Category Archives: Contemporary Elders

A Holy Warning

Elder Parthenios

Elder Parthenios of the Monastery of Saint Pavlos: Αn orthodox message from the Holy Mountain

“Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!

The abbot of the Holy Monastery of Saint Pavlos, father Parthenios, speaks to you. I am in the monastery of Saint Pavlos since 1954 till now, with the help of our God, Virgin Mary and all of saints. Till now, we are blessed of God and we all celebrated the Holy Easter, with all of our happiness and love, the Risen of our Lord. This year it was the only year, since I came in the Mount Athos (Holy Mount), that we celebrated alone. Because all of the previous years we had with us more that 100-150-200 visitors, only in our Monastery. Together all the Monasteries of the Holy Mount had approximately 5,000 visitors, who have come every year, to honor the Holy Easter, the Risen of our Lord!

It was hard for me, that this was the year that we glory alone the God. Because of the measures they took, they left us alone with only few workers who are regular here. I am telling you that, with a lot of father’s love, I am in pain, in grief. Because all the faithful men who used to come here with us, were our consolation, to praise all together to the most important event, the Easter. All together we were chanting the pray of “Christ is Risen”, full of joy. Perhaps, God allowed this temptation to be penetrated, for our sins. Maybe He wants to activate us, cause the people got away from the Lord’s path and doing nonsense.

Our Churchs, all over the country, in Athens, in Thessaloniki and other where were like a cemetery. All the people were isolated in their houses; even the churches have closed their gates. What happened? What happened?

Unfortunately, our politicians trying to do their best. These are human measures, we cannot blame them. On the other hand, I am sending them a message. These measures are not enough. I am begging our politicians and our ecclesiastical authority, to shout at people to open the churches for the public, to go out on the roads, to take with them the holy icons and go for a litany, in order to beg our almighty God to obviate that temptation. The governors of this time cannot save us. Only the powerful God, He is the one who can save us. Open the doors of the churches, take the people outdoors, get the icons out, and get down on your knees, like the Ninevites did, to beg the God, His omnipotence, to quash this temptation. Otherwise, I don’t know where we will end up.

Please, do not be delusional, only God can save us, only our Lady Virgin, only the Saint Apostles and all the Saints together. Also can save us our pray and faith to God. “What did save the world?” “Our faith”!

Let all these thoughts of lukewarm and oligopolies, behind. We are Christians and I refer to the politicians who prepare to seal up/chip the people, but this will be their biggest scandal, because they not do justice to Christians. We, the Christians, strongly believe in His Almighty, we are baptized; we are anointed by the Holy Oil in the sealing of God. “Seal donation of the Holy Spirit, amen.”

Anyone who is not baptized, has the freedom to be sealed by the government, it is their decision. But do not force us, the Christians. Whatever you want to do against us, the God will be the Victor!

The God says: “Just as someone will confess in front of other people that he believes me, so I will do for him too, in front of my Father who live in the sky.” “Just as someone denies that he loves me, in front of the people, so I will do for him too.” Do not believe what the Zionists and Masons, the devils say; they do not believe in anything. On the other hand, we strongly believe in the real God. Whatever it takes, we confess Jesus Christ the Crucified we lean on Him our hopes, in his All-powers, nowhere else.

Many happy returns! Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!

Our Lord has beaten the world. He says: “Don’t be afraid! I have been beaten the world for you!” That is our confession and our faith! Thank you so much!

Source: Enomeni Romiosini

How Can the Coronavirus Pandemic Birth God Within Us?

coronavirus-pandemic

In so many ways… Let us explore here just one, with the help of +Elder Aimilianos of blessed memory, should we eventually catch coronavirus despite our best efforts to protect ourselves and our beloved ones:

“We get sick and we suffer for different reasons, but often it’s because we have sinned, voluntary or involuntary, or because we have wandered away from God. But, if you are sick, don’t be afraid and don’t worry because sickness is a great gift from God. The sick are God’s special children.

The sick are under God’s special protection. They have God’s special blessing. They have God’s love. They are in His embrace, whereas someone who has health might not be.

The sick person, the suffering person, the person with illness is in a privileged place, or a potentially privileged place, with respect to God. Those who have never known sickness, and those who have never known suffering, often have a lack of empathy; and often their heart is narrow and small and restricted, and not able to open up and embrace the suffering of others because they just don’t know it.

