Category Archives: Elder Aimilianos

Day 3 Thursday :the Angelic Habit

Monastery of St John the Forerunner at Metamorfosi

The drive from Thessaloniki to Halkidiki was furnished by olive trees but to remind us of the fragile nature of our planet there was the faint smell of smoke in the air. (*) As St Paul says in Romans 8″ creation is groaning “. Our first visit on the itinerary was the Monastery of St John the Forerunner at Metamorfosi. Although it has a strict typikon we were allowed to sing a glorious trilogy of apolytikia and Kyries. We were joined by Baia and Theologos.

… and four of their ten children.. Konstantinos overheard my English tones and introduced me to his wife Marina and mother Gabriela who lives in London. A most interesting exchange of spiritual experiences ensued. Gabriela studied at Lancaster university at the same time as I was studying by Post Graduate certificate of education at St Martin’s college now University of Cumbria ( Lancaster campus)and having been brought up in the middle east she is looking forward to Dmitry’s ordination to the diaconate in September in Arabic. Two priests joined us with their families for monastic hospitality “metrio cafes parakalo ” the most delicious cake, loukoumi and much needed water. It was after all 37c.

On to Ormilia monastery where Marta and Alexandra have stayed. We venerated the tomb of the founder Geronda Emilianos. K. said she wanted me to meet a nun who spoke better English than me ” if that’s possible” K. added with playful wit, ” This is Mother P. I was not at all offended or diminished by K. words, especially when I learned that mother P was born and brought up five miles from where I was born.

Ormylia monastery, Holy Convent of the Annunciation


We were in the company of people from Cyprus who had connections with our parish, a Belgian priest and a Serbian priest whose Metropolitan and Professor respectively sit on the same International Commission as me.Lunch time beckoned it was 4.00 after all. A wonderful local cafe near K’s beach house where we were joined by Nikos. We made the short journey to K’s beach house where we met the Romanian family who were staying there. You can’t get much closer to the sea! If you rolled over in bed you would be splashing in the gentle waves!

On to St Paisios Monastery where we met friends of Sayedna. We joined the queue to venerate the tomb of St Paisios. A little boy repeatedly took the blessing from priests in the queue. The light of joy shone in the eyes of the faithful, reflecting the Light of Christ. Everyone we met today, those wearing the angelic habit and those who were faithful Pilgrims were happy. God is glorified in his saints.

St. Paisios’ tomb
St. Paisios poem above his tomb

Above his tomb, inside the monastery yard, on a marble plaque is found a humble poem written by himself:

“Here life has come to an end

Here my breath has stopped.
Here the body will be buried,
And my soul will rejoice.
My Saint dwells here, [St. Arsenios of Cappadochia]
And that is my honour.
I believe he will pity

My miserable soul

He will pray to the Saviour

To have the Virgin Mary with me.”


“God wants us, above all, to be happy and to enjoy inner peace. God is not a tyrant who pesters and intimidates us, but instead he wants us to be free.”St. Paisios

(*) Due to fires raging all over Greece at the time of this pilgrimage

Dadia National Park

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).

 

Well done, thou good and faithful servant!

elder efraim arizona

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+ 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

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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!

 

Freedom from Suffering

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The moment we accept death, true life can begin.  (Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra)

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The secret to his freedom does not lie in the rejection of his suffering, but in his joyful acceptance of them. He will be truly free only when he lets go of wanting to be free of his sufferings, for all freedom and all life depend on our being in right relation to God. When he accepts his death; when he allows himself to hear the sound of his footsteps descending into the grave, he will find that death no longer has a hold on him, for now he is with God. The darkness will vanish and he will see only light.

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If he accepts to become an instrument of God’s will, he will emerge triumphant; but otherwise he will fail.

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If “l” exist God cannot exist, for there cannot be two gods, and so it is either God or the self. When someone sees only his own suffering, God cannot answer him, for it is precisely the mistaken, negative attitude toward suffering that constitutes the separation between him and God. But if “I” cease to exist, if my relation to my suffering changes, then I can be united to God. This union depends on the denial of my self, so that God can come into my life.

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I must learn to accept suffering with joy, to find joy within my suffering, to realize that even in my moments of glory, I am nothing but “dust and ashes” (Gen 18:27), a pelican in the wilderness (Ps 102:6), lost in a desert land, seeking shelter in a landscape of ruins. I must realize my sinfulness, my nakedness, my alienation from God; I must realize I am like a sparrow alone o a house top (Ps 102:7), not because I have some psychological problem, but because I have been separated from God. … In this cry, this calling out, there exists the hope that I will hear the sound of His footsteps, and these will overtake my own and lead me to salvation.

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Source: Psalms and the Life of Faith, by Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra, pp 104-10

From Hell to Paradise

 

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A unlit candle among the burning candles in the candle stand of Vatopaidi Monastery (Mount Athos). Blessed are the humble ones because they have the true light and ceaselessly give it to the others within a burning joy. They feel united with the others, even with the lesser and worst of all people, and for this humbleness God gives them His blessing, his peace.  The proud one prematurely feels the singularity and darkness of hell from this life. Source: The Ascetic Experience 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The following is the story that Elder Aimilianos told of his own mystical experience, but he told it in the third person:

“Permit me to tell you [runs the story] about a certain monk I once knew. Just as all of us have moments of difficulty, he too was passing through a very critical period of his life. The devil had cast fire into his brain, and wanted to strip him of his monastic dignity, and make him a miserable seeker of alleged truth. His soul roared like breaking waves, and he sought deliverance from his distress. From time to time, he remembered the Prayer of the Heart, but it resounded only weakly within him, because he had no faith in it. His immediate surroundings were of no help. Every­thing was negative. His heart was about to break. How wretched man becomes when he is beset by problems! And who among us has not known such terrible days, such dark nights, and agonizing trials?

