Category Archives: Contemporary Elders

Spared Death Penalty … Twice!

St. Demetrios of Thessaloniki and Elder Philotheos Zervakos

st demetrios and elder philotheos zervakos:  two miracles 

 

Two Miracles

May St. Demetrios intercede for Us! Today is a very special day for my hometown Thessaloniki. +St. Demetrios of Thessaloniki, 26 October. Thessalonians and all the world are glorifying “the myrrh-gushing saint and courageous martyr, Demetrius, the commander”.  Indeed, St Velimirovich is so right! “St. Paul bedewed Thessalonica with tears, Demetrius watered it with his blood.” Below follow two miracles of St. Demetrios to Elder Philotheos Zervakos, a most venerable contemporary elder, of special significance to me, since he was a spiritual father of my spiritual mother, Sister Aggeliki the Unmercenary :

 

st demetrios and elder philotheos zervakos:  two miracles 

st demetrios and elder philotheos zervakos:  two miracles 

As a young man, Fr. Philotheos Zervakos (+1980), the well-known abbot of Paros and spiritual son of St. Nektarios of Aegina, was imprisoned twice by the Turks during the final years of the Ottoman occupation of Thessaloniki. In his time of trial St. Demetrios, his patron, was a ready helper, as we read below in his own words:

 

st demetrios and elder philotheos zervakos:  two miracles 

 

St. Demetrios Protects Elder Philotheos From Harm The First Time

 

When I fulfilled my military service and was released, I decided to become a soldier for our Heavenly King in accordance with the counsel that Father Eusebios had given me. I disclosed all my intentions to the holy Nektarios, the Bishop of Pentapolis, who then was also the director of the Rizareion Seminary in Athens (now in blessed repose), and he told me, “Your goal is good, but I advise you to go to no other monastery than the one at Paros (Lagouvardos), where the brethren are virtuous and plentiful.” However, I insisted, telling him that my desire was to go to the Holy Mountain. He then said, “If you stay in Greece, go to the Lagouvardos Monastery, but if you insist on going to the Holy Mountain, then go with my blessing….”

After attending a vigil on May 8, 1907…my friend Nickolas Mitropoulos and I boarded the steamship “Pinios”, and we departed for the Holy Mountain from Piraeus….

Two days later, we arrived in Thessaloniki, which was then occupied by the Turks (I had great reverence for St. Demetrios, the patron saint of Thessaloniki since I was a child). I invited my friend Nickolas to join me to go venerate the tomb of the Great Martyr, St. Demetrios the Myrrh-gusher. We then got off the ship and went to venerate his tomb with compunction. On our way back to the ship, we checked in at the Greek hotel and rested all day and night. The next day, we prepared to depart for the Holy Mountain and went to the Customs Office; however, they did not permit us to depart: “You will not leave”, they told us, “because you are spies!” We, of course, denied this and pointed out that since our passports had been cleared by the Turkish Consulate and the Embassy, they should allow us to leave. However, they would not pay any attention to our words.

They did not put us in jail but under close surveillance and soldiers stood guard outside our hotel, and they followed us whenever we went out. This went on for quite a few days and we began to worry because our money was running low. One day, I told Nickolas, “I am going to the ‘konaki’ (governor’s house), to appear before the ‘pasha’ (governor): he will probably allow us to leave.” I arose very early the next morning and went to venerate the tomb of St. Demetrios again before going to the konaki. With tears and compunction, I asked the Saint to intercede to the Lord that we be permitted to freely go to the Holy Mountain. After praying for quite a while and sitting down to rest, the martyrdom of St. Demetrios came to my mind: I thought about how he was pierced with a lance and died for the love of Christ and for our holy faith, and how he was glorified by God both on earth and in heaven, and will be glorified unto all ages.

As I considered all this, a longing came to me to give my life for the love of Christ and the Orthodox faith too, supposing there was a way. I then asked St. Demetrios to intercede to the Lord again, however, not for my freedom, but that I be rendered worthy to die a martyr’s death. I then thought of a way to accomplish this goal. I told myself, “I will go to the konaki and courageously appear before the Turks. I will give them a reason to question me about my faith and then I will bear witness to their heresy. They will probably tell me to deny my faith, but I will stand firm and prefer death. Thus I will have a Martyr’s end.”