The sick, on the other hand, are often the most loving and understanding and compassionate people that you will ever meet, and they are the ones who will have boldness before God in their prayers for others.

So don’t be afraid of your illness. Leave it to God. Do what the doctors tell you. When you take your medication, you receive Christ. It’s not bad, or a sign of a lack of faith, to take your medication. When you take your medication, you are receiving a blessing, you are receiving Christ Himself.

Do what the doctors say, take your medications, go for your tests, but have no anxiety. Sometimes what’s worse than being sick is being afraid of getting sick. Leave it to God. Whatever God gives you is best for you. God never gives you a Cross without first weighing and measuring it very carefully to make sure that the Cross will result in your spiritual growth.

So don’t think it’s random, don’t think it’s chance, don’t think it’s too much. It’s been very carefully weighed and very carefully measured, so that it will result in spiritual growth and spiritual benefit.

As much as the body wastes away, that much is our life in God renewed. God cannot be born within us without birth pangs. And the suffering that we experience, whether it’s emotional suffering or physical suffering, these are the birth pangs, the travail, the suffering in our life that will enable God to be born and to grow within us.

So we should feel pity for the person who has not tasted involuntary pain because that person is not likely to impose upon himself a sufficient amount of voluntary pain. So feel pity for the person who does not know involuntary pain because they’re not going to inflict it on themselves. They’re going to want to stay in their comfortable place, their comfort-zone, and they’re going to resist all kinds of change.

Sickness is a visitation from God, a divine visitation. Sickness humbles us, it teaches us, it reshapes us, it awakens us to reality, it enables us to see what is truly important and of value. It is not a punishment, but a divine visitation for our correction and education.

—Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra Monastery

From: A lecture entitled, “Blessed are the Pure in Heart: Reflections on the Spiritual Nature of Suffering,” by Father Maximos Constas, Patristic Nectar Publications (2017).

 

Blessed Elder Amvrosios Lazaris the Athonite and the Dread Judgment Day

Picture 038

“The Dread Judgment “Day” will last as long as the Six Psalms last, a few minutes.  At this time, while we will be judged, the Angels will chant the Six psalms. …

All the people who will be alive at this moment, they will instantly experience death and then be immediately resurrected. Our bodies will be immaterial, space-less. We will be able to see each other’s body and we will all be 33 years old.

Christ Icon on Iconostasis

Our Lord will hold the Book of Life, the Gospel, open, and immediately, each one of us will go on our own either to the right or to the left, because we will know in our hearts whether we are for Paradise or not.

Christ icon on Bishop's throne

This is exactly why in the Bishop’s throne, the Book in the icon of Christ is open and there is no candle over this icon–this indicates that there will be no Mercy in the Second Coming. While in the Iconostasis, the Book which Christ is holding is closed and there is a candle lit over the icon because there is still Mercy. “

✝️ Blessed Elder Amvrosios Lazaris the Athonite (21/12/1912 – 02/12/2006)  ☦️

geron-amvrosios-071

The Hieromonk Amvrosios (born Spyridon Lazaridis) departed this life on 2 December 2006 (New Calendar), at the age of 92. He was the spiritual father of the Holy Monastery of Our Most Holy Lady Gavriotissa, Dadi, and of thousands of Christians from all over Greece.

During a chat, I [Archimandrite Ephraim, Abbot of the Vatopaidi Monastery] once had with the late Elder, he told me that after his military service, he wanted to go to the Holy Mountain, but he didn’t know how or where to go. Then a young man of about 25 appeared and told him: “I know the place, come with me”. And so he went.

They set off together, went down to the harbour and embarked on a boat. “He gave me bread, as well”, he said, “and we ate together all the days I was with him. He didn’t tell me his name, though, and I didn’t ask. So we arrived at Dafni and from there walked on, further up the Holy Mountain.

When I was with him, I felt very safe. As we went along, he showed me the Monastery of Xiropotamou, where they honour the Forty Martyrs. He asked if I would like to pay my respects and I agreed to do so. We went into the katholiko, the main church of the Monastery, and when I kissed the icon, forty men appeared and surrounded us. The young man turned to me and said: “They’re the Forty Martyrs and they’re happy that you’re going to be a monk”.