Our monk did not know what to do. Walks did nothing for him. The night stifled him. And one night, gasping for air, he threw open the window of his cell in order to take a deep breath. It was dark – about three o’clock in the morning. In his great weariness, he was about to close the window, hoping to get at least a few moments of rest. At that very moment, however, it was as if everything around him – even the darkness outside – had become light! He looked to see where such light might be coming from, but it was coming from nowhere. The darkness, which has no existence of its own, had become light, although his heart remained in the dark. And when he turned around, he saw that his cell had also be­come light!He examined the lamp to see if the light was coming from there, but that one, small oil lamp could not become light itself, neither could it make all things light.

Although his heart was not yet illumined, he did have a certain hope. Overcome with surprise and moved by this hope, but without being fully aware of what he was doing, he went out into the black courtyard of the monastery, which had often seemed to him like hell. He went out into the silence, into the night. Everything was clear as day. Nothing was hidden in the darkness. Everything was in the light: the wooden beams and the windows, the church, the ground he walked on, the sky, the spring of water which flowed continuously, the crickets, the fireflies, the birds of the night – everything was visible, everything! And the stars came down and the sky lowered itself, and it seemed to him that everything – earth and sky had become like heaven!And everything together was chanting the prayer [i.e. of the heart], everything was saying the prayer.And his heart strangely opened and began to dance; it began to beat and take part involuntarily in the same prayer; his feet barely touched the ground. He did not know how he opened the door and entered the church, or when he had vested; he did not know when the other monks arrived, or when the Liturgy began. What exactly happened he did not know. Gone was the ordinary connection of things, and he knew only that he was standing before the altar, before the invisibly present God, celebrating the Liturgy. And striking, as it were, the keys of both his heart and the altar, his voice resounded above, to the altar beyond the heavens. The Liturgy continued. The Gospel was read. The light was no longer all around him, but had built its nest within his heart. The Liturgy ended, but the song that had begun in his heart was endless. In his ecstasy, he saw that heaven and earth sing this prayer without ceasing, and that the monk truly lives only when he is animated by it. For this to happen, he needs only to cease living for himself.”

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An Antidoro from Elder Aimilianos’ many teachings available in print due to the tireless efforts of the Ormylia nuns for the last 23 years after Gerondas receded into silence. More would have survived had not Elder Aimilianos set fire on his own manuscripts decades ago in an act of self-effacing humility before the horrified eyes of his disciples

 

Welcome, illness, welcome, failure, welcome, suffering!

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Christ, Man of Sorrows, end of 15th century

“Unforeseen things turn up constantly in our way because we have our will and our desires. Those unforeseen things are contrary to our will and desires; this is why they appear unforeseen to us, although they really are not. Because the person who loves God expects whatever may come, saying always “your will be done!” Rain will come, a storm, hail, thunder? “Blessed be the name of the Lord!” These are unforeseen because they come in contact with our ‘fleshly’ way of being. Therefore, in order not to be unsettled every time and to be upset, not to fret and succumb to anxiety, you have to expect all, and bear whatever may come. You must always say: “Welcome, illness, welcome, failure, welcome, suffering!” This will bring about meekness, without which there cannot exist a spiritual life.” (Elder Aimilianos Simonopetra)

 

 

Elder Aimilianos and Christ Pantokrator

christ sinai

Please have a look at the eyes of the Elder how much they resemble Christ’s ‘different’ eyes and left vs right features in that famous Sinai icon*. Isn’t this a striking similarity? I am completely mesmerised, if I may use such an expression, with this photograph of the Elder, and I have been spending really a lot of time simply looking at him, ever since his repose in Christ. Compassionate, Peaceful, yet Stern too. It feels like an icon to me, and not a photograph. Your thoughts?

Elder aimilianos

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Many (1) agree that the icon represents the dual nature of Christ, illustrating traits of both man and god, perhaps influenced by the aftermath of the ecumenical councils of the previous century at Ephesus and Chalcedon. Christ’s features on his left side (the viewer’s right) are supposed to represent the qualities of his human nature, while his right side (the viewer’s left) represents his divinity.

(1) Cf. Manaphēs, Sinai: Treasures, 84; Robin Cormack, Oxford History of Art: Byzantine Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 66.

 

Elder Aimilianos Simonopetritis Has Departed This Life

Gerondas Aimilianos

Newly reposed Elder Aimilianos, 23 years of illness. Memory Eternal! Such a special spiritual father! I have known him through his books, homilies and my friends’ testimonies, how he intervened and changed their lives.

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You have made known to me the ways of life; you will fill me with joy with your countenance (Ps. 15, 11)

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*As for the little city hermit, he has disappeared because he has to undertake a Mission Impossible at his Spiritual Father’s word. Prayers are requested since it does feel like a Mission Impossible.

A sip of raki

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When one sins, he is heavy because of his selfishness. He can neither read nor pray because praying and kneeling seem daunting. Since then, you cannot pray, nor keep vigil, at least force yourself to study the Psalms. The Psalms express prayer, repentance, praise, thanksgiving, and contain feelings and experiences that can raise even the weakest man. Just like, when the other loses his senses, you give him a bit of raki, and you revive him, precisely so, read the Psalms, and they will resurrect you again.(Elder Aimilianos)