, foreseeing that the now deserted place of the old Metochion would be transformed into a spiritual oasis. Then the first group of spiritual children of the Elder was established, which formed the nucleus of the later sisterhood. The first Abbess was Eleni Paschaloglou from Rodolivos, Serres – herself a spiritual child of Elder Gregory -, later Elder Ephemia, who passed away to the Lord almost five months after the Elder’s “fallen asleep” after 45 years of sacrificial ministry in the Monastery.

The life of Father Gregory is henceforth spent in material and spiritual labours for the construction of the Hesychastirion, for the guidance of the Monastics, but also in his great offering as a priest, preacher and above all a spiritual father to the people of God. The Elder who abhorred worldly prominence and loved humility and obscurity, is now becoming well known as Father Gregory the Spiritual Father. Hundreds of souls found the path to salvation with him, thousands rested under his rock, countless were helped by his spiritual guidance.

The blessed Elder suffered from many illnesses throughout his life, which he bore with great patience and a doxological disposition as if someone else were suffering. Especially the last few years were a cross of painful trials and a life of patience, because the pain and illnesses reached their peak.

The good God, wanting to rest the good shepherd and His faithful steward, called him to Himself after a sudden stroke on November 19, 2019. The funeral service and burial were held on November 21, the day of the Feast of the Entrance into the Temple of Our Most Holy Lady the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, the birthday of the Monastery, when 45 years ago Saint Paisios gave the blessing and the command to Father Gregory to begin the great work for which he sacrificed his life.” (Ραδιοχρηστότητα, by his spiritual son and priest Father Nikolaos at St. Palnteleimon, Mesimeri )

May we have his prayers! “Kai sta dika mas.” “And to our own!”  May we be reunited with you dearest Father in Heaven in God’s Kairos!