From there we continued on our way and reached Karyes, and from there went to the Holy Monastery of Koutloumousi. The young man stopped, pointed out the monastery to me and said: “You’ll stay here, Spyro. You’ll become a monk. You’ll be patient and obedient to the Elder”. And he disappeared.

It would seem that this was an angel of the Lord, Spyridon’s guardian angel. Spyridon remained at this monastery as a novice, and, at the age of 25, became a monk with the name of Hariton.

… Elder Amvrosios was always in communion with the Saints. Once,  “When I was in bed, in pain, I [Elder Amvrosios himself says] could see the chapel of the Holy Unmercenary Doctors opposite, and I asked them to help me. Two doctors appeared in white smocks and they tried to set my leg. ‘Pull, Kosmas’ said one. ‘Hold it here, Damianos’, said the other. In five minutes, the pain had gone and I was well again”. When the brethren in the monastery saw him completely well, they praised God and the Holy Unmercenary Doctors.

ger-amvrosios-kai-ger-porfyrios-oi-agioreites-kai-alloi

The blessed Elders Porfyrios Kavsokalyvitis († 02/12/1991) and Amvrosios the Athonite (†02/12/2006) together with some lay pilgrims on a visit.

 

Read more about Elder Amvrosios’ life, here

Make Good Use of Pain

Suffering
“God will centrifuge each one of us” (!)  Those words by Gerondissa Philothei were repeated rather ‘ominously’ 3 to 4 times at the first (*) homily I attended at the Nativity of the Theotokos Monastery in Panorama. Doesn’t the centrifugal force cause an object to move out and away from the centre of its path? Is God through various afflictions centrifuging me away from the centre of my old self?

“How good it would have been if we did not let the pain go to waste! One way or another we will suffer. But our whole torture and struggle will go down the drain unless we make good use of pain unless we exploit it. …When we suffer, when a pain insists, let us think like that: “God wants something good to come out of this in me, and I act as if I do not get it. And all I do is moan and groan.” …. 

“Know this: When pain will have completed the work it is supposed to do, God takes away. It is not difficult at all for God to remove whichever pain. … A Christian is capable of making such good use of every pain so that he can constantly be in paradise. …. Let there be no complaint, no rebellion, no kicking about.

If possible, whichever pain you have, deal with it by saying these words: “Let it be blessed, my God. Whatever You Want.” This way our pain won’t get wasted but will be exploited to the full. We will take advantage of it, and the great good which saves will come to our hearts. When God visits you with sorrows, say: “Thank you, my God. As I had absolutely no intention to embrace a few ugly things, a few pains, and truly follow your path, you caught up with me and gave me a few. How can I thank you enough?” (!) [+S.K]

*

(*) The first homily, that is after 35 or so years to be precise. Because Elder Symeon Kragiopoulos monastery was my starting point to the Church.  The moment I stepped my foot into the narthex, it all came back to me. Literally that “taste” and “fragrance” of life and teachings which I understood so little back then, yet never forgot since.  What an encouragement for my ‘new’ obediences!   The second ‘word’ which I received soon after was a mission to make pilgrimages and establish contacts with all nearby Thessaloniki monasteries. All nearby monasteries?! Quite bold a list of obediences for such a timid little city hermit. But may it be blessed. Your prayers

[Monastery Diaries 7]

 

 

The Monastery Diaries 6

elder symeon kragiopoulos monasteries.jpg

Nativity of the Theotokos Monastery

 

assumption monastery panorama.jpg

Assumption Monastery

 

New 2020 obediences–New Envoy duties

 

