Category Archives: SPIRITUAL FATHER — OBEDIENCE

A Life Given Away

+Gerondissa Euphemia, St. Paisios in the middle and +Gerondas Gregorios, St John the Forerunner monastery, Metamorfosi, Chalkidiki

On the Priest Who Carries Us Until We Find Our Way Home

A Meditation on Priesthood with Father Lev Gillet and Elder Gregorios Papasotiriou, through Memories from My Own Life and Family

“I live for you. I belong to you, because I belong to Jesus Christ. I recognise your right to place your hand on me and to consider me as your servant. Whoever you may be, you who need me in this moment, you are, in the very instant you speak to me, the soul more important to me than any other. You have a right to my entire capacity for devotion and love. I consecrate myself to you”. (Lev Gillet, “Be My Priest,” in Serve the Lord with Gladness: Basic Reflections on the Eucharist and the Priesthood)

*

There are many ways of speaking about priesthood. We can begin with what a priest does: he celebrates the Divine Liturgy, hears confessions, teaches, baptizes, comforts the suffering, visits the sick and accompanies the dying.

Father Lev Gillet begins somewhere deeper.

In Be My Priest, his meditation on priesthood, the priest is understood first in relation to Christ. Christ is the source and model of priesthood, and the priest is called, in Him and through Him, to become what Gillet calls “a priest for all.” 

This leads to three movements which seem to contain much of Gillet’s vision:

Belonging to Christ.
Emptying oneself.
Belonging to everyone.

They are not three independent virtues. One leads into the next. The priest belongs to Christ; because he belongs to Christ, his life is no longer something he possesses entirely for himself; and because he has ceased to guard that life as his own possession, Christ can give it to others. 

When I read Gillet now, I find myself thinking of someone I knew long before I encountered these words: the late + Elder Gregorios Papasotiriou, my spiritual father in Greece and the spiritual father and confessor of the Holy Monastery of St John the Forerunner at Metamorfosi in Halkidiki.

I do not want to write his biography here. Others knew him longer and can tell much more. I want instead to place some memories of him beside Gillet’s meditation and allow each to illuminate the other.

For I think Elder Gregorios taught me something about Gillet’s priesthood before I knew that Gillet had put it into words.

I. BELONGING TO CHRIST

Whose Are You?

Gillet takes us behind the visible activity of priesthood to a more fundamental question:

Whose are you?

“Before pastoral work, before preaching, before the offering of oneself to other people, there must be what our earlier meditation called “the fundamental surrender: I am Christ’s.” 

That sounds simple until it becomes concrete.

For if I am Christ’s, Christ acquires a claim not merely upon my religious activity but upon my plans, my preferences, my future — even upon the good and holy things I might have chosen for myself.

This is where the early life of Elder Gregorios becomes important.

His own desire was for hesychia. From around 1970 he lived in a small cell at the then-ruined dependency of Dionysiou Monastery at Metamorfosi. His inclination was towards prayer, solitude and the hidden life.

There was nothing spiritually inferior in that desire. Quite the contrary.

But his spiritual father was St Paisios.

And St Paisios cut off his will.

Elder Gregorios was not simply to remain in the solitude he loved. He was to go among people. He was to become a priest and spiritual father, to hear confessions, to guide souls and to carry the burdens of others. In time, and under the direction of St Paisios, the monastic community at Metamorfosi grew around him.

He obeyed.

Gillet’s question, “Whose are you?”, therefore becomes very concrete.

If the answer is I am Christ’s, then even my preferred form of holiness cannot finally belong to me.

The issue is no longer simply:

What good thing would I like to offer God?

It becomes:

What does God wish to do with the life I have already given Him?

This is why obedience is so central here. Elder Gregorios did not surrender something sinful. He surrendered something beautiful: the hidden life of prayer he genuinely desired.

And this gives greater depth to Gillet’s understanding of belonging. To belong to Christ is not merely to believe in Him, love Him or work for Him. It is to allow Him to redirect a life. 

Elder Gregorios wanted hesychia.

Christ, through obedience, gave him souls.

The life he offered to God was returned to him filled with other people.

II. EMPTYING ONESELF

“A Life of Obscurity and Silence”

The second movement follows naturally from the first.

If the first question is Whose am I?, the second is:

What happens to my life because I am His?

Gillet’s answer is kenosis — self-emptying.

One counsel associated with his meditation is strikingly austere:

“Live a life of obscurity and silence; seeking no awards.” 

This is important because self-emptying can itself become romanticized. A person can secretly become attached to the image of himself as sacrificial, holy or indispensable.

Gillet strips that away.

Obscurity means that much of the priest’s real work may never be seen.

Silence means that much of what he carries cannot be spoken about.

And “seeking no awards” means that even the fruits of his labour cannot become his possession.

This is the setting in which I first came to know Elder Gregorios.

Strasbourg

I was in my first year at university.

Outwardly, everything was going extremely well. I was doing very well academically, and there seemed to be a promising future ahead.

Inwardly, things were very different.

I had become strongly influenced by existentialist philosophy. The Christianity I remembered from childhood and school had become something distant rather than a living experience of God and the Church. My actual life was far removed from the life of the Church.

And despite my outward success, I was not happy.

During that first year I travelled to Strasbourg with a university choir for an international choral festival. For about a month we worked on major choral works with choirs from around the world. Between rehearsals and performances there were meals, coffee and long conversations.

Some members of the Greek group began to realise that beneath the surface something was wrong.

