+ 9 September
“I remember dear little Mother Akylina . Her bent figure eagerly recommending books in the bookstore, hardly seeing her over the counter but an eagerness to impart a clear voiced wisdom learned from ascetic struggle. May her memory be eternal and may she pray for us in the nearer presence of Christ” (Little Abouna)
“We pray again for the repose of the soul of your servant Dionysios the Monk… † October 19, 1993
The famous and great singer Dionysios Theodosis who became a monk at Mikra Agia Anna on Mount Athos, shortly before cancer led him to Christ at the age of 35…
No one knew his secret throughout his battle with the incurable disease, until at his funeral procession at the Church of St Thomas the Apostle in Goudi, his spiritual director, Fr. Spyridon Mikragiannanitis, mentioned:
“We pray again for the repose of the soul of your servant Dionysios the Monk!”
Everyone was speechless.
Dionysios Theodosis (June 16, 1958 – October 19, 1993) was a Greek singer.
During his career, he collaborated with well-known Greek composers including Yiannis Spanos, Giorgos Hatzinasios and Marios Tokas and with singers such as Giorgos Dalaras, Dimitra Galani and Haris Alexiou.
He was experiencing great existential impasses, until he met Saint Paisios, who discerned his pain and said:
“You, my child, are bringing me a lot of pain, you need to confess, and to a good spiritual father.
Go to the Mikra Agia Anna and talk to Father Dionysios, he is good and will help you”.
Dionysis followed the advice and set off by boat for Mikra Agia Anna.
A monk next to him struck up a conversation and introduced himself: “Father Dionysios Mikragiannanitis”.
After the initial surprise, they struck up a conversation for a while, but Dionysis thought he was a “jester” since this was not the image he had had until then of a spiritual person:
that is, a serious, perhaps even grim old man.
His illness, however, came to radically change the landscape.
He began chemotherapy in London.
His visits to Mikra Agia Anna intensified and he announced to the Fathers that he wanted to become a monk!
At least once a month when he finished at dawn his work he would take his motorcycle and travel to Mount Athos.
During that time, the song “As Long as a Coffee Lasts” was also written, which he performed himself and which few know that he dedicated to his Elder!
He wished to get well and dedicate his life to hesychasm.
His elder, Dionysios, before leaving for treatment abroad, shaves his head and allows him to visit the hospital in England without his cassock.
No one knows his secret, not even his mother Despo, who stands by his side in his last moments and reads a book he gave her about the garden of the Virgin Mary.
She is impressed by what he tells her about Mount Athos.
She prays to God in her heart:
“May my son get well and with my blessing come to serve you.”
Dionysios says his prayers in the bed of the hospital and she does not know that those prayers are his monastic rule!
One day, the English nurse tells Dionysis’ mother in a lacklustre voice, lacking any real emotion: «he died».
The funeral took place in Greece.
Among other relatives, friends, well-known singers, actors and musicians, his elder, Dionysios, also attended.
Fr. Spyridon revealed the secret at the ceremony when he said the name of the deceased: “the servant of God, monk Dionysios”(!)
The congregation was amazed.
Immediately after the ceremony the Fathers took his body, wrapped it in a sheet and monk Dionysios was buried in Mikra Agia Anna, in the place where he wanted to become a monk.
His stepfather and godson Benjamin Koul, a person who converted to Orthodoxy by Dionysis often visited his grave, knowing the people of Mikra Agia Anna.
(Benjamin was a Turk and was baptized in Greece.
His son, Dionysis Theodosis, was his godfather in the Sacrament…)
His wish was to be buried next to his child when he departed this life.
His wish was fulfilled.
He fell ill a few years later and also departed this life, adding another painful loss to the lady-Despo who, when the three years of his burial had passed, took the bones and brought them to Ouranoupoli.
There the monks received them and buried them next to those of his spiritual father, godfather and child, monk Dionysis.
From the page, “Dionysis Theodosis / DionisisTheodosis” and Amfoterodexios
Please watch monk Dionysis sing the song he dedicated to his spiritual father. At first sight, it looks erotic but it is about Agape!
As long as a coffee lasts
Dedicated to his spiritual father
Don’t leave me alone this night,
I am roaming in a minefield
When I drink you up and dry up this night
Either I’ll be saved or I’ll be lost
Stay a little longer
Until I escape
And if you want, hold me
As long as a coffee lasts
Stay a little longer
Until I escape
And then say bye
And that you will come again
Don’t leave me alone this night
My mind turns to evil
Comfort my pain this night
Lead me on with your love, like a baby
Stay a little longer
Until I escape
And if you want, hold me
As long as a coffee lasts
Stay a little longer
Until I escape
And then say bye
And that you will come again (2)
Memory Eternal! Christ is Risen!
A rustling of paper
The squeak of the chair
The cough
The sniff and sneeze
The dropped pencil
The ruler being placed on the desk
The buzz of the electric light
The hum of the traffic outside
The wind and rain on the windows
The voice saying: “Stop writing please boys”!
On the board outside in large red letters on the white background SILENCE — EXAMINATION IN PROGRESS. Complete silence is hardly possible.
The history of silence, ironically it seems, starts, as physicists say with the “big bang” — I say ironically because there was no one there to hear it unless you believe in God and since the big bang may have happened in a vacuum, there was no sound.
Our lives more than ever are filled with sound; it seems as though we cannot do without distractions; from the mp3s to the music that invades our lives. We need to have space, peace and quiet.
John Cage
4′33″ (pronounced Four minutes, thirty-three seconds or, as the composer himself referred to it, Four, thirty-three) is a three-movement composition by American avant-garde composer John Cage (1912–1992). It was composed in 1952 for any instrument (or combination of instruments), and the score instructs the performer not to play the instrument during the entire duration of the piece throughout the three movements (the first being thirty seconds, the second being two minutes and twenty-three seconds, and the third being one minute and forty seconds). Although commonly perceived as “four minutes thirty-three seconds of silence” — the piece actually consists of the sounds of the environment that the listeners hear while it is performed. Over the years, 4′33″ became Cage’s most famous and most controversial composition. The writer composer is trying to show that there is no such thing as silence — that there is a movement and dynamic — he invites us to listen.