This time to two monasteries at the suburbs of Thessaloniki, both at Panorama. The one is of the Nativity of the Theotokos, which belongs together with the nearby men’s monastery of the Holy Trinity, to +Elder Symeon Kragiopoulos’ monastery ‘complex‘. The opening photograph at their website shows both monasteries; the women’s monastery is the smaller one in the background); the second monastery is of the Assumption to the Theotokos  https://www.google.com/maps/uv?hl=en&pb=!1s0x14a846fddfe0e7d3%3A0xc72518e226191bdc!3m1!7e115!4shttps%3A%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPPDnFBdX1QlSJkJUMbysQeSsbBjsnLEGKPQOrb%3Dw480-h320-k-no!5zzpPPhc69zrHOuc66zrXOr86xIM6ZzrXPgc6sIM68zr_Ovc6uIM6azr_Ouc68zq7Pg861z4nPgiDPhM63z4IgzpjOtc6_z4TPjM66zr_PhSDPgM6xzr3Ov8-BzrHOvM6xIC0gR29vZ2xlIFNlYXJjaA&imagekey=!1e10!2sAF1QipMNsnxgG8ntgkYI5Rvp_YnQPBa30XAbs3XvDizB&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiiq6-hs_nmAhURaFAKHRJ_BoMQoiowGHoECAwQBg

 

Never a dull moment! So much to discover… I hardly know anything about the inner life of these two monasteries. Your prayers

Elder Gregorios 40 day Memorial Service

80782350_2416154011827872_861637634340945920_n

Elder Gregorios

+19-11-2019

“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)

*

This is how we have always felt and feel his love. Blessed Paradise, Elder. At long last, you will be reunited with your beloved spiritual father, Saint Paisios. “Kai sta dika mas.” “And to our own!”  May we be reunited with you in Heaven in God’s Kairos!

80395516_2564822247082250_924611471332081664_n79876452_1235423190002125_19557734877757440_n

All the faithful present experienced an urge to pray to Elder, and not for him. 

80421158_767691993747125_6627701451936235520_n79686065_1048267265513180_241326172183461888_n80315340_977067915998194_2080091569561534464_n80640184_447932872543924_1165895110454411264_n80494444_1191848591021578_2010228089631539200_n80059071_1052973311710959_8126907860173979648_n80350077_589087115198686_6912717203980681216_n

Well done, thou good and faithful servant!

elder efraim arizona

elder-efraim 3.jpg

+ 8/12/2019

Father Efraim of Arizona (1928-2019) has left this world to join his fellowship (Saint Efraim Katounakiotis, Saint Joseph the Caveman, Father Joseph from Vatopedi, Father Haralampos, Father Arsenios). He is at home now in eternal rest with his spiritual father and his Heavenly Father in Heaven. Imagine the joyous welcome he received in Paradise from Christ, Panagia, his mother, Saint Joseph and from all of the Saints!!!  

elder efraim synodeia

 

Glory to the God who gave us Geronda Ephraim! May we always have his heavenly prayers and intercessions! Paradise rejoices in welcoming you!!! Thank you for sacrificing your entire life and bringing countless souls to Christ!!! Kalo Paradiso!!! 

Like Elder Gregorios Papasotiriou

IMG_30C7A706873B-1

γεροντασ γρηγοριοσ παπασωτηριου

Like Elder Aimilianos Simonopetra

υστατο χαιρε γεροντα αιμιλιανου

Aimilianos-igoumenos-Simonopetras3

So many “losses” in just a few months! May we, their orphans, meet them through their prayers in Heavens! Memory Eternal!

 

End of an era

gerondas Gregorios down the grave

Christ is Risen! May Angels accompany you dear Father to your reward.

Gerondas Gregorios Tomb

The Monastery Diaries 5

A special commemoration diary and photo/video blog

GERONTAS-GRIGORIOS (1)

Dear brothers and sisters, Christ is in our midst.

This is going to be the most difficult post I have ever attempted as it is about the repose of my spiritual father, + Elder Gregorios Papasotiriou, a spiritual child of Saint Paisios, Elder and Founder of the women’s monastery of St. John the Forerunner in Metamorphosis, Chalkidiki.

IMG_2180

Gerondissa Euphemia of St John the Forerunner Monastery, St Paisios in the middle, Elder Gregorios on the right. She was absent at the funeral, other than very briefly to pay her last respects to the Elder, as she is about 90 years old and very frail in her health

+Wednesday 20/11. The funeral service took place in the morning of the following day, after the vigil of the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple, such an appropriate day for our spiritual father’s departure from this life and entrance into the Heavenly sanctuary.