Eventually they said to me:

“We don’t think you are well. When we return to Greece, we want you to meet our spiritual father. He will help you find your way.”

I have never forgotten those words.

Something else happened in Strasbourg. I even discovered a beautiful French poem about a soul which wanders away from God and eventually returns to Him!

I kept it.

I did not yet know how closely its story would come to resemble my own.

When we returned to Thessaloniki, I went to the meeting that had been arranged with Elder Gregorios at Metamorfosi.

He had before him a young woman with almost no experience of the spiritual life and very little idea of where she was going.

And he understood that.

He did not try to transform everything at once.

He proceeded with extraordinary tenderness and discernment: gradually, step by step. There was guidance and correction, but also patience. There were messages when we could not meet. Above all, there was prayer.

And there were tears.

People who had known me before Strasbourg and encountered me again during my second year at university could hardly recognise the change.

But much of what produced that change was invisible to me.

This is where Gillet’s “life of obscurity and silence” ceases to be an attractive spiritual phrase.

The spiritual child remembers the conversation.

God knows what happened afterwards.

The spiritual child leaves the monastery.

The spiritual father remains.

He prays.

He remembers the name.

He carries before God a person who may not yet know how to carry herself.

That is a hidden form of kenosis. The priest gives time, attention, prayer and often tears, without being able to guarantee what the other person will eventually do with them.

And in my case, that question would become painfully real.

III. THE FREEDOM TO LEAVE

The Prodigal Daughter

After several years, I reached a point at which Elder Gregorios’s guidance seemed too difficult.

I did not want to obey.

Eventually, I chose my own way.

And he let me go.

This is perhaps one of the most important things I can say about his spiritual fatherhood.

The man who taught us the seriousness of obedience respected my freedom enough to allow me to disobey him.

He did not pursue me in order to force me back. He did not use spiritual authority to overcome my freedom.

He let me leave.

I have often thought since then of the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son.

The father does not believe that the son is making a good choice. He does not bless the departure as though all choices were equally life-giving.

But neither does he imprison his son in the house.

He allows him to go.

This helps us understand something essential in Gillet.

If the priest is becoming “a priest for all,” that does not mean that he possesses all. The person to whom he gives himself remains free.

The earlier meditation expressed the implication starkly: the priest cannot demand a particular outcome, force gratitude, guarantee fidelity or prevent departure. “The gift remains a gift.” …

That is a severe form of self-emptying.

It is one thing to give oneself to someone who responds exactly as one hopes.

It is another to give oneself, to pray and suffer for another person — and then to allow that person to walk away.

Elder Gregorios let me go.

But he did not cease being my spiritual father.

He prayed.

He waited.

I know that he suffered.

And this distinction matters enormously. Respect for my freedom did not mean indifference to what I did with that freedom.

He would not compel my return.

But he would pray for it.

IV. THE RETURN

Eventually came what I can only describe as my own return of the prodigal.

I began to understand that my earlier repentance had not gone as deeply as I had imagined.

This time I was prepared to accept that repentance might hurt.

I returned to Elder Gregorios.

But he did not simply receive me with unqualified reassurance.

He welcomed me, certainly. Yet in a sense he also “played it tough.”

There was love underneath it, but there was gravity too.

He needed me to understand that I could not simply come back because things had become difficult, receive consolation, and then begin the same cycle again.

Something far more serious was involved.

My soul.

And here I began to understand what he meant by obedience.

He was not trying to make me obedient to Elder Gregorios.

He wanted me to become obedient to God.

That distinction changes everything.

The false spiritual father needs the other person’s obedience because it confirms his own authority.

The true spiritual father can allow the person to leave because the person does not belong to him in the first place.

This brings us back to Gillet’s first question:

Whose are you?

The answer is not:

I belong to my spiritual father.

It is:

I am Christ’s.

The task of the spiritual father is therefore not to insert himself permanently between Christ and the soul. It is to help the soul offer itself freely to Christ.

Elder Gregorios could respect my freedom when I left precisely because obedience without freedom would not have been the obedience he was trying to teach me.

And when I returned, he could be demanding for precisely the same reason.

He was not interested in winning me back for himself.

He wanted my return to God to be real.

We do not play with our souls.

The years that followed were difficult. There was suffering. But I accepted it differently because I had begun to understand that repentance was not simply regret for something that had gone wrong. It meant a reorientation of life.

And alongside the suffering there was grace.

There were also experiences which I can only describe as miracles.

The spiritual father had waited.

But the destination of the journey was never the spiritual father.

It was Christ.

V. “I BELONG TO YOU”

We now reach the third movement in Gillet’s meditation.

The priest belongs to Christ. Belonging to Christ empties him of the instinct to preserve his life entirely for himself. Therefore Christ can give him to others.

At this point Gillet becomes startlingly personal:

“I live for you. I belong to you, because I belong to Jesus Christ.” 

And then comes an even more daring sentence:

“I consecrate myself to you.” 

These words could easily be misunderstood.

“I belong to you” does not mean you belong to me.

That reversal would destroy Gillet’s meaning.

The priest’s belonging moves outward. He gives himself; he does not acquire the other person.

And “I consecrate myself to you” means something stronger than professional availability. Consecration is an offering. The person Christ places before the priest becomes, at that moment, someone for whom his priesthood must be spent.

This helps me understand something Elder Gregorios used to tell us.

He would say that the spiritual father carries the sins of his spiritual children and that he will have to give an account before the Judgement Seat of the Lord for the souls entrusted to him — provided that the spiritual child, on his or her part, lives in obedience.