Silence sometimes has a bad press in the Bible — often when it is used, it refers to God silencing His people to stop their mouths:
He silences the lips of trusted advisers and takes away the discernment of elders. (Job 12:20)
But the king will rejoice in God; all who swear by God’s name will praise him, while the mouths of liars will be silenced. (Psalm 63:11)
“Therefore, her young men will fall in the streets; all her soldiers will be silenced in that day,” declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 50:30)
Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together…. (Matthew 22:34)
In a positive way however, silence is the space in which God speaks. A relationship between two people involves dialogue — speaking and listening. If we cannot listen we cannot have a relationship. My silence allows others to speak and your silence allows you to hear me. At the very heart of God’s universe is a dialogue between heaven and earth — from creation onwards it has always been so. It is in fact what happens in an iconic way with the Holy Liturgy. When Christ came to earth there were those who heard him and those that did not. If you want to acquire a quality of reception on your radio, you have to turn it on and tune in until your radio receiver allows you to hear. Our hearts, minds and souls are like radio receivers — if you want to acquire a quality of prayer, you must tune your heart towards God in a qualitative receptive silence.
Silence between notes makes music, silence between words makes language — otherwise we have cacophony and noise. Any teacher can vouch for that truth and every pupil knows it.
We need space and silence. When the desert father went into the silence of the desert in the fourth century they found the devil and themselves before they found God. When Jesus went into the desert he was tempted too by the voice of the devil. St Seraphim went into the desert of the Northern Thebaid in Russia as a hermit but not before he had learned obedience and humility within a community. Without obedience to a rule one would go mad. Silence can be torture and is a torture with white noise. Yet in solitude we can listen to other things — the birds of the air, the wind, the sea — we never have complete silence for the whole of Creation is either singing or groaning. We can be part of a communal silence in the monastic tradition — the silence of a community is a dynamic silence — it is not the silence of the one — the monolith — but of corporate sharing— full and replete — like the dynamic of the Holy Trinity.
The definition that Metropolitan Kallistos gives of prayer is, I think, so valuable — “I just sit and look at God and He just sits and looks at me.” Sometimes words are unnecessary — when one is in love with another person words sometimes becomes an interruption to that shared mutual appreciation.
Prayer is a relationship with God and an encounter with the real world not limited by time and space — it is not two dimensional but brings us into the very reality of our being. It brings us into contact with those invisible dimensions which interpenetrate our life. For life lived without prayer, without God is only two dimensional — it is a flat world and it is lived in relationship only to self. But in fact Visible and Invisible coexist as fire is present in red hot iron as hydrogen and oxygen co-exist to bring us thirst quenching water. They are not mutually exclusive.
Prayer as Metropolitan Antony Bloom said in “Courage to Pray” is an end to isolation — it is living our life with someone. Prayer makes us aware of God’s presence which we would not be if we did not pray — like switching the radio on and tuning in we have to make the effort to hear God speaking. Indeed he who does not pray is in isolation — the more we pray the more we realise our need upon God — the reality of our vulnerable state of mortality comes to the for, but at the same time we begin to appreciate more grace and divine support. Prayer does not change God — prayer changes us, because it is God the Holy Spirit praying in us. C. S. Lewis, that great friend of Orthodoxy, expresses it like this in his poem on Prayer:
Master they say that when I seem
To be in speech with you,
Since you make no replies, it’s all a
dream – One talker aping two.
They are half right, but not as they
imagine; rather, I
Seek in myself the things I meant to
say, And lo! The wells are dry.
Then, seeing me empty, you forsake
The listener’s role, and through
My dead lips breathe and into utterance wake
The thoughts I never knew.
And thus you neither need reply
Nor can; thus while we seem
Two talking, thou art One forever, and I
No dreamer, but thy dream.
– C.S. Lewis
So we need to distinguish between negative silence, which is isolation from God, and positive quietude — calm, hesychia — which is union with God. The experienced use of mental prayer (or prayer of the heart), requiring solitude and quiet, is called “Hesychasm” (from the Greek “hesychia”, meaning calm, silence), and those practicing it were called “hesychasts.” “A sign of spiritual life is the immersion of a person within himself and the hidden workings within his heart.”
“Acquire a peaceful spirit, and around you thousands will be saved.” (St Seraphim of Sarov.)
In our busy life bombarded by sound — we value things by what we do, what is achieved, the end product, the target fulfilled, the box ticked, but perhaps rather than the measure of doing perhaps we need to recalibrate our lives into being — after all we are not human doings but human beings. We should try to set aside at least half an hour each day for quiet reflection and application: SILENCE — EXAMINATION IN PROGRESS – — since we shall experience it sooner or later:
[The Seventh Seal and the Golden Censer] When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. (Revelation 8:1)
Eν Χριστώ
Fr. Jonathan
ابونا جوناثان
Inside St George Karslides cell and chapel
Dearest brothers and sisters in Christ, Christ has ascended! Truly He has ascended from earth to heaven!
Here, at the Ascension Monastery, St George Karslides, in Taxiarhes (Sipsa), Drama, the sisters celebrate its annual Feast with a hierarchical Holy Liturgy at the Ascension chapel of the Saint and a blessing of the waters.
St. George last words were “Open to me the gate of loving-kindness, blessed Mother of God”. His dead body was supple, just said the case of those on the Holy Mountain.The two cypress trees at his grave bent, as though in veneration, as he had foretold, and lots of birds gathered at the time of his burial, with no fear of the large crowd of people. Everyone felt, was certain that they were burying a Saint.
Indeed, for centuries, Middle Eastern and European cultures have revered the cypress as a symbol of the transition between life and death, with cypresses symbolizing the uplifting of the human spirit and the possibilities of eternal life. So many poems have been written about them by poets and philosophers. Cypresses are even discussed in Gerontikon (see below). But such participation of Nature in a Saint’s life is of an entirely different level.