ΓΕΡΟΝΤΑΣ ΓΡΗΓΟΡΙΟΣ 3

St. Porphyrios, when Elder Gregorios once told him that he is well, told him “no, you are not”. “Indeed, I am”, Gerondas Gregorios insisted, but it was St Porphyrios who was right. Later, when St. Porphyrios visited him at his cell in Metamorphosis, his cell exuded a sweet fragrance for six days!

DF741702-4367-4408-A9BC-07929B918430-5475-00000B61A79B0D9F

In God’s kairos, I may write more about my memories with him. His orphans and why it feels this is an end of an era for us. I really ought to start from my University years, when I would take the bus through Polygyros [ie. etymology: lots of curves] notorious curves to the  Metamorfosi village, then walk all the way uphill through olive groves to the monastery of Saint John the Forerunner, meet Gerondas Gregorios for Confession and make absolutely no plans about my stay or who we were going to spend the day and the night together. Quite an adventure back in those days …

geronta-Grigorios-Gerondas Agathaggelos.jpg

On Thursday morning, the village and the hill were packed with more people than I have ever seen in my life. People from all over the world, clergy, monastics and lay people who had come to pay their last respects to a father they owned more than their lives. And yet all this crowd were my spiritual brothers and sisters, with whom we had travelled in the past a mile or two in our pilgrimage, and we all had so many memories to share. Many of his spiritual children, when he became gravely ill, were “sent” to Gerondas Theoklitos, the Elder and founder of the monastery of St Arsenios, another spiritual child of Saint Paisios. God’s Love unites us all.

IMG_30C7A706873B-1

Such a crowd! The police were regulating the parking and the traffic, as only the priests’ and monastics’ cars were allowed all the way up to the monastery. All nearby hotels opened their rooms for free, and local people with minibuses helped people drive up and down the monastery.

The warmth of faith full of the Holy Spirit. Gerondas Gregorios was remembered in the following days at the proskomede and at the great entrance in churches and monasteries all over the world. Memory eternal.

“Christ is Risen!” What bright sorrow, χαρμολύπη! At the end of the Memorial, the nuns and monks present chanted the whole Paschal, Resurrectional Canon of St. Saint John of Damascus. 

“And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.” (John 17:11)

For a video of the funeral, go here

For more video footage and photos, go here and  here  

For some photos, see below

The Vigil and the Four Gospels

IMG_2437680ACE52-1IMG_106369FE0194-1IMG_6D0756F8413E-1

The Procession Around the Monastery Main Church (Katholikon)

IMG_940D7A666A46-1

 

IMG_BCB2BB624A4D-1IMG_AFCF8058DE8E-1IMG_065F475397F3-1IMG_2D86A567F1F7-1

IMG_89B298C90490-1

IMG_E01B0243AA39-1

IMG_6E3288CF30C3-1

IMG_B1B1B4B74444-1

IMG_ABCCCDF37D05-1
Second on the left is Gerondas Theoklitos, who prayed the traditional 100-knot rope for the departed: “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on your servant Hieromonk Gregorios”

The Grave and the Burial

IMG_8FBDC657BE47-1

IMG_AA555C435EC7-1

IMG_FAAB74AAFC8B-1IMG_64291251FF1B-1

IMG_7AD797517667-1IMG_E6C744FF2EB2-1

IMG_710B90A340F2-1IMG_4EBEE2B6EE06-1

IMG_BCB251772948-1

IMG_E43EDE22CD3A-1

Elder Euphemius, the spiritual son of Blessed Gerondas Isaac Atallah. He is now the current Abbot of the Skete that Blessed Atallah founded on Mount Athos and the spiritual father of the nuns at St John the Forerunner Monastery.  As a dear Father pointed out to me, “I see him contemplating this holy mystery of Gerondas repose in his eyes and “being with ” Gerondas spirit and not separated from him.”

Elder Euphemios5

Elder Euthemios 3

Elder Euphemios was the only hieromonk with a purely white epitrahelion and he was leading all the services.