I did not fully understand the weight of those words when I first heard them.

I understand them better now.

The spiritual father is not merely someone from whom I obtain religious advice.

A soul has been entrusted to him.

Therefore:

I live for you.

I belong to you.

I consecrate myself to you.

Not because you have become mine.

But, in Gillet’s decisive phrase:

“because I belong to Jesus Christ.”

That final clause protects the whole relationship.

The priest belongs to the spiritual child in Christ, and therefore he must never make the spiritual child belong to himself.

VI. DISCERNMENT

This also helps explain another dimension of Elder Gregorios: his discernment.

Sometimes it appeared in very small things.

I remember once travelling to the monastery during a particularly confused and busy period. I had left without my driving licence and was driving a different car. There had been delays and complications.

When I eventually arrived, the Elder was waiting.

There was something almost amused in his manner — certainly a smile — as he challenged me about what I had done.

How could I have come without my driving licence?!

Nobody had told him.

I remember incidents like this with affection because they were not dramatic. His discernment did not always announce itself solemnly. Sometimes it came with humour.

But at other times discernment carried an enormous responsibility.

And the most powerful example I remember concerns my father.

VII. MY FATHER

My father was an excellent doctor and a deeply compassionate man. He genuinely loved his patients.

Yet precisely because he had spent his life so close to illness and suffering, he struggled with questions of faith. He found it difficult to reconcile some of what he had witnessed with belief in God. Like life after death …!

He remained outside the sacramental life of the Church.

After retirement, however, he began searching more seriously. He took up Scripture and studied it systematically, volume after volume.

Still, doubts remained.

Then, as he grew older and his health deteriorated, he began experiencing terrible recurrent nightmares.

Dark figures pursued him.

The episodes became so violent that he would wake suddenly or fall from bed and injure himself. We put mattresses and cushions around the bed to protect him.

Naturally, we looked for medical explanations.

Medication? Polypharmacy? Age? Illness?

My father was not a naturally fearful man. He had been an athlete, a champion and was courageous. Yet the experiences continued.

Nobody understood what was happening.

One day at the monastery I mentioned this to one of the older sisters, + Sister Akylina, may her memory be eternal!

By then Elder Gregorios himself was seriously ill and spent most of his time secluded in his cell. Access to him was limited; only certain sisters would disturb him when something important arose.

The sister listened to me.

Suddenly she became very serious.

“Wait here.”

She went immediately to Elder Gregorios.

A short time later she returned with his message.

The dark figures pursuing my father, the Elder said, were demons.

And then came the part that left me stunned.

My father must confess.

He must receive Holy Communion.

He must return to the sacramental life of the Church.

If he did not, Elder Gregorios warned, what he was now seeing in his dreams he would encounter after death.

I was horrified at the thought of repeating this to my father.

Not because I did not believe the Elder.

Because I knew my father.

He was a highly educated physician, accustomed to scientific reasoning, and capable of questioning far less extraordinary religious claims.

How could I tell him this?

But the sisters insisted.

They would pray.

The Elder would pray.

But I had to deliver the message.

Eventually I found the courage.

I told my father.

And something happened that I had not expected.

He did not argue.

He listened carefully …

And after a few weeks … he obeyed.

He confessed.

He received Holy Communion.

He returned to the sacramental life of the Church.

And he was immediately delivered from what had been tormenting him!

VIII. “I CONSECRATE MYSELF TO YOU”

It is here that Gillet’s words acquire, for me, their greatest weight.

“I consecrate myself to you.” 

If we hear this merely as affectionate language, we miss its severity.

Consecrating oneself to another soul means that the priest cannot simply offer what is pleasant.

Sometimes he must comfort.

Sometimes he must remain silent.

Sometimes he must wait for years.

Sometimes he must allow the prodigal to leave.

But if he discerns danger, love may require him to speak.

The message sent to my father was not reassuring. It was frighteningly direct.

Yet if Elder Gregorios truly believed that a soul was in danger, what would love have required?

Silence would have been easier.

But Gillet’s “I consecrate myself to you” leaves little room for the easier response.

The person before the priest — or, in this case, the person whose suffering had been brought to the door of his cell — has become his concern.

This is what makes discernment inseparable from spiritual fatherhood.

To see is not enough.

The priest must accept responsibility for what he sees.

And this returns us to Elder Gregorios’s own conviction that the spiritual father will answer before Christ for the souls entrusted to him.

His warning to my father was therefore not, as I understand it, an exercise of spiritual power.

It was an exercise of spiritual responsibility.

IX. TENDERNESS AND SEVERITY

My own story and my father’s story might at first appear very different.

In my case, Elder Gregorios let me go.

In my father’s case, he sent an uncompromising warning.

But I think the same principle lies beneath both.

Neither of us was coerced.

I was free to leave.

My father was free to reject the message.

Both of us had to choose.

This is why tenderness and severity are not necessarily opposites in a spiritual father.

There is a tenderness that comforts.

There is also a tenderness that refuses to lie.

There is a love that waits at the door for the prodigal.

And there is a love that sees someone approaching danger and cries out.

Gillet’s words help keep these forms of love in their proper order:

“I live for you. I belong to you, because I belong to Jesus Christ.” 

Not:

You belong to me.

That distinction is everything.

Elder Gregorios could not force me to return because I belonged to Christ.

He could not force my father to confess because my father belonged to Christ.

But precisely because he himself belonged to Christ, he could pray, wait, warn, correct, suffer — and refuse to treat the salvation of another person as something unimportant.