This miracles brings to my mind another one, from the life of the Theotokos. The Synaxarion of the DORMITION (KOIMISIS) OF THE THEOTOKOS,
One of the Virgin’s prayers at the Garden of Gethsemane was to behold the holy Apostles who were then scattered throughout the world preaching the Gospel. When our Lady knelt and offered her petition and thanksgiving to her Creator, her prayer was accompanied by a wonderful manifestation: the olive trees growing on the Mount of Olives bowed with the Theotokos as though they were animate. When the Theotokos knelt, the trees bend down, when she arose, the trees straightened themselves out again. Thus, even trees revered and honored the Lady and Mistress of the cosmos. (Source: The Great Synaxaristes of the Orthodox Church)
Also, in the life of St Irene Chrysovalantou, we read that during one of her all-night vigils, one of the nuns, unable to sleep, left her cell and entered the courtyard. The nun was blessed to witness Irene motionless, hands raised in prayer and floating off the ground and two cypress tress bent to the ground before her. After Irene had finished her prayer, she blessed the trees and they returned to standing upright. God is glorified in His Saints.
At the Ascension of our Lord feast, the cell of the Saint is open all day for pilgrims, a rare privilege, and Gerondissa Porfyria assigned my obedience for today to “guard” the chapel, the Saints’ relics which the Saint had brought from Russia (and his own of course), and the Saint’ holy cell which all have the fragrance of myrrh. I was speechless at the honour and the blessing!
The cross on his skull! He is one of few Saints known to bear an imprint of the sign of the cross on his skull.
St. George Karslides cell
Here, when a special needs pilgrim prostrated last Sunday, the Saint ‘visited’ her and blessed her with an amazing abundance of fragrance felt by everybody here. Miracles of healing happen all the time. The faith of the pilgrims is so powerful. God is glorified in His Saints.
The cell next door to the Saint’s cell. Originally used for storage by the Saint. Later, + Gerondissa Akylina moved here in the final years of her life and had the care of the now Gerondissa Porfyria (cf the framed photos over the bed).
Sayings of Saint George Karslides (+ 1959)
– “God cares for everyone. Despair is basically a lack of faith”
– “The Panagia does not want big candles, she wants mercy shown to the poor.”
– The Elder said that what saves man is “the good works of God: humility, obedience, love, and mercy.”
– He said to a woman he met at the monastery: “What? You go to church every day and have not forgiven your children?”
– “Do not sit at the hour of the Divine Liturgy. Your mind should not fly here and there. As long as you are in church make the decision to devote all of the time to prayer.”
– “Do not think only about what to eat, what to wear, how large a house you will build. Knock on the doors of the poor, the sick, the orphans. Prefer more the houses of the sad rather than happy. If you do good works, you will have a large reward from God. You will be made worthy to see miracles, and in the other life you will have endless jubilation.”
– “The Christian who loves all people has a great reward, especially if he forgives those who do him evil. For if we don’t love our neighbor, all the good works we do will be worthless. They amount to nothing, we will be worthless. Love, my brethren. God requires love from us.”
Cypress and Gerontikon
One great elder was strolling at a place with different cypresses, big and small. The elder told one of the pupils, “Pull up this cypress!”
The cypress was small and one of the brothers did it with just one hand. Then the elder pointed to another cypress tree, bigger than the previous one, and said, “Pull up this one, too! The brother began to sway it in both directions and finally rooted it out.
Afterwards the elder showed his pupils an even bigger tree and told the brother to do the same thing. It took far more efforts and time for the pupil to pull up the tree. Then they came across an incredibly big cypress and the elder had the same request for his pupil. Though the brother was breaking his neck to pull it up, he failed to do it. On seeing that the elder told another brother to help him. Eventually they managed to pull up the tree together.
Then the elder said the following, “Here is how our passions work: we can easily eradicate them while they are small. However, if we neglect our fight with them, they get stronger. The bigger and stronger they get, the more effort is required to pull them up. Then there is a moment when it is impossible to root them up alone, and we remain helpless until we begin to seek help from the saint people who offer their assistance to humans upon God’s grace.
Physical (biological) death vs “brain death”
Is physical death the same as “brain death”? No! A “brain dead” patient may be in a coma and apnea, but most of his organs are functioning with appropriate medical support; so, when his organs are removed, he is still warm, his heart is still working, and his blood is circulating! (1)
They will tell you that organs are taken when the person is dead. This is not true. There are several recorded cases of “brain dead” people who came back from this state. The vital organs of the “donors” are taken while they are still ALIVE, resulting in a violent interruption of their life during the process of taking their organs. Many leading scientists in Greece and abroad (2) express serious scientific objections and do not hesitate to even propose the complete abandonment of the concept of “Brain Death”.
Professor of Pediatric Anesthesiology at the leading University of the USA, Harvard, and Director of the Intensive Care Unit at the University Children’s Hospital, Boston, Dr. Robert D. Truog states: “Brain Death remains incoherent in theory and confusing in practice. Furthermore, the only purpose that this concept (of brain death) serves is to facilitate the search for organs for transplantation. That is why, after all, the concept of “brain death” was “invented” only in 1968 by some Harvard scientists.”
The fact of death is a great mystery, the Holy Fathers of the Church tell us, and no one knows nor will ever know when (at what exact moment) the soul separates from the body… As long as the heart is functioning, the soul is united with the body.
Saint Paisios of Mount Athos, when asked about transplants, he categorically opposed the transplantation of vital organs (organs without which the donor cannot continue to live), for two reasons: First: “it constitutes an impermissible intervention, opposing the creative work of God, on the one hand, by killing the donor, and on the other by creating in us the conceit of animating the recipient.” And second: “It will become a cause for inventing ways to kill the sick in order to take their organs.”