I went to the konaki immediately and entered inside. While I was going up a hallway, a Turkish officer noticed me and asked me what I wanted:

“I want to see the pasha.””And why do you want to see him?”

“I have something to tell him.”

“I am the pasha’s representative. Tell me what you want openly.”

“Since you are the pasha’s representative, then tell me, why will you not allow us to go to the Holy Mountain?”

“I will not give you a reason.”

“You are not good people”, I told him courageously, “you are unjust. Why are you detaining and distressing us like this? We are not at fault, we are not bad people and our papers are in order. I do not understand. Now we have run out money. How shall we live in this foreign and unknown place? How would you like it if you went to Greece and we did to you what you are doing to us?”

These words irritated him and moved him to anger. He began ringing a bell loudly and 30-35 soldiers and officers gathered around us immediately. They grabbed me and dragged me off to the White Tower, for what purpose I did not know; I thought perhaps to imprison me … As we walked to the White Tower, I asked St. Demetrios to intercede to the Lord to grant me a martyr’s death, provided it is His will; and if it was not, to be delivered from the hands of these atheistic, bloodthirsty, wild and barbaric Saracens.

After we had gone a little ways, their superior appeared and spoke to them in Turkish. I did not understand what he had told them but I did perceive that he was angry. He then lifted up his rod and struck the officer responsible for my arrest on the shoulder and sent them all away. When they left, he approached me with a cheerful grin on his face, and kindly patted me on the shoulder. He then handed me over to the prudent soldier from Ioannina and ordered him to take me to the Greek steamship “Mikali”, which was in the port of Thessaloniki, so that I could return to Greece.

I asked the soldier who the man was that had given the orders, not having the faintest idea. He told me that he was the pasha. I then asked him why the pasha had struck his own personal secretary, and what he had said to him. The soldier explained, “The pasha scolded his secretary because he had condemned you to death without asking permission.” I then asked him where they had been taking me. “They were taking you to the White Tower to execute you there”, he said, “all those who are condemned to death are taken there – as for the others, they put them in chains and abandon them to die from hunger, from thirst and from the stench.” I then rejoiced that I had been delivered from the hands of those wild Saracens – for I was not sure whether it would have been for the question of my faith that they had killed me. However, I was sad because I missed the opportunity to give my life for the faith. Martyrdom, however, must take place according to the rules as the divine preacher, the Apostle Paul, tells us, “An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules” (2 Tim. 2:5)….

The soldier and I then stopped by the hotel, where I bid my beloved friend Nickolas farewell….

Apparently, it was not the will of God for me to go to the Holy Mountain, and this is the reason I encountered all these obstacles. I feel a great debt of gratitude to my protector, the Great Martyr, St. Demetrios, through whose intercessions and prayers, I was delivered from death.

I had no idea why the pasha had shown so much interest in me, so I sought to find out. It was not until about two years later, when I went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain, that I finally learned why from my friend Nickolas, who had gone and had remained on the Holy Mountain. He told me why the pasha had set me free and sent me back to Greece:

“Two or three days after you departed Thessalonika for Greece, the adjutant officer of the pasha came up and greeted me…He was an acquaintance of mine…He took me to his home where he offered me hospitality, and the following day we went to go see the pasha together…The Pasha said to him:

‘Your friend there, he was accompanied by another young man. One morning, as I was sleeping peacefully, St. Demetrios entered my room wearing a generals uniform and bearing weapons. With an austere look he commanded me: “Immediately, stand up, get dressed, put your shoes on, and go to such and such a road in the city to free a young man who has been unjustly condemned to death by your own private secretary. After freeing him, send him to the steamship ‘Mikali’, which is in the port of Thessaloniki and preparing to sail off for Greece.”

I hastened at once to save the young man from danger, and sent him off to Greece.'”

It was then that I realized that my helper and my deliverer from death had been the Great Martyr, St. Demetrios the Myrrh-gusher.