X. GIVEN TO ALL

Gillet calls the priest, with Christ and through Christ, to become “a priest for all.” The phrase sounds universal, but its meaning is intensely particular.

“Everyone” never arrives all at once.

Everyone arrives as one person at a time.

A confused university student.

A spiritual child who refuses obedience.

A prodigal who eventually comes back.

A man tormented at night.

A nun carrying an urgent message into a cell.

Another confession.

Another family.

Another person asking for prayer.

Another soul.

This is how the universal priesthood of love becomes concrete.

And this is why the movement from belonging to Christ to belonging to everyone requires self-emptying in between.

Without self-emptying, “belonging to everyone” could become influence, popularity or spiritual power.

Gillet means something different.

The priest belongs to everyone precisely because he has ceased to make himself the center.

His task is not to gather people around himself.

It is to give himself to them in such a way that they can belong more completely to Christ.

This, I think, is what Elder Gregorios tried to do with me.

He did not want my obedience to terminate in him.

He wanted it to pass through him towards God.

XI. THE FINAL OBEDIENCE

There is one further dimension of self-emptying.

In youth and strength, sacrifice often takes the form of activity: travelling, standing, serving, hearing confessions, keeping vigil, receiving people, losing sleep.

Old age and illness demand another kind of obedience.

They demand that the person who has spent his life being available accept that he can no longer be available in the same way.

Elder Gregorios became seriously ill.

His world contracted.

The man who had received so many people became increasingly hidden in his cell.

There is something remarkable about this when placed beside Gillet’s counsel:

“Live a life of obscurity and silence; seeking no awards.” 

Early in life, Elder Gregorios had desired obscurity.

Obedience brought him out of it and gave him to people.

At the end of life, illness returned him to obscurity.

But he did not cease to belong to people.

My father’s story occurred during precisely this period.

A sister entered the cell.

She carried the suffering of someone who was not even present.

The Elder listened.

He discerned.

He sent a message.

The door closed.

There was no public ministry.

No sermon.

No recognition.

Yet somewhere outside that cell, an old man changed direction and returned to Confession and Holy Communion.

Perhaps this is what “a priest for all” finally looks like.

Not necessarily a man surrounded by crowds.

Sometimes simply an old and sick priest in a cell, still allowing one more soul to make a claim upon his prayer.

XII. A LIFE GIVEN AWAY

Looking back, I see a circle which I could not have seen when I first went to Metamorfosi.

A young Gregorios wanted hesychia.

St Paisios asked him to surrender his preference.

He obeyed.

A young university student returned from Strasbourg, not knowing where she was going.

Someone had told her:

“Our spiritual father will help you find your way.”

He did.

Then she refused his guidance and left.

He respected her freedom.

He prayed.

He waited.

She returned.

And instead of making himself the object of her obedience, he tried to teach her that obedience ultimately belongs to God.

Years later her father, nearing the end of his earthly life, received another difficult message from the same spiritual father.

He too was free.

And he too obeyed.

Now Gillet’s three movements no longer seem to me like three headings.

They describe a single life:

Belonging to Christ.
Emptying oneself.
Belonging to everyone. 

And perhaps Gillet’s most extraordinary sentence contains all three:

“I live for you. I belong to you, because I belong to Jesus Christ.” Holy_Cross_Lev_Gillet_Meditatio…

Because I belong to Jesus Christ.

Everything depends upon those words.

Because without them, I belong to you can become possession.

Without them, obedience can become control.

Without them, spiritual fatherhood can become attachment to a personality.

But because the priest belongs first to Christ, he can give himself without possessing.

He can guide and still leave the other person free.

He can allow the prodigal to depart and still wait for the prodigal’s return.

He can welcome without trivializing repentance.

He can warn without making another person’s soul his property.

He can carry another person before God while knowing that the person belongs to God alone.

And eventually he must surrender even the fruits of his priesthood.

The earlier meditation expressed the whole movement very simply:

Christ takes the priest to Himself, empties him of himself, and gives him back to the world. Holy_Cross_Lev_Gillet_Meditatio…

That, I think, is what I witnessed.

Elder Gregorios wanted the hidden life.

He gave that desire to God.

God gave him people.

And over the years, his time, prayer, tears, discernment, strength — and eventually even his weakness — became available to those people.

Not so that they might belong to him.

But so that, through his priesthood, they might rediscover to Whom they had always belonged.

Perhaps that is what a spiritual father finally does.

He carries us for a while.

He waits when we wander.

He calls us back when necessary.

But he never makes himself our destination.

He helps us find our way

Home.

***

The Nuns from Syria to Veria

“Dedication to Christ is the joy of life,” Mother Maria will answer me, instantly solving the questions about the smiling faces of the women in their cassocks. The thriving convent she now runs once languished with only two very old nuns.

The Sisters found refuge from the war in Syria. An old bond brought them here

I had heard a lot, but I couldn’t separate the legend from the truth. I had to wander the plain of Veria. To forget myself for a while in the blooming peach trees – the ones that filled Instagram at the end of March – to pass, full of curiosity, the heavy iron door of the Monastery of Agia Kyriaki. And to face the truth in the bright faces of women of all ages.

In the monastery’s mansion, Arabic coffee awaited me with treats from Aleppo. Yes, from Syria. The nuns pronounce Greek with small – I would say charming – grammatical errors that testify that their mother tongue is different.

Gerasimi is a graduate of Fine Arts. She elaborately decorates the candles for the Resurrection – their sale is a significant source of income for the small monastery.