Saint Porphyrios was also opposed to the transplantation of solid organs from “brain-dead” people. He made the following recommendation to a couple who wanted to donate the organs of their child after a serious accident: “There is only one death. Donate only the cornea of the eyes…” A person in a state of so-called “brain death” is a seriously ill patient but not dead… By taking vital organs from a “brain dead” patient, he is forcibly led to definitive clinical death… this action, by the criteria of Orthodox Theology, is equivalent to Murder.
They will say that organ donation is self-sacrifice and a noble act, an act of humanity and altruism. This is not true… The one who determines when we will die is our Creator and not us. In the Old and New Testaments, as well as in the Hymnography of our Church, it is emphasized that the Creator alone is the master of life and death. Even when there is consent, the “DONATION” of VITAL ORGANS IS NOT SELF-SACRIFICE, because it takes away from the donor the possibility of repentance, that is, to say, even at the last moment, “Forgive me, my God” and for God to possibly save his soul.
By a beloved brother in Christ, Stavros Amfoterodexios (cf. “Ehud the son of Gera, the son of Benjamin, a man equally adept with both of his hands” Judges 3:15)
1. Dr. Alan Shewmon, internationally renowned Professor of Pediatric Neurology at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles).
2. K. Karakatsanis 2001, E. Panagopoulos 1998, M. Vrettos 1999, I. Kountouras 1999, K. Christodoulides 1995, N. Balamoutsos 1999, N. Konstantinidis 1999, M. Giala 1999, A. Avramidis 1995, P. Kougias 1999, A. Goulianos 1999, etc.) and abroad (R.D. Truog 1992, D.A. Shewmon 1997, R.M. Taylor 1997, etc.),
Father Josiah Trenham on “The Most Important Times to Give Thanks” and George Herbert’s poem “Gratefulness” From The Temple (1633)
| “Gratefulnesse” THou that hast giv’n so much to me, Give one thing more, a gratefull heart. See how thy beggar works on thee By art. He makes thy gifts occasion more, And sayes, If he in this be crost, All thou hast giv’n him heretofore Is lost. But thou didst reckon, when at first Thy word our hearts and hands did crave, What it would come to at the worst To save. Perpetuall knockings at thy doore, Tears sullying thy transparent rooms, Gift upon gift, much would have more, And comes. This notwithstanding, thou wentst on, And didst allow us all our noise: Nay, thou hast made a sigh and grone Thy joyes. Not that thou hast not still above Much better tunes, then grones can make; But that these countrey-aires thy love Did take. Wherefore I crie, and crie again; And in no quiet canst thou be, Till I a thankfull heart obtain Of thee: Not thankfull, when it pleaseth me; As if thy blessings had spare dayes: But such a heart, whose pulse may be Thy praise. |
Perhaps the scenario of this poem seems a little ridiculous to you: no one need spend so much vigour on trying to persuade God of the virtues of gratefulness, as it’s a gift that’s so obviously within His will to give. Please forgive me but I do find all this elaborateness and farfetchedness — indeed one of the hallmarks of seventeenth-century metaphysical poetry — charming in its “innocence”. Esp. when compared to our century’s meta-diction and meta-visions…
The first two lines of the poem could be taken in isolation as an earnest and prayerful reminder to be thankful always for God’s goodness, perhaps in the same vein as a verse from Joseph Addison’s wonderful hymn of 1712: ‘When all Thy mercies, O my God’:
Ten thousand thousand precious gifts
My daily thanks employ;
Nor is the least a cheerful heart
To taste those gifts with joy.
But as the poem progresses, it seems that such is the weakness of our human condition that even an act or disposition of gratitude needs divine provenance – and persistence on the part of the poet: ‘Thy beggar works on thee by art’ (stanza 1); ‘Perpetuall knockings at Thy doore’ (stanza 4); ‘I crie, and crie again’ (stanza 7).
George Herbert leaves us in no doubt that God is gracious when beholding our noise, indeed our every ‘sigh and grone’.
What I find most moving is that the beggar’s request in the final stanza — not just a grateful heart from time to time, but one that is grateful all the time, continuously, as a beating pulse — is indeed granted in the end!
Look at another, famous poem of his, “Praise (II)” :
KIng of Glorie, King of Peace,
…
Thou hast granted my request,
Thou hast heard me:
Sev’n whole dayes, not one in seven,
I will praise thee.”
What a gift! How are lives, certainly mine, would be transformed, were our hearts grateful, did we possess hearts “whose pulse may be Thy praise”! Listen to the hymn of ‘Gratefulnesse’ here.
Or, my last day at Metamorfosi monastery of Saint John the Forerunner and how Gerondas Gregorios and Mother Akylina defeated the demons’ assaults and saved my father from eternal death.
The night before my departure, I had the blessing to speak to Mother Akylina. (So far all my momentous meetings at the monasteries have mysteriously taken place the last few hours before my departure…) Mother Akylina is a very old and frail sister in her nineties, bent in two, with a very sharp, illumined nous, and with beautiful, wide azure eyes staring into eternity. Until last summer, Mother Akylina was probably the first person pilgrims met upon entering the monastery, near its book store, but recently this sister has completely “disappeared” in hesychia and is now rarely seen anywhere. Yet God in His Mercy granted an exception to me.
“The just shall flourish like the palm tree, shall grow like a cedar of Lebanon.
Planted in the house of the Lord, they shall flourish in the courts of our God.
They shall bear fruit even in old age, always vigorous and sturdy,
As they proclaim: “The Lord is just; our rock, in whom there is no wrong.”
(Psalm 92:13-16)
I always smile when I think of Mother Akylina because although she is old and bent double, she is “always vigorous and sturdy“, moves like a firefly, and her knowledge and eagerness to help sweeps you up in her enthusiasm. Indeed, she “bears fruit even in old age”.
I always listen to Mother Akylina. I feel most indebted to her because she saved my father from eternal death. Together with Gerondas Gregorios of blessed memory. It was their discernment, leading to insight, and ultimately to foresight, which wrought that amazing miracle at the end of my father’s life. Oh, what a profoundly moving experience I experienced with their prayers! Let me try to put it into words, if I can.