The prophecy of St. Nektarios had been fulfilled; no matter where I would go, I would end up at Logouvardos. I had learned a valuable lesson from this: I ought to always be completely obedient to my spiritual father, without being defiant, and I ought to not seek my will, but the will of my spiritual father – in imitation of our Lord Jesus Christ, “Who came into the world not to do His own will but the will of His Father, Who sent Him.”

st demetrios and elder philotheos zervakos:  two miracles 

st demetrios and elder philotheos zervakos:  two miracles 

St. Demetrios Protects Elder Philotheos From Harm The Second Time

Two years later, the Balkan war took place and on the Feast of St. Demetrios (October 26, 1912), Thessaloniki was liberated through the mediation and aid of her Patron Saint.

When we sailed into the port of Thessaloniki, I decided that it would be a good idea to disembark and go venerate the tomb of St. Demetrios, my guardian, and my protector and savior after God. I do not know why, but when I disembarked, the Turks once again took me to be a spy, and put me under surveillance for quite a few days. When I decided to leave Thessaloniki, and began passing through customs, they arrested me, and took me through three rows of barbed wire and locked me in. I found a youth locked in there also, and asked him why they had locked us up. He answered, “In order to murder us.” “But what evil have we done?” I asked. “Forget it,” he answered “do not bother to ask why.”

 

A moment later, a steamship from Romania sailed into the port of Thessaloniki carrying many passengers and a cargo of fuel oil. For some unknown reason, an oil container caught fire as the ship pulled in, and the flames spread rapidly through the entire ship. Loud blasts were heard a few minutes later, and flames were thrown sky high. Thessaloniki was all astir. Thousands of people came down to the shoreline – some to watch and others to rescue the endangered passengers with their boats. All the guards then left their posts to go see all the commotion. Seizing the opportunity, the young man pulled a small pair of clips from his pocket and cut through the barbed wire. Then he took me by the hand and lead me out. And paying a boatman, he told him to take us out to a Greek steamship which was anchored just outside the port. As we were climbing in the boat, the soldier who arrested me and locked me up came running over to seize me. However, the young man slapped him right across the face when he got to us, and he pulled back and walked away!

The boatman took us out to the Greek ship and we went aboard. I then went to put my things in order, and once I organized them, I went back to find the youth, my rescuer, to thank him and ask who he was and where he was from. However, I could not find him anywhere. I asked almost all the ship’s passengers and crew but soon realized that nobody had seen him either boarding or disembarking the ship. Who was he and what happened to him God only knows. (The only thing that I know is that many years later – after Thessaloniki had been liberated – I was celebrating the Divine Liturgy and preaching the word of God at the Church of St. Demetrios when I saw the icon of the Saint. I noticed that the young man who had freed me and lead me to the steamship bore a striking resemblance to St. Demetrios.)

st demetrios and elder philotheos zervakos:  two miracles 

st demetrios and elder philotheos zervakos:  two miracles 

 

His ‘Silent’ Assemblies

Father Symeon Kragiopoulos, the Jesus Prayer and his ‘Silent’ Assemblies

As well as the liturgy and other services, Fr. Symeon also held ‘silent’ assemblies. No-one spoke. Or rather, no-one heard because everybody was speaking mystically to God, using a prayer-rope and saying the Jesus Prayer: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me’. The church of Saint Athanasios was completely full. Everyone seated, heads bowed, holding a prayer-rope and seeking God’s mercy. These assemblies also lasted an hour. [Ed. In this, Elder Sophrony’s influence, fruit of Elder Symeon’s frequent visits to Essex Monastery and meetings with its abbot, cannot be exaggerated.]