“God’s Will”

The war in Syria brought here, to Loutro Imathias, an entire sisterhood of nuns from Aleppo. Aleppo, which was also called Veria during the Byzantine Empire. Luck, fate or divine providence?

For my interlocutors, everything is “God’s will”. And one name is constantly on their lips: Paul! The missing Metropolitan of Aleppo.

On Holy Monday 2013, Paul of Aleppo, returning to Syria from Alexandretta in Turkey, decided to go to a village to try to free locals for whom the rebels were demanding ransom. He was accompanied by the Jacobite bishop Yuhanna.

On the way, the two hierarchs were ambushed. Their driver was murdered and they were kidnapped. Everyone then thought that the kidnapping was the work of ISIS jihadists. The State Department rewarded the kidnappers with 5 million dollars. After all, Paul was the fleshly brother of the Patriarch of Antioch and All the East John.Thirteen years since then, the fate of the two archpriests continues to be unknown. But back to the Monastery of Agia Kyriaki, Pavlos is so “present” in all the stories!

“Missing Father” – “He encouraged me to go to the School of Fine Arts.” “He wanted us to study first and then become a nun.” “He showed me the way to iconography.” “He insisted that we learn Greek, the language of the Fathers.” This is what the sisters say of Metropolitan Pavlos of Aleppo, whose fate has been unknown since 2013, when he was kidnapped.

Emiliani and Iliani were taught the art of needlework in Ormylia, the women’s monastery of Simonopetra. Monks from Simonopetra on Mount Athos are still their spiritual leaders today. 

Ten were the first nuns – from the Monastery of the Annunciation of the Theotokos in Aleppo – who found refuge here. “Like Noah who landed his sea-swept ark on Ararat,” I will hear one evening.

All from families of old Romans, that is, citizens of the Byzantine Empire who gradually became Arabic-speaking.

Most from the Valley of the Christians, a natural valley, as large as Kos, near the border with Lebanon.

Philothei rings the monastery bells. For centuries, events in monasteries have been announced by rhythmic metal or wooden sounds that lead the brotherhoods to the Katholicon, a chapel, or the refectory.

Every time they went to distribute medicine and food, the locals would exclaim: “For the sake of Deir el Bisara” – “the nuns of the Annunciation are coming!”

A liturgy in two languages ​​– The Arabic psalms, in the monastery church, are “married” with invocations in Greek: “Lord of Hosts, have mercy on us”. With pilgrims from Alexandria and Veria recognising the same prayer in different words and rejoicing.

But how did the nuns of war find their way to the humble and then unknown Agia Kyriaki?

The current Metropolitan of Veria Panteleimon, in the early 1990s, served as a hieromonk in Thessaloniki. And he had the Syrian Pavlos as his deacon. A graduate of the famous Theological Seminary of Balamand and the Polytechnic University of Latakia – who was then completing his doctorate in theology, while also studying Byzantine music. Paul then became a monk on Mount Athos, where he studied iconography under the most famous iconographers of Athos.

Sister Nikodimi studied Dentistry in Syria. In Greece, she obtained a master’s degree in psychological support for children with cancer and chronic diseases.

Over the years, the hieromonk became the metropolitan of Veria and the deacon the metropolitan of Aleppo. And during the war, he asked his counterpart in Veria for shelter for his spiritual daughters.

One of the photographs of the Metropolitan of Aleppo before his kidnapping in Syria 

The Sisterhood

Thirteen years since then, the sisterhood has thrived and now numbers twenty nuns and four novices.

Hieronymi shows the fruits from the sisterhood orchard to Stavros Theodorakis. The monastery’s “development” plan is to create new cells for the nuns and an orchard with fruit trees and gardens with medicinal herbs. Apple, apricot, and cherry trees have already been planted, and once the cold weather passes, sage, verbena, rosemary, and oregano will follow, on terraces.

And at my Lenten table they serve makhlouta* with red lentils, cumin, and vegetables from the sisterhood’s vegetable garden.

Next to me, the reader, standing, commemorates Pavlos in the present tense.

As if he is absent for a while and they are waiting for him to return.

* Makhlouta means “mix” in Arabic, and that’s exactly what this soup is: a mix of beans and grains, simmered slowly.

Translated from Kathimerini

Photos by Olympia Krasagaki — Text/ Interviews by Stavros Theodorakis — 06.04.2026

The story of the Sisters of War was broadcast by “Protagonists” on Holy Wednesday evening 2026 and can be watched on YouTube here with Arabic and Greek subtitles: Πρωταγωνιστές | Βέροια – Ιερά Μονή Αγίας Κυριακής Λουτρού – 08/04/2026

A Sack of Potatoes

One Saturday morning, a very young woman dressed in black came to the church of Saint Constantine in Glyfada, where we were at the time, holding her two young children in her arms. A 5-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy. She had lost her husband, who was also very young, and with him she lost the land beneath her feet. She had come to confess to Fr. Constantine, and she had brought her children for Catechism.

Naturally, during her confession, she wondered and asked Fr. Constantine, as she later confided in me, what would happen to her children if she died too! The Father had reassured her that if she died, he would take care of her children, which would be very good for them!

But when she wondered why such great evil had befallen her, and why God did not take pity on her and gave her something she could not bear, then Father asked her:

– May I ask you for a moment for a favour?

– Of course, Father, whatever you want.

– Here outside the sanctuary, they have left a sack of potatoes for me. Should we call your son to bring it here, so I can give it to you?