My father was a very good person and a conscientious doctor who honoured his calling, offered wise counselling about diet and exercise to everybody, cared deeply for his patients and helped them as much as he could. I always smile when I remember his words to his patients and us, to be sure, family and friends: “No, you do not need any medication. You should just lose weight, exercise regularly, and your test results will improve”. Or: “No, you do not need any make-up; eat lots of fruits and veggies, and their nutrient antioxidants, vitamins and minerals will help you get glowing skin”. Or: “Feeling stressed? Having difficulty to sleep at night? No need for any medication. Just run or walk briskly for at least one hour every day, take a cold shower at the end of your training, and then come and tell me if you still feel stressed. And if this ‘dosage’ fails, repeat as often as you can, as many times in the day! ” Or: “Never take a serious decision at night! Rest, get some sound sleep, think about it clearly and calmly, and then make up your mind in the cold light of day”. And so on and so forth …
But it was not just his words and the example he set, being himself an athlete and a tennis champion. My father, God rest his soul, also had integrity, courage, resilience, cheerfulness, empathy, respect, compassion and kindness towards everybody. Each and everyone loved my father and wanted to be near him. His only difficulty was … to believe in afterlife. After retirement, he started diligently to study the Holy Bible, day after day, the whole Old and New Testament, intrigued by my life choices, underlying the passages which made the greatest impression of him. I have kept his study Bible and am still impressed by how much he had read. Years went by like this, but my father never quite made up his mind to participate in any church sacraments, especially confession to a priest.
Then, towards the end of his life, he became a patient himself who needed doctors, as he started having some horrible nightmares of ghastly dark figures chasing and attacking him. Every night, he would fall from his bed and end up on the floor ‘beaten’, injured and shivering. All his friend doctors considered these symptoms side-effects of the medication he was taking, but they could not help him, free him from that torture, night after night.
“We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
Once, back in those days, I went to St. John the Forerunner monastery and met sister Akylina as usual at the bookstore, and she asked me about our family news. When she heard this update from my father, she looked very concerned, sharply told me to “wait here” and disappeared in a haste to meet Gerondas Gregorios. At that time, Gerondas was in absolute silent seclusion, but she was one of the very few sisters who had the blessing to “interrupt” his hesychia at her discretion.
A few minutes later, she came back in a hurry and told me Gerondas’ message to my father: “Ioanni, if you do not confess to a priest, these dark figures that chase you in your nightmares, they will chase you in reality after you die, because they are demons”.
–“But Mother, how can I say such things to my father? I do not dare. He will dismiss them. He is a doctor, he has witnessed lots of deaths at his long medical career in hospitals, he does not believe in the possibility of life after death”.
–“We insist. You should say Gerondas’ message to your father. We will all pray”.
And so, a few days later, I summoned all my courage and told my father Gerondas’ words. To my surprise, he did not dismiss them but looked at me very seriously in the eyes. He told me he needed time to reflect about all this. I am sure that this martyrdom must have been a most humbling experience for my father, who had survived all life’s odds, war, poverty, even losing his father as a young child and having to support his brethren and his young, widow mother, yet was now helpless. What a humbling experience for someone so strong to feel so powerless and helpless! We all started praying and waited … God must have been shouting in my father’s nightmares: it was indeed his megaphone to rouse his skeptic child. “Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” (John 20:27) Another megaphone was certainly + Gerondas Gregorios’ stern warning to him.
A few months passed by, and one day, my father called me and asked me to arrange for a priest to come to hear his Confession! (By that time he could not move outside the house). As you may very well guess, I promptly arranged this with our parish priest. By God’s Providence, I was also present at his Confession. My father was a simple man and wanted to make his confession in front of us (ie. my mother and I), and eventually the priest, after hearing his Confession, covered the heads of all three of us with his epitrachelion and read the absolution prayer to us all.
From that night on, after his Confession and Holy Communion, my father’s nightmares disappeared at once and his martyrdom came to an end. He radiated peace and joy! Very soon, his health sharply declined. But there was no pain, agony or anguish in any of this. Only peace and joy! In a matter of a few weeks, my father slept peacefully in the Lord, who patiently extended the life of His child just as much as needed to save him. Glory to God! Christ is Risen!
Mother Akylina’s prayers are so powerful and targeted! So are her insights. You probably understand now why I pay such close attention to every single word she is telling me. So, I did yesterday, and I paid even more attention now because she looked “bodiless”— as if her departure to Heavens was imminent. Please forgive me for not being able to share her words since they are all about most private matters. But I can share this. It is about somebody who had just started going to Church, Confession etc and he kept telling me how his life had become so much harder since. Her words were that all this is from the Evil one to discourage him and he should not pay any attention to his suggestions. It will become harder because of the spiritual battle, but he should keep his soul in hell and despair not. And when I told her, that I cannot say anything to this person about anything really, she told me “then, pray!” Also, about a very difficult situation, a Cross, her words were: “As the Lord provides. May it be blessed. Therefore, keep silence and pray!“
St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent
“Discernment in beginners is true knowledge of themselves; in intermediate souls it is a spiritual sense that faultlessly distinguishes what is truly good from what is of nature and opposed to it; and in the perfect it is the knowledge which they possess by divine illumination, and which can enlighten with its lamp what is dark in other. Or perhaps, generally speaking, discernment is, and is recognised as, the assured understanding of the divine will on all occasions, in every place and in all matter; and it is only found in those who are pure in heart, and in body, and in mouth.
The body is enlightened by its two corporeal eyes; but in visible and spiritual discernment the eyes of the heart are illumined”.
St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ
“The heart is the eye of the human being. The purer it is. the quicker, farther, and clesarer it can see.”
About vigils, the Feast of the Theotokos’ Sacred Veil (Skepi) and Her Holy Protection, the power of the Psalter and the monastery’s chicken coop!
“By Fasting, Vigil and Prayer Thou didst Obtain Heavenly Gifts” (Fourth Great Lent Sunday- St. John of the Ladder , Troparion, tone 1)
Not for the faint-hearted! A most ascetic monastery, I must admit. I, for one thing, thought that I had no problem with fasting, and yet here, I realise that I am such a dainty eater! I have had enough of their plain bread, watery, fasting soups and fruit!