Fr. Symeon laid great stress on sermons. He considered it as importance as a service, as indeed it is. The Word of God must first be received through the hearing, as the proclamation of the Gospel, so that people will believe and then receive Him as Holy Communion. The Elder spoke not only at the liturgy but on many other occasions as well. His discourse was always original. I asked him once: ‘How do you manage it? You’ve spoken for so many years and yet you don’t repeat yourself’. He laughed and I don’t remember his reply, but Fr. Symeon certainly spoke from his overflowing heart. His heart must have been overflowing, because he wouldn’t otherwise have been able to say new things all the time or he’d have addressed the brain rather than the heart. The Elder’s heart was always filled to overflowing because he nourished it continually with study, prayer and spiritual experiences. He told me once that, in confession, he heard problems that bothered a lot of people, but he didn’t have time to go into them in detail with each person. He spoke about them in his sermons. In the end, however, he always left the final word with God. ‘Let’s see what God will enlighten us to say today’, careful always that what he said was not his own words, but those of God.

Fr. Symeon’s sermons weren’t oratory. There were no well-turned phrases, rhetorical figures, great eloquence or any of the things that people admire in a fine speaker. His manner was simple, though he could be intense when the subject moved him to be. Fr. Symeon loved preaching. He went to great effort to get across to his audience not ideas but his very soul. A profound anatomist of the human soul, he analyzed issues clearly, as if he were holding a scalpel, cutting to the bone. He helped his listeners to understand the depths of their soul and brought them from there to repentance. Under his stole, they felt the love of God. And these souls multiplied when, on the initiative of the nuns of the monastery of The Birth of the Mother of God, in collaboration with other spiritual children of Fr. Symeon’s, his sermons began to be circulated more widely, first as recordings and then as a long series of volumes.

After services and preaching, the third main thrust of Fr. Symeon’s work was confession. What started with a few, later became a great number. How many days, and how many hours a day, do you need to confess a thousand, a thousand five hundred people? Where would they even have room to wait? The Elder found a solution. He gave out numbers.  He reckoned on seeing fifty a day. So, depending on the number they were given, each person knew which day, and roughly what time, the Elder would see them. Fr Symeon, closed all day within the confessional, would forget to eat, listening to the pain and shouldering the burden of the penitents. He gave remission, advice, directions, courage for the struggle and strength so that people could, by God’s grace, kill off their old self, so that new person could arise, walking in ‘the newness of life’.

In confession, he wasn’t a harsh judge. Nor was he a chastiser or punisher. You weren’t afraid, you didn’t despair. You felt he put himself in your position and understood you completely, was deeply empathetic and suffered with you. He was the doctor who cured you, the father who loved you, the friend who accompanied you. Confession wasn’t depressing, formal or legalistic. It happened once that we were together at a conference for confessors in the Monastery of the Comforter in Attica. Most of the time he listened without speaking. One spiritual guide asked him: ‘How is it, Father Symeon, that you have such success at confession?’. ‘I try to make sure’, he replied, ‘to be as low as possible, so that, however low people fall, I’ll be even lower and I’ll be there to catch them’. Wise words which embrace the whole meaning, the whole practice of the sacrament.

*

The Myrrhbearing Women approach the Lord with the logic of the heart

Father Symeon Kragiopoulos, the Jesus Prayer and his ‘Silent’ Assemblies

The Myrrhbearing women, despite knowing they were unable to roll the stone from the tomb, they decided to.  And as a result of this, they were first both to see and to learn of the Resurrection of the Lord. Moved by love (the logic of the heart, as Pascal says) they desired with great boldness to go again to the tomb, to anoint Christ’s lifeless body with myrrh. And just like that, they neither thought of what would happen next, nor whether they’d be able to enter or not. Along the way, they said only this: “Who will roll away the stone for us?” Despite all this, they did not stop, nor did they turn back, but instead kept going. This wealth of the emotional world, the all-consuming love belonging to the female nature, is a good characteristic. However, one must not rely on this alone.

It is not enough for the inside of an automobile to have only the steering wheel: what is needed is the driving force. It is necessary, therefore, for man to reach that point where the world of his heart, that sentimental treasure, becomes one with his nous. And this, as the Fathers say, is something achieved by the Jesus prayer.With the Jesus prayer, the nous descends into the heart and man’s powers are made one (just as sin has brought the division of his powers). For this reason, a saint moves simply, as he has only a conscious mind –not a subconscious nor an unconscious.