IMG_D85E93213643-1IMG_68BE57F7F00C-1

IMG_47B40FC3BF79-1IMG_C706CE7CBA1C-1IMG_DF70E303F694-1

IMG_4775B5F50692-1IMG_7EBE0ECD0116-1IMG_080DCC6201B7-1IMG_74016289089C-1IMG_F08778564231-1IMG_DD716F9AA2D4-1IMG_5272688FBE75-1IMG_68929EEDCE4F-1

IMG_F072D95470D5-1IMG_0F1E549C0ED7-1IMG_237072286ED5-1

For more photos, go here and here

 

The Monastery Diaries 4

88681
A photo journal 
*
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Christ is in our midst!
What a beautiful vigil at St Arsenios’ annual Feast (+St Arsenios of Cappadocia, Nov. 10)! I do not think any of my photos can convey the holiness conveyed through the monks’ exquisite, prayerful chanting,  the Fathers’ prayers, the censing, the tears of the faithful, the dancing chandeliers at Polyelaios…
IMG_FDFF402D104E-1
IMG_6E304B4371E5-1

Fr Synesios was throwing bay leaves inside the church before Vespers started

IMG_0653IMG_2871IMG_2101

IMG_1558IMG_8919IMG_5297IMG_5587

There were lots of hieromonks, laymen and chanters invited to help with the chanting and the hospitality, and several priests and bishops all over the world since Saint Arsenios monastery is a very missionary-minded monastery and Gerondas Theoklitos has quietly and very discreetly founded together with several of his monks lots of monasteries all over the world.

IMG_2751

IMG_BC1C2BD18149-1

The Bishop Innokentios of Burundi and Rwanda

The Vigil was in two parts because the Feast was this year on a Sunday: on Saturday evening we had the Vespers and Matins, and on Sunday morning the Hours and the Holy Liturgy. Nonetheless, it was still too long, so long that the faithful were often seen collapsing in their stasidia and seats, and yet at the end, nobody wanted to leave. The monks though were so vigilant, like candles lit, not sitting down even for a minute during all these long hours.

IMG_68115BCA7559-1IMG_8A659EA92CA5-1IMG_300F0861531C-1IMG_173F043CC851-1IMG_1C1DF79131B7-1IMG_8C4C4A9EA4C8-1
IMG_5991

IMG_2784

Some of the kollyva prepared by the faithful and the monks.
IMG_B6DB764D2AE5-1
IMG_A4CF0C7796F4-1
At the end of the Holy Liturgy, the kollyva of the Saint were prayed in front of his icon. These kollyva were such perfect icons “written” on the boiled wheat that we did not want to eat them! Then, all the faithful were given in the monastery yard a bit of this kollyva, artoklasia and special treats for the Feast, the Fathers briefly disappeared in the arhondarikion, and when we thought that we were done with eating and feasting, we were all invited into the monastery’s trapeza for yet for food.
IMG_5306C6226D50-1
IMG_41EAF004D336-1

During the agape meal, lots of chanters and two monks censing with a a katzion (special censer for feasts) and carrying a piece of holy bread,  a part of the proskomide’s holy bread, moved around all of us and we each picked up a very small piece. In that sense, the agape meal felt like yet one more Holy Liturgy after the Holy Liturgy in the church. Prayer seems to be seamlessly woven in all monastic activities, even in the washing-up that followed.

IMG_DBF8F7F2B930-1IMG_BB01370CCF4D-1IMG_AC8456CD3FFA-1

IMG_17CA7D9CC49B-1

Gerondas Theoklitos is on the left, Bishop Nikodemus of Kassandreia in the middle and the monk on the right , deeply bowing his head on the right is Father Arsenios. He was shining at his Saint’s Feast throughout the Vigil and the festivities that followed. He was honoured to read the Akathist before the Saint’s icon and the Synaxarion in the church and in the agape meal that followed at the end of the Holy Liturgy where all the faithful were invited to participate in a fellowship of Love and Holiness. Father Arsenios was the first to receive Holy Communion and the last to eat anything in the agape meal. In fact, I am not sure if he ate anything at all this day as he was so full of Joy and his Saint was feeding him with Heavenly food.

IMG_CFB336D2FD6E-1

IMG_B1369987B28D-1

IMG_BDD7A63DBDCD-1

This is Father Nikodemus who greeted me the first dawn here, on his way to a village parish, and we both admired the starlit sky, the “ison” for the worship unfolding in the monastery katholikon.

IMG_194C4CDD62A4-1IMG_D0BF64E15485-1IMG_15DC9D04966E-1

Love and poor prayers,
LCH