As to vigils, rising at ungodly [sic!] hours to chant Psalms, after two consecutive vigils, one at St Demetrios’ Feast in Thessaloniki and the other one here, at the monastery, for the Sunday Holy Liturgy, I believe that I have reached my limit. If I had any doubts (which I did not have) now I feel confident that I am not yet ready for this second step in this ladder, for this “violence” on our flesh. Not to mention the third ring, prayer …
“By Fasting, Vigil and Prayer Thou didst Obtain Heavenly Gifts”
“And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.” Matthew 11:12
Oh dear! A most ascetic long weekend. I have been so food deprived, so heat deprived, and so sleep deprived—the worst part— that I cannot put it to words. I certainly need time and rest to recover from all this ascetic labour. I do feel blessed and most grateful, I am floating, but this monastery’s specifications are for angels, fleshless, holy beings. The sisters are of course lenient with us poor guests, yet even the “compromise” they bless for us is so hard for my spiritual level! I cannot even begin to imagine how it is to spend Great Lent here, with only meal a day, and what a meal …
One can”feel” their asceticism even in their etherial chanting. Indeed, an ascetic hue to the spectrum of light explored so far on my way of a pilgrim. And so “hidden”! Adding a wholly empirical dimension to the verse “our lives being hidden in Christ!” So very different to my previous two pilgrimages to Dormition monastery in Panorama and St George Karslides monastery in Sipsa. Such a humbling experience! Probably because of all this most demanding typikon, this monastery has the least pilgrims or faithful attending, even when its gates are open. As to the sisters, they humbly believe that they they are useless, lukewarm, “end of times” monastics, not honouring their calling.
Matushka Constantina is so right when she writes at her blog (Lessons from a Monastery): “Encountering monastics reminds the pilgrim that there are better Christians than himself (not that he cannot also learn this in the parish, he most certainly can, but it is an indisputable fact that one is faced with at a monastery). Hence the famous statement: “Angels are a light for monastics, and monastics are a light for the world.”[9] The monastic is simultaneously humbled and enlightened by reading the lives of the saints, just as the layman is when he compares his life with that of a monastic. … the layman makes pilgrimages to monasteries in order to draw the soul away from the distracting world and into an environment of stillness and prayer, where the atmosphere is conducive to taking stock of one’s life alongside that of a dedicated monastic, and to allow the grace of the monastery to help him see his own sinfulness.”
Economia is granted to me and I arrive late at the morning church service. I don’t think I could take one third consecutive vigil in a row. Today, on October 28, the Holy Orthodox Church in Greece commemorates the Holy Protection of our Most Holy Lady, the Theotokos and Ever-virgin Mary, that is, her sacred veil (skepi) kept in the treasury of the sacred temple of Blachernae; and we also remember how the righteous Andrew, the Fool for Christ’s sake, beheld it spread out above and covering all the pious.
The Feast was originally marked on October 1st, yet the Greek Orthodox church, in 1952, transferred its celebration of the Protection to October 28 in conjunction with “Okhi Day” as a testament to the rejection of European aggression and as a day of national remembrance.
Before daybreak on October 28, 1940, the Italian ambassador to Greece, representing Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, went to Greek general Ioannis Metaxas with an ultimatum. Italy wanted full control of Greece to occupy “strategic locations”; otherwise it would brutalise the country. General Metaxas shouted “Okhi!” meaning “No!” Thus, Greece was plunged into the Second World War, as Italy burst through, and then Nazi Germany eventually, wreaking havoc and horrors on the Greek people.
Both dates recognise the Ever-virgin’s constant defence for all the faithful, all over the world, whenever we prayerfully seek her protection and shelter in distress and strife. It goes without saying that we must ask the Theotokos to extend her protection and intercession every day of our life.
A holy, sacred place, an agios topos
Everything is holy in the grounds of a monastery. It is an agios topos, a holy, sacred place. The prayers of the monastics, the saints that dwell within, the angels that protect it, its chapels and the temple of God in its grounds, all these sanctify the place. “And Moses said, I will go near and see this great sight, why the bush is not consumed. And when the Lord saw that he drew nigh to see, the Lord called him out of the bush, saying, Moses, Moses… loose thy sandals from off thy feet for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground” (Exodus 3: 3-5). All monasteries I have visited so far feel holy, sacred places, yet this monastery seems the most etherial, otherworldly of all. This holiness permeates all its grounds.
11 For He will give His angels charge over you, to guard you in all your ways. 12 Upon their hands they will lift you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. 13 You will tread upon the lion and cobra, trample the young lion and serpent. (Psalm 91:11-13)
Let me share with you a story which a sister here told me about the power of the Psalter, transfusing holiness …
… even to their chicken coop!
This is what the monastery’s chicken coop looks like. You can tell that it is unprotected from the top and sadly the sisters had many problems with hawks attacking and snatching their chickens. The sisters would take turns, one after another, every hour, to protect their chickens, to no avail really, until Sister T. appeared, a frail, old sister …
This sister had a particular affection for the Psalter. Rather than recite the kathismata in her cell, she got the blessing from Gerondissa to sit on her chair inside the chicken coup grounds and recite the psalter there, together with the chickens. She kept doing this every day, for two years before reposing in the Lord.
These two years, all hawk attacks suddenly ceased! Not only this, but even after her sleep in the Lord, for 16 years counting until now, no hawk has attempted a single attack on the chicken! Amazing! For 16 years going! So, the sisters have stopped guarding the chicken coop and chasing predators away. The sister who told me this story, added that Gerondas Gregorios of blessed memory, after this sister’s sleep in the Lord, wondered how long her psalter protection will last. Well, it lasted 16 years and going! This frail, old sister with the particular affection for the Psalter died a holy death on an Easter night, after receiving Holy Communion at the Pascal holy Liturgy. Glory to God for all things!