Therefore, the Myrrhbearing Women were animated by a simple, humble method. Putting their nous in their hearts –burning with the love of God– they succeeded in approaching the Risen Christ, and naturally were made holy.

*

Neptic ‘Psychotherapy’

The three levels of the soul

Father Symeon Kragiopoulos, the Jesus Prayer and his ‘Silent’ Assemblies

Conscious, subconscious, unconscious

The three levels of the soulAccording to what the expert scientists, the psychologists, say, our soul is divided into three levels. It is somewhat like an edifice which is filled with much unknown material.

The topmost part of the mind is the conscious, namely the part with which we understand ourselves.  This is where we become aware of our thoughts, our feelings, our entire disposition, and where we control and know these things. Beneath this level is the subconscious. The content of our subconscious is unknown. However, on occasion, because it is close to the conscious mind, it allows us to sense what it might contain.  Now and then, something springs from the subconscious and enters our conscious mind.

Even lower, in the deepest regions, or what we might call the basement of our soul, is the unconscious. The content of the unconscious is terra incognita, unknown land, and it is entirely unknowable to us. And so it is there, deep within us, that exist our personal experiences, our personal conditions. However, because these exist in the unconscious –in this dark basement- we neither know what exactly exists there nor can we control this content. According to the language of psychology, these experiences are repressed emotions and impulses that are pushed into the depths of the unconscious mind. According to the psychologists, this content of the unconscious gains autonomy and does whatever it wants. It doesn’t consider, nor does it ask, us.

That this is autonomic, all of us know. The moment you want to do the right thing, another power comes over you and forces you to do something else, something you don’t want to do, but which you do anyway.

Certainly these things were known to the fathers of the Church, and in particular the neptic fathers. For this reason, they preferred first that they themselves  –and later also advised others to –stay in the silence of the desert, and say the Jesus prayer (noetic prayer), trying to plummet the deepest depths of their souls, and in this way to start to know the content of the subconscious, and the unconscious,  in order to control it, and not allow it be autonomic and to do whatever it desired.

Because of this, a saint does not have a conscious, a subconscious, and an unconscious. The whole content of his soul is conscious. The saint controls it, and is not at the beck and call of repressed emotions and impulses.

We will see how man can become simple, and not be led blindly by the content which exists in the basement of his soul.

Holy Hesychasterion “The Nativity of Theotokos” Publications.

Archimandrite Symeon Kragiopoulos

For The Portrait of a Spiritual Father – I, The Theologian and the ‘Liturgical’ Being (his famous church services and vigils), go to here

 (To be continued)

A Man of God

The Portrait of a Spiritual Father

A Man of God, Father Symeon Kragiopoulos, The Theologian and the 'Liturgical' Being

In Memoriam

+ Father Symeon Kragiopoulos

“It is with some trepidation that I set pen to paper to record -what? What can one write about a personality whose holiness and spiritual wisdom stretched over many decades, who was shepherd to thousands of souls, saving them from destruction and bringing them into ‘a place of verdure’? About the comforter, the advisor, the father, the refuge of every soul in pain and every confused thought? About the last person who walked and strove in the ascetic life with the holy fathers whom God was pleased to give our generation, those who died to live, because, in living they were dead to the world. ‘so that the world may live’ through Christ, to Whom he brought it through his way of life, his teaching and his prayers? What can one say about a man who rivalled Saint Païsios in his humility, Saint Porfyrios in his discernment, Father Sophrony in his wisdom and Elder Iakovos in his love?

Considering all the above, when I was asked by the spiritual children and heirs to the holy legacy of Elder Symeon to write something In Memoriam, I initially declined for fear that I would not be able to paint a proper picture of him in words, that I would diminish his spiritual stature by not being able to render, even faintly, what the late father really was. What only made me agree to write was the fact that I’d known him for almost half a century and that our relationship was not merely one of spiritual fatherhood, but also one of close friendship. So, with the proviso that I will mention only my personal experiences,  let me begin. (*)

A Man of God

In September of 1969, I’d just taken up a position at the University of Thessaloniki. I visited the Pournaras bookshop, which was at that time not merely a place for selling books but somewhere where colleagues could meet. It was a reference point, you might say. Browsing through the new books spread out on the counter, I heard someone ask Panayiotis Pournaras. ‘I’ve heard that there’s a new professor at the university. A Mister Galitis. Do you know him?’ I turned and saw a pleasant-looking figure, a priest with a red beard, a tranquil look about him, kindly eyes and a bright smile, just at the moment when Panayiotis was pointing to me, ready to make introductions. We chatted for a while and I was impressed by his interest in the new books and also by how well he was up in theological matters. He was following the current theological situation, which was hardly common among priests dedicated to their pastoral work.