– Thank you, Father, but my son is only 7 years old. How many kilograms does the sack weigh?

– It is 20 kilograms.

– Well, a 7-year-old child cannot lift a 20-kilogram sack of potatoes!

– Yes, but I want to give it to you. How can he bring it to us?

– How? Should we give him a little bag to put a few potatoes in, as many as he can lift, and bring them to us here, little by little? Or bring them to us little by little with his little hands if you don’t have a bag? What do you say?

– Is this what you are suggesting? Little by little?

– How else? He can’t carry them all at once, since he is a little child.

– Ah! So you are thinking of your child who can’t lift 20 kilos of potatoes, and God doesn’t think of you, who are His child, and gives you more than you can lift?

– Oh Father, what are you saying to me now?

– I’m telling you the truth. God doesn’t think of you, who are His child, while you think of your son?

The sequel is amazing since this advice took root in the family.

Recently, I saw the widow in question by chance on the street and now a grandmother! After we hugged and kissed, she told me that her children got married and had children too, and the family grew, but her daughter’s husband got cancer with all that that entails…

“But”, she tells me, “whenever I say to my daughter, ‘Ah, my child, what you are going through!’, she answers me 40 years after that confession of mine, ‘Mom! Remember the potatoes! I can handle what I’m lifting’ “.

Her son’s wife abandoned them, and the widowed mother says to her son, “Ah, my child, why did that girl leave and leave you? What harm she has done to us!” And my son replies, “Mom! The potatoes! That’s all I can handle!”

“So”, she tells me, “as you can see, potatoes have been on the agenda in our house for 40 years now, and so we can’t complain about anything!”

This was Father Konstantinos. Inventive about everything!

He changed our minds! He gave breath and impetus to our lives! He healed our pains and our souls!

He often said about whining in his speeches, what a soul-destroying disease it is.

(As Much as a Book can Hold, Memories by Fr. Konstantinos Stratigopoulos)

*

That is a powerful sentiment to start the year! Whether those “potatoes” are unexpected challenges or the daily grind, whatever heavy stuff life throws our way, having the resilience to carry them, the perspective to see the harvest ahead, and most importantly, faith and trust in His Providence, makes all the difference. May we all carry our ‘bags of potatoes’, without whining, this year and all our lives! May our “sack” be light, our grip be strong, and our harvest be plentiful. Amen! 

*

The photograph was taken last year at a wedding in Glyfada by a child. The priest dressed in white, holding the Gospel, is the spiritual father of the newlyweds, who had already reposed long before. He was not visible at the time the photo was taken, yet he appeared in the image. One can see the glorious light surrounding him…Saintly Father, please pray for us!!

He is identified as Father Konstantinos Stratigopoulos. More about this saintly Father at a future blog. Your prayers

Born for Eternity

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

Memory Eternal, dearest Father!

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

*

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

*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SLICES OF WARM BREAD 

A spiritual Father’s diary

“Someone recently described Thessaloniki as like a dry cake. I’m not sure about this simile. I would prefer to describe it in terms of warm slices of bread. Exchanging a cold, windy, wet Manchester of 13C for a calm, warm late evening 25C, Thessaloniki was indeed a taster of what was to come. Having navigated the vicissitudes of the roaming signal with a friendly local, a familiar “taxi” driver arrived to pick me up from the terminal. 

I have often thought that the word terminal speaks of rather sad endings rather than the springboard and opening to new adventures. 

Having been delivered to my assigned apartment I enjoyed the sleep of the just traveller. 

The five days in Thessaloniki spent with my spiritual children had both an eternal and a brief dimension. Time expands and contracts according to God’s ordinance. 

House blessings, Confessions, Social Gatherings, Prayers, Church and Monastery Visits and the not so mundane coffee stops roll into a well risen loaf with the yeast of kindness and the warmth of hospitality. 

In just one day we visited: 

  1. The Holy Church of St Nicholas Orphanos 
  2. The Church of Pammegistoi Taxiarches where there was a Byzantine Crypt and huge Basil bushes outside. 
  3. Vlatadon Monastery. 
  4. Latomos Monastery and later the cave Church of St David the Dendrite. 
  5. St Demetrios Church. 
  6. St Theodora Monastery and Church where we venerated the holy relics of St Theodora and St David. 
Church of St Theodora

Stopping for late lunch the first thing to arrive on our table was warm sliced bread — a gift and a symbol of the spiritual slices of holiness we had tasted earlier. 

St Demetrios church St Anysia relics
Church of Pammegistoi Taxiarches with byzantine crypt
St Nicholas Orphanos
Basil bush
Osios David the Dendrite Latomos monastery
View from Vlatadon Monastery

We took the bread, blessed it, gave thanks, broke it and shared the humble gift with the meal — a eucharistic pattern that is woven into every fabric of the Christian Life. 

So many precious memories in a short space of time — but God’s time (kairos not chronos). For these treasured moments I give thanks to God”.

Day 7 Hidden in Christ

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.”

*

“For you have died, and your life has been hidden with Christ in God.” (Col 3:3)

*

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 ….”

+ Gerondas Gregorios’ cell outside the monastery

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’.

Colossians 3:3′

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” 🙂

Day 6 Silence as Sacrament

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.

Inside 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.

Gerondissa Euphemia’s grave (+15 April 2020, 88 years old). She was the first Abbess of the monastery and fell asleep in the Lord shortly after Gerondas Gregorios’ departure to Heaven (19 Νοεμβρίου 2019).