Sadly, the time for my departure has arrived, but I am not leaving alone. I have to drive two university students first to the church of St. Demetrios, and then one of them to the airport for Cyprus. Glory to God for all things! What an amazing synodeia! The family of one of these two students I am offering this drive has 10 children (!), her father is a priest and a teacher, and their mother comes from a family of … 13 children! They have all moved from Athens to Metamorfosi and build their house here to live next to the monastery, together with all their nephews, children and grandchildren.
How many stories have I heard on the way! What a joy and a privilege to be together with these young people! How fast time flies! A few decades ago, other pilgrims drove me back to Thessaloniki, to spare me the buses, the walking and the long hours of waiting. Now it is my turn to return the favour. Glory to God for all things!
Some reflections on “hiding” and “hiddeness” in God, on holy obedience, on the force of the preposition ‘in’, and lovely, amplifying words by George Herbert, my favourite metaphysical poet (1593 – 1633), in his poem ‘Colossians 3:3’
Eothinon VII
Mode grave
“Ἰδοὺ σκοτία καὶ πρωΐ… Lo, darkness and early dawn. And why, Mary, are you standing by the grave, your mind full of darkness? Why do you seek where Jesus has been laid? But see the disciples running together, see how they have realised the Resurrection from the grave clothes and the napkin, and have remembered the Scripture concerning this. With whom and through whom we too have believed and sing your praise O Christ, the Giver of Life.”
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“For you have died, and your life has been hidden with Christ in God.” (Col 3:3)
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It is probably my first ever Sunday Holy Liturgy at about 02:00!! Other than Easter Sunday of course. Only “one worth comes to mind with the chanting,…ethereal! I meant word but indeed it is worth in the true sense of a noun … the level at which someone or something deserves to be valued or rated.”
I feel surrounded by angels, not monastics. These sisters never sleep! They pray all the time and they are hidden from the world.
I kneel to receive the blessing of Gerondissa Mariam before Holy Communion and she tells me that she has read my note and gives me her blessing to come as often as I want, unconditionally… What a gift! Such undeserved mercy and graciousness!
Inside the church, other than the sisters and the priest, it is only the five of us, fellow pilgrims. How strange for a Sunday Holy Liturgy even in a monastery, let alone a parish in the world, to be so “empty” at the Sunday Holy Liturgy!
After the dismissal of the Liturgy, silently we retire to our cells for some rest and hesychia, and then proceed to the morning common meal where we eat while listening to a sister reading Saint Gregorios Palamas’ homily on Nestor. Then Gerondissa Mariam takes the floor and offers a homily on the mystery of holy obedience to our spiritual father: (Just in case, we had missed that key point in all the sisters’ words yesterday: that Holy Obedience is the “one thing needful … that good part which shall not be taken away” ,Luke 10:41–42).
“St Nestor first received the blessing from his spiritual father, St Demetrios in the prison “bath-house” where he was chained, and then contested and defeated Lyaeus. This is so revealing of the power of holy obedience. St Demetrios blessed Nestor and in fact told him that he would be victorious but would then be martyred. Receiving the Saint’s blessing and sealing himself with the sign of the precious Cross, Nestor presented himself in the arena, and prayed, “O God of Demetrios, help me!” –“Ο Θεός του Δημητρίου βοήθει μοι”, uniting his will with that of his spiritual father, and ultimately with God’s Will.
Straightway he engaged Lyaeus in combat, and much to everyone’s surprise, the stripling novice smote Lyaeus with a mortal blow to the heart, leaving the former boaster lifeless upon the earth, and defeating the previously undefeated imperial champion. Nestor thus stroke a blow against idolatry. Many of the spectators believed that “the God of Dimitrios” had, indeed, helped him. This infuriated Galerius, who must have suffered considerable loss of face, and he ordered the decapitation of the young man. See the fruit of holy obedience? This we must all imitate!”
Our morning common meal comes to an end, prayers are said, and all nuns swiftly disappear back to their cells to pray, other than the very few ones whose obedience are the guests. No visitors yet, as the monastery gates are still closed and will open up only much later in the afternoon.
If yesterday it was the silence of the monastery which struck me, that true hesychasm, today it was the mystery of its hiddeness which permeated me. Certain experiences are so difficult to express in words.
The rest of the morning is spent in silent strolls, the Jesus prayer and quiet conversations with a few nuns around us, “pondering the mystery of “hiddeness” in our heart” (Luke 2:19). A different ‘spiritual surgical procedure’ in the “Antechambers of paradise”.
St. Paul says that “our true life is hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3). Such a rich verse that apophatically speaks of theosis, true mysticism! The sisters humbly admit that these lines are beyond their understanding.
It is this preposition “in” that makes all the difference. I don’t believe that there is a God, intellectually; I believe in God empirically. I believe you….or should I say …I believe in you. What force this has! “I believe in one God ….”
Let us now see how George Herbert, a favourite metaphysical poet of mine, expands these Bible words ‘Our life is hid with Christ in God’, taken from St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians and how these words are themselves hidden within this poem. Pay attention also to how he personalises the words– ‘our’ is changed to ‘my’.
My words and thoughts do both express this notion,
That Life hath with the sun a double motion.
The first Is straight, and our diurnal friend,
The other Hid, and doth obliquely bend.
One life is wrapped In flesh, & and tends to earth:
The other winds towards Him, whose happy birth
Taught me to live here so, That still one eye
Should aim and shoot at that which Is on high:
Quitting with daily labour all My pleasure,
To gain at harvest an eternal Treasure.
Isn’t this beautiful? As in many of his poems, Herbert uses pattern and shape to explore his theme. The expanded line runs diagonally through the poem, creating a tension which is only resolved in the final line. Double meanings help to create the tension. On the one hand, we live our everyday, earthly lives. On the other hand, we live our eternal, heavenly lives. Our life ‘wrapt in flesh’ pulls us down to earthly things: the upward movement ‘winds towards Him’. Christ himself experienced a double motion. Not only did he come down to earth from heaven in his human birth, but he was raised to heaven in his resurrection.