I saw Fr. Symeon shortly afterwards at the headquarters of the Metropolis. He’d been appointed a member of the Supervisory Committee of the Seminary, where he’d been Director. The Chairman of the Supervisory Committee, a highly placed cleric, with all the exuberance he could command behaved towards Fr. Symeon with excessive familiarity, with his teasing and slightly ironic and disdainful manner, which made me, at least, feel awkward.  But Fr. Symeon was undisturbed and behaved like an ‘altar-boy’. He made an obeisance and remained silent. My discomfort then became admiration for the wonder of humility.

The Theologian and the ‘Liturgical’ Being

Fr. Symeon’s office in Saint Theodora’s was in the right wing, on the first floor. He asked me to visit him there, which I often did, most gladly. He came to my office, too, but not so often because he couldn’t leave the School much. I recall with nostalgia our long discussions on spiritual, theological and ecclesiastical matters. He was a profound anatomist of the soul and, at the same time, an erudite theologian with rare learning, which he was always trying to increase. He discussed well, had a clear mind, breadth of spirit and a particular sharpness. He would grasp a subject quickly and was comfortable even talking about secular education.

Later, he began vigils at Saint Theodora’s. At one of these he had the joy of tonsuring one of his spiritual children. Fr. Symeon was the person who introduced this new form of vigil, which did not last all night, but covered two or three hours before midnight, and about an hour after, with a half-hour homily. In this way, people who were working and couldn’t get to a liturgy in the morning and for whom an all-night vigil would have been too much had the chance to participate in liturgical life. This practice found many admirers and is now popular in many parts of Greece and abroad.

Every liturgy Fr. Symeon served was a real and literal initiation into the sacrament. It was solemn, neither drawn out nor hurried, without highlights, but not monotonous. At first, he didn’t have chanters. Anybody who could would do their bit. Even I chanted on occasion. These first impromptu chanters usually sang poorly and this created the impression that Fr. Symeon actually wanted this: low profile, no special effects. This would encourage contrition. A friend of mine told me off once when I departed from this ‘rule’.  But soon proper chanters began to appear and the cultivation of music became part of the whole training the people acquired by being close to the blessed Elder.

*

At church … twice as healed

At church, man is freed from the demonic influence

and the traps the devil sets.

At church, man is healed.

These are not just words. It’s the truth.

∞

The sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick

is for the healing of our illnesses.

If we are not healed,

we don’t need to be healed,

that’s why we aren’t.

If you take it this way, you are already healed.

You know very well that an illness which lingers

and doesn’t go is precious.

∞

Whatever needs to go, God will take away.

Whatever doesn’t need to stay, God will take away

be it an illness or demonic influence.

And for whatever stays on and hurts us

we pray to God.

We should pray many a time,

time and again should we beg,

not only for deliverance from soul illnesses

and the demonic influence

but also for deliverance from body illnesses, as well.

∞

Let us pray to God for everything time and again.

Not because God needs us to pray to him again and again.

We need to do this again and again,

because, precisely, God wants to see our faith.

Man, especially today,

gets used to something by repeating it,

learns something by reapeating it.

∞

If you pray time and again

–you need to do this–

and God doesn’t relieve you of your illness, know that:

either you have not shown

as much faith as He wants and expects from you,

or that the illness should not go

because it is necessary.

∞

If you take your illness issue according to God,

then, by it remaining,

you feel twice healed.

If He heals you, you are healed once.

If the illness lingers,

you feel healed twice.

Because both when time comes

 will you be healed from your illness

and until the right time comes to be healed

will your soul be healed, too.