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.

*

“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

Be still

Archimandrite Ioannikios Kotsonis, Saint Porfyrios’ spiritual child

“Be still and know that I am the Lord God.” Psalm 46:10

The excerpts below describe what happened to me when I met archimandrite Ioannikios Kotsonis, the spiritual father, the theologian and poet, at the Holy Monastery of the Transfiguration of our Saviour at Sohos last week. I was absorbed in the presence of the Holy Spirit and “reduced” to silence. “Be still and know that I am the Lord God.” Everybody else was asking him all kinds of questions, and only me remained silent by his side, so that in the end, puzzled he turned to me and asked me why I was not asking him any questions. “It is enough for me to see you, Father”, I replied. I was so absorbed in his presence! Such a tangible presence of holiness!

*

Fountains in the Desert (27)

Three Fathers used to go and visit blessed Anthony every year and two of them used to discuss their thoughts and the salvation of their souls with him, but the third always remained silent and did not ask him anything. After a long time, Abba Anthony said to him, “You often come here to see me, but you never ask me anything,” and the other replied, “It is enough for me to see you, Father.”

*

“In the summer of 2004, on a tour of Romanian Monasteries with a group of pilgrims from Ploiesti including my spiritual brother in Christ Fr. Bogdan Costin Georgescu, I had the privilege and blessing of meeting Father Ioanichie Balan in Sihastria Monastery. Father Ioanichie took us to the cell of his spiritual Father, Elder Cleopa and gave us a full tour of the monastery. As we made our way around the grounds he made the observation: “The English priest (referring to me) is very quiet!” After a translation, I replied “Forgive me Father but I have nothing to say!”

It was not that I was disinterested or reserved, quite the contrary I was fully engaged in the moment, and it had nothing to do with the language barrier. I was aware of being in the presence of a holy man and in a holy place. At such moments and places it is better to say nothing because the veil between heaven and earth is thin and we should cherish a glimpse of the uncreated light. We learn by listening and looking, but more than this, contentment of soul is to be found in sensitive stillness. For those in love, words are not necessary when one is absorbed in the presence of the other. Likewise when we live in harmony with God in the tangible presence of holiness, silence is to be preferred.”

Fr. Jonathan Hemmings

*

Elder Ioannikios was taught by Saint Porfyrios two things for spiritual grace: “the cheerful obedience to my Elders” and “unceasing noetic prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.”

“Elder Porphyrios also stressed that, he had been greatly helped by study and diligence, that stillness – according to the expression, “Be still and know that I am the Lord God.”– generally found in the hymnography of our Church. He very much loved the hymns of our Church. He also liked to read, recite and sing them.

The hymns, the spiritual treasure of Orthodoxy, give a commentary, in the best possible way, of the Holy Scriptures, our Orthodox Tradition, the Patristic texts, the doctrines of the Church and the whole of Theology.”

Visit Here for more prophesies, testimonies and experiences with Saint Porfyrios —Elder Ioannikios

Pilgrimage to St Porphyrios — Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Milesi — Part 1

The Holy Monastery of the Transfiguration of Christ (celebrated August 6th), though technically a dependency, was founded by St. Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia in Milesi, Attica, geographically between Oropos and Malakassa in the northern suburbs of Athens.

From one’s first step as a pilgrim in the area, one encounters the sanctity of the place and the total silence. One is struck by the astonishing Holy Church and the beautiful green surroundings.

A multitude of people hasten to the holy Hesychasterion which honors the memory of the Venerable Porphyrios on December 2nd, the day of his repose, in order to partake in the grace of this Saintly Elder.

The building of the monastery began in 1981, and the building occurred in stages, with the Katholikon being founded in 1990, with permission of Archbishop Seraphim of Athens. The walls of the church were completed in the spring of 1992, a few months after the repose of St. Porphyrios. (1)

St Porphyrios on his bed at the monastery near the end of his life

Upon arrival, we were blessed with the Supplication to the Saint, chanted by a small group of pilgrims, and personal memories with the Saint treasured and shared by their priest.

The Earthly and the Celestial Pilgrims— Part 1

The first fellow pilgrim to honour is certainly Archimandrite Mark Manolis of blessed memory. Father Mark is the spiritual father of both Father deacon N. and the local “guide/ “driver” M. who helped me throughout this pilgrimage to St Porphyrios. Many a times, all these hours together with both of them, I have wondered if such are Father Mark’s spiritual children, what a blessed spiritual father he must have been.

Upon arrival in Athens, at the airport, M. gave me a recent edition of her late spiritual father’s life, and ever since I started reading this book, on my flight back home, I was unable to put it down before reading it completely at one stretch!

The more I reflect and distil the blessings, the clearer it becomes to my mind how important it is to be under the obedience of and in close interaction with a true spiritual father. Also: how crucial is to discover and become a member in a spiritual family, cultivate the fellowship in a sisterhood/ brotherhood/ parish for our spiritual growth.

“For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone.” Romans, 14:7

One of the many testimonies about the late Hieromonk Markos Manolis at St. George parish church, in Dionysos, Attica (at the foot of Penteli Mountain, near Athens) is the following:

“I met hieromonk at the age of 23. The heights of his ascetics and self-sacrifice were unparalleled. He never slept and was always there for his spiritual children. A great many of his spiritual children had seen him walking above the ground during the Holy Liturgy. When he first saw me, he called me by my first name. I had never known him before. How come he knew my name?