As in other poems by Herbert, ‘sun’ and ‘Son’ are punned. The movement of the sun is used to shine light on the movement of the Son of God. For the sun has a double motion – we are most familiar with its daily east to west motion, ‘our diurnal friend’. However the sun moves annually from west to east, and this pattern was illustrated by an oblique or diagonal band around the globe. ‘It doth obliquely bend’.
There is a hidden quality to the ways in which people live out their faith in God, for there is a hidden quality in the way God is active in the lives of people. We do not always recognise God’s purposes and ways of working in the world. We do not see the whole until the end, but for Herbert, the treasure to be found during earthly and eternal life is Christ.
The day is coming to a close. At long last, the monastery is full of pilgrims, even if briefly. Vespers follow, coffee, and social time for everybody. Then obediences for us in the kitchen, washing and tidying. The kitchen seems to be always the busiest area in any “home” 🙂
Reflections on silence and holy obedience
“Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord,” exclaims the prophet Zechariah (Zech 2:13).
Upon entrance, silence envelops me. Abruptly, I am separated from the tumult, noise, busyness and endless distractions of the outside world.
“Peace, be still!” Jesus orders the wind of noise, confusion and tumult to cease in the midst of our own storms and turmoil.
I feel separated from other people, all people, too! Is anybody here?! What a contrast to last night’s feast! There, at the vigil in St. Demetrios church, in Thessaloniki, an amazing Resurrectional experience unfolded in a packed church! So many holy chalices all around the Royal Doors! So many people receiving Holy Communion and then, at the dismissal of the holy liturgy, flooding the streets outside the church. Here, I am all alone — the silence of the heart! And what a deafening, thundering silence that is!
“When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.” (Rev. 8:1)
Yet, how can it be that a monastery of more than 50 sisters plus novices and postulants look and feel so uninhabited, so “desolate”! Am I really all alone here? ...
“Let us love silence till the world is made to die in our hearts.” St. Isaac of Syrian
Sister Elizabeth approaches and welcomes me. She gently inquires about my news. This sister was coordinating my endless faxes to Gerondas when I was at the UK and sending his replies. She knows everything about me! Her question: “Have you got a spiritual father now?”
This question will become a refrain during my brief stay here, asked by all sisters who spend some time with me. In fact, a refrain addressed not only to me, but to all pilgrims and visitors here. It is not that the sisters are not concerned with/about our problems and sorrows, but our obedience to a spiritual father seems of paramount importance and the key to everything. Even if with his guidance and help, our problems are eventually not “solved”. The mystery of holy obedience. “Obedience shows love for Christ. And Christ especially loves the obedient” (St. Porphyrios, Wounded by Love, p. 25).
Saint Simeon the New Theologian wrote the following to one of his spiritual children: “We conceived you through teaching, we underwent labour pains through repentance, we delivered you with much patience and birth pangs and severe pain and daily tears” (Epistle 3, 1-3).
Barsanuph’s soul-stirring prayer makes the immense love of a spiritual father for his spiritual children more palpable: «Behold, here am I and the children that You gave to me; protect them in Your Name, shelter them with Your right hand. Lead us to the harbor of Your Will and inscribe their names in Your book… Lord, either include my children along with me in Your Kingdom, or erase me also from Your Book… » (Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, “Book of Barsanuph and John”, Response 99).
Reciprocally, in this mystery of Christ, the spiritual child should place everything at his Father’s feet, with humility and filial trust. Saint Basil the Great urges us to “not keep any movement of the soul secret, but to bare whatever is hidden in the heart” (“Oroi Kata Platos” – Conditions breadthwise, 26, ΒΕΠΕΣ 53, 184). Nothing should be concealed from our spiritual father. That is the only way our sins are forgiven by God. We are freed of the burden of guilt. We uproot our passions. And the spiritual father thereafter guides us safely through our spiritual life. There is simply no other way! Our goal is not simply to manage/ solve all our problems here on earth, but “receive the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls”. (1 Peter 1:9)
Other sisters soon join us for a minute to welcome me and hear the news about St Demetrios’ vigil in his church –it is after all his feast today– but they quickly disappear. Not a minute of idle or small talk. I am shown to my St Paisios, St Arsenios and St Porfyrios (!) cell, and there is still some free time until our common meal at 15:00 to take a quiet walk inside the monastery or … sit in my cell.
“A brother came to Scetis to visit Abba Moses and asked him for a word. The old man said to him, ‘Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.’“
God calls each one of us in silence and invites us to go into our inner “room,” shut the door and pray to our Father in secret, assured that He will answer our prayer (Mt 6:6). It is only in this silence and stillness that we can listen to Him, hear His “still small voice” (1 Kings 19:11-13). The quiet water of Siloe flows without noise or sound, “goes softly’ (Is. 8:6).
Gradually, the guests house starts to get filled: two young ladies, university students, in their early twenties, settle in, then another one arrives, this one still in high school, with fond memories of +Elder Gregorios treating her with candies and hugs, and finally a young engineer who attended at the nearby Ormylia monastery a service of monastic tonsure.
Bells ring and the common meal with the sisters begins, with a reading of Saint Gregory Palamas’ homily on St Demetrios. Our meal is a very ascetic one, as we are all preparing for Sunday Holy Communion.
We retire very early in our cells. The Sunday service will be a vigil from 23:00 to 03:00!
At the insistence of Sister Elisavet, I prepare a brief note for Abbess Mariam. Briefly, I share my news and ask her blessing. No questions or requests. Only her blessing to allow me to stay here longer and more often. –Which was one of the things +Gerondas Gregorios had always urged me to do, Sister Elisavet points out to me …
I give the note to the sister in charge of the guests’ house, pray and wait. After all, our vigil will begin very soon.
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“Do not be afraid that there will be no fruit when all dies down; there will be! Not everything will die down. Energy will appear; and what energy!” St. Symeon the New Theologian
“Silence is the sacrament of the world to come” — St Isaac the Syrian
ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN FAITH AND LIFE 