Your inner person will be healed,

this person who suffers from illness,

from the leprosis of sin.

The same goes for all mental illness

and whatever else hurts us.

∞

If man sees all his issues

within the providence of God,

he will feel such a relief,

as if all his problems are solved.

Because in God

all is resolved!

∞

Holy Hesychasterion “The Nativity of Theotokos” Publications.

Archimandrite Symeon Kragiopoulos

 

 (*) This tribute was written by Professor Georgios Ant. Galitis and offered to the faithful in the Holy Trinity Monastery, Panorama, at the end of the 6 months Memorial Service for Fr. Symeon. The poetry/homilies excerpts are from orthodox path.org

(To be continued)

 

Visited by God

Jeanne Harper, Visited by God: The Story of Michael Harper’s 48 Year-long Ministry (Aquila Books, 2013), 146 pages.

Visited by God is the extraordinary spiritual journey of an extraordinary Spiritual man – Michael Harper. I think that I would not be missing the mark to say that Michael Harper was the leader of the Charismatic renewal in England and many other parts of the Globe. Beginning as an Anglican chaplain under John Stott at All Souls Church, Langham Place, London, his journey finally culminated in his introducing an authentically British Orthodoxy as Dean of a new Antiochian Orthodox Deanery with English-speaking parishes all over the country.

His journey was a long and often ‘very difficult’ and testing one. In some ways I can liken it to the journey of St. Paul in that he depended solely on the Holy Spirit to lead him and lead him the Holy Spirit did! It all began in 1962 when Michael was visited by God while studying St Paul’s two prayers in his Epistle to the Ephesians. He ‘saw’ the Church as God saw her – broken by divisions and untended wounds.

It was almost from that very moment that Michael’s God-given mission for unity in the Church began. But there were many in the Anglican Church who opposed this renewal and together with Pentecostalism the movement was dismissed as over-emotionalism and therefore unacceptable. Inevitable disputes and arguments occurred but this did not deter Michael. On the contrary his detractors spurred him on! He continued to go wherever in the world there were people hungry for the power to live what they believed.

One might come to the conclusion that Michael’s journey as leader of the Charismatic renewal movement would result in a very broad liberality but when the Church of England’s General Synod of 1975 passed the motion allowing women into the priesthood, Michael felt more than just stirrings of discontent. Jeanne Harper describes Michael’s anguish which led to a most difficult and painful decision – to leave the Church of England – whom he called his foster mother, so faithfully had she cared for him and led him to his real mother, Orthodoxy.

Jeanne describes how he was led by the Holy Spirit to the Orthodox Church and in 2000 Michael founded the English-speaking Antiochan Orthodox Parish of St. Botolph’s near Liverpool Street, London. At the same time Michael was appointed as a director of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies Cambridge. And in 2005 he was elevated to Archpriest.

The silken thread of a spider is spun from behind him as he moves forward to spin his web. The spider cannot see his work until he looks back and then the pattern of his web with all its links is revealed. Looking back over the web of Michael Harper’s life one thing is clear – from the very beginning Michael’s journey had a pattern and this pattern was a pure reflection of God’s will in his life. Once this was achieved Michael was taken in 2010 and lives in constant joy and prayer along with the saints in glory.

Jeanne Harper shares this God given Spirit filled journey of her husband with the reader and in so doing cannot fail to make us all yearn for the presence of the Holy Spirit to touch and lead all our lives.

And let us not lose this opportunity.

Reviewed by David Suchet CBE

* Last but not least, the concluding chapter “The British Antiochian Orthodox Deanery Mission” is written by Fr. Jonathan Hemmings, one of the priests of the Deanery, whose parishes are strategically spread over England and are to be found in Ireland, north and south. The Dean who succeeded Father Michael, is Father Gregory Hallam, whose vibrant parish is in Manchester. Fr. Jonathan Hemmings ministers in Lancaster at the Orthodox Church of the Holy and Life Giving Cross, worshipping at St Martin of Tours, Westgate. He writes the following chapter on the story of the Deanery and its missionary vision.