His great humility and abstention from sleep and unceasing prayers had opened his spiritual eyes and he was endowed with the gift of foresight. He was one of the most militant adversaries of ecumenism, spiritual leader of the “Orthodox Press” newspaper, but above all a true spiritual father and leader of many spiritual brothers and sisters in Christ in villages, towns, hospitals, jails around Athens and in Athens itself.

Hieromonk Markos Manolis possessed the power of foresight which had been validated on multiple occasions . Personally speaking, he had foretold my future encounter with my husband two years before his departure from this world.” (2)

Inscribed on the tombstone: ‘Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them.” Revelation 14:13

To be continued…

(1) Full of Grace and Truth

(2) In the Footsteps of Jesus, Sophia Kioroglou

For Granted

Taking things for granted is a trap most of us fall into. It is easy to get used to things and to stop noticing. We stop noticing God’s little gifts, little gestures of love of those around us, our comforts and advantages. The last four weeks, since Father J. has been taken gravely ill, have been a time of deep sadness but also of reflection and hopefully of growth.


Familiarity is a dangerous element in our spiritual life. I have spent so much time with Father J. over the last 18 years, I have relied so much on his advice, prayers, lifts to church, on his love, tolerance and good will that I think I have come to take it all for granted. In any crisis, I assume that he will be there to guide me and especially pray for me. In this crisis, for the first time, I had to pray for him and couldn’t ask for his guidance. I felt lost, but I also felt more than ever the power of prayer, the strengthening bonds of fellowship and I experienced once again the manifold grace of brothers and sisters in Christ praying together. For years now, I have felt that father joyfully carried me and every single person in his church on his back like a cross. His care and prayers make up for our negligence and lack of zeal, for all our lack of love towards God, the church and others.

As a community, especially the cradle Orthodox, we always take for granted that we shall have a church where the Holy Liturgy will be served every Sunday (take it or leave it as it suits us), that there will be a Father to come bless our house, cars, food and visit us when we are ill, that there will be a Father to sign the papers of church attendance for our children to get a place at a desired school and give us a reference of good character, that this Father will pray for us whenever we ask him, that he will be there to hear our confession whenever
we feel burdened, that he will settle our little squabbles, that he will baptise our children and read us the prayers on our death bed and serve at our funeral. In the case of our parish, we take for granted even more than that, that our Father will make sure everyone has transport to get to church, that he will answer the phone to hear our little troubles at any hour of the day or night, that he will arrive first in church and leave last and generally make sure that everything is well with the church and in our life. The last weeks have forcefully reminded me that all these are not our due or by any means guaranteed to be there and that we are blessed to have had all these for so many years through God’s grace and Father J.’s love, faith and energy.

Umberto Eco said: “Absence is to love as wind is to fire: it extinguishes the little flame, it
fans the big.” I cannot exactly quantify my affection for Father J., but I have thought
of him more over the last month than ever before. In his absence, so many touching memories and images came flooding in bringing along both sadness and joy. One of my favourite mental snapshots is of Father looking up to see somebody come through the church door. Every time his eyes light up with joy when his gaze rests on you as you come in through the door and I noticed that Father’s joy is even greater when someone comes who has not been to the church in months or years. This joyful, loving gaze makes you feel so welcome and loved and somehow special. It makes you feel that you are coming home. And this image lead on to another memory of Father crying when he reads the Gospel of the Return of the prodigal son. I cannot remember him ever reading it without tears in his eyes. His love for all these many prodigal children that we are is so great that he stands by us in prayer before God no matter what we are or have done. I know for sure he has stood by me with gentleness and patience even when I disobeyed his spiritual guidance or I argued back or wanted to leave the church.

St John of the Ladder teaches that it is more fearful to anger your Spiritual Father than to
disobey and anger God himself. If we anger God, our spiritual father has the grace to pray for us, to intercede and obtain forgiveness for us, but if our spiritual father turns away from us, we have no defence or advocate before God. This is how I have felt about my Spiritual Father, about Father J. He has been my advocate before God, my safety rope for the rock climbing. This rope has kept me connected to the rock when I fell, it stopped me from walking away and giving up when the going got too hard.

Fr Seraphim of Mull Monastery tells the story of the advice he received from his spiritual
father just before he was ordained. He told him that the value of his priesthood will be measured in the madness of his love for every single human being who will stand before him irrespective of what they look like, who they are, where they come from, what they have done.

This is exactly how I see Father’s ministry. In his love of all people and in his joyful daily sacrifices for us, I see the reflection of God’s love for all his children. By knowing Father, I feel I have come a step closer to understanding God’s love for every single one of us.


The church or monastery is like a beehive. The spirit of the queen permeates the whole hive and sets the tone for all the bees. If the queen bee is aggressive the whole hive will be an aggressive one, just so when a community has a very loving father, like us, the whole community is loving and gentle. And if at times this isn’t the case, Father dissipates all tension by his prayers and mild spirit.


As Father is recovering from his illness and there is a general sigh of relief in the community and a sense of joy and expectation, I have made a vow not to take my spiritual father for granted ever again or any of God’s gifts to our community, but rejoice in each of them and see them for what they are – signs of God’s love: the beautiful church filled with the gifts from Old parishioners, the people who have prepared the prosphoro, brought the wine, oil and candles and cleaned the church, the people who have come to give and receive and most of all the presence of a father through whose hand a gentle and humble God reaches out to his people. None of my or anyone’s giving of time, money or energy can match the wonder of these gifts.

A. McC.

* Kalo Stadio! A blessed Great Lent!