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)
An interim to all these prophesies I have recently posted. Kindly have a look at this conclusion of a chapter I am in the process of translating for Gregoriou monastery of Mount Athos.
“Here is a beautiful summary of spiritual work left to us by Abba John the Dwarf, one of the most discerning and holy ascetics. With this we end this brief presentation.
Every morning, make a beginning with every virtue and commandment of God.
And strive
With much patience,
With fear and long-suffering,
With love of God,
With all the readiness of soul and body,
With much humility,
With patience bearing the sorrow of the heart and carefully guarding it,
With much prayer,
With prayer for others with sighs,
With purity of tongue,
With watchfulness over the eyes.
Do not be angry,
even if you are insulted,
but have peace within yourself;
Do not return evil for evil;
Do not pay attention to the mistakes of others;
Do not give value to yourself, who is below all creation;
Oppose and renounce the material world
and everything that has to do with the flesh.
Live:
With a willingness to take up your cross,
With a fighting spirit,
With poverty of spirit,
With askesis and spiritual determination,
With repentance and tears,
With a warlike struggle,
With discernment,
With purity of soul, With food as much as it should be,
Working quietly at your handiwork,
With night vigils,
Enduring hunger and thirst, cold and nakedness,
By toiling.
And above all and with all these together:
To seal yourself your coffin lid as if you have died,
Bearing in mind that death is near you every minute … ( Abba John the Dwarf, 34).
“Will modern man want to hear these messages sent to us by the ancient ascetics of Thebaid and their other peers? Will he want to?” (+ Elder Eusevios Vittis of blessed memory)
St Nikolai Velimirovich, his Prayers by the Lake, St Paisios, and WWW3 and end-of -world prophecies and a lot more… Your prayers
Dear brothers and sisters, Christ is in our midst. Global events especially at the last two weeks have shocked and deeply saddened me, and my only consolation and light in that darkness was only the church services and the lives of the saints. And … St. Nikolai Velimirovich life and poetry, his Prayers by the Lake. So many of his poems I felt were as if written for us, right now!
Those global events have sparked interest all over the world in WWW3 and end-of -world prophecies and in particular those of recent Orthodox Saints, like St. Paisios who lived and died in the 20th century. I spend quite some time the last two weeks studying these prophesies because lots of people all over the world asked me for a blogpost selecting, presenting, and translating some of these prophesies. I soon realised how very careful one has to be not to distort the Saints’ words. This is precisely why St Paisios left that handwritten note about the electronic ID, which I have translated in the previous blogpost.
It all started on 13 June 2025, when the Iraq nuclear power plant was struck by Israeli airstrikes during the opening stages of the Iran–Israel war (Operation Rising Lion), and further implemented on 22 June 2025, when the facility was bombed by the United States military. The blessed Elder Theodore Agiofarangitis of Crete (28-4-2016) had said to Metropolitan Fr. Neophytos of Morphou: “My children, you will be drinking your coffee in the morning and you will hear that the Jews have hit the Persian nuclear program! Then the great events will begin!” Lots of people, especially in Greece and Cyprus, felt that this prophesy had become news headlines! It had begun…
Elder Theodore the Cave-Dweller (2016), the last ascetic of Agiofarago in Crete
This blogspot is work in progress, a tentative draft, as I am still studying St. Paisios books and I would be most grateful if any of my readers could help me in tracing these, or other for that matter, prophesies. Any help would be most appreciated! Let us all please be very careful and please forgive me for any mistake in what follows. Although lots of ‘prophesies’ circulating recently have been attributed to St. Paisios, not all of them are reliable. To give you just one example:
Lots of websites and blogs reproduce nowadays that Saint Paisios said: “The Middle East will become a battlefield”. Some write a variation: “The battlefield will be Palestine, the grave the Dead Sea.” And they continue: “This will be the first half, but there will also be a second half”. Also: “the Saint is reported to have said: “War will come from above and from below. From above they will descend and from below they will ascend. And Greece will be in between.” Some interpret these words in the following manner: Saint Paisios wants to tell us with these prophetic words that World War III will begin in the parts of Syria and Palestine and then spread to Asia Minor and Constantinople). This phrase, although enigmatic, has been interpreted by spiritual people and theologians as a reference to future conflicts in the north and south of Greece, which will bring the country into a difficult geopolitical position but also into a position of increased importance.
The “above” war: Ukraine – Russia: The war in Ukraine, which broke out in 2022, renewed fears of a wider European or global conflict. The involvement of major powers, such as the US and Russia, combined with the military presence of NATO in the Balkans, is creating an explosive situation in the north of Greece. The Ukrainian crisis is recognized by many as the fulfillment of the “upper” part of the prophecy. It is a war that is descending, both literally and symbolically, towards the European south.
The “lower” war: Israel – Palestine and the Middle East: On the other hand, developments in the Middle East are also worrying. The resurgence of military conflicts between Israel and Hamas, attacks by Hezbollah, Iran’s stance and the ongoing instability in Syria and Lebanon, compose an explosive landscape. Israel’s geographical location and the theological-spiritual significance of this region lead many to interpret these conflicts as the “lower” war of prophecy. A war that is “rising,” and threatens to spread to the Mediterranean and Europe.
Greece in the Middle – Geopolitical Hub and Spiritual Responsibility: The phrase “and Greece will be in the middle” is key to understanding the prophecy. Greece is, literally and figuratively, between the two war axes. It is a member of the West, but it also has deep cultural, religious, and geostrategic roots in the East. Greece’s geopolitical importance is constantly increasing, both because of its strategic location, natural resources, energy, and its role as a stabilising factor in the wider region.
The problem with these prophesies is they cannot be traced in any reliable book of St. Paisios. Part of them is written in one book which I remember very clearly Gerondas Gregorios of blessed memory warning us against reading it, because he told us the first volume in the series was ‘quite’ accurate and close to St Paisios’ life and words, but the second one included lots of ‘claims’ and opinions which were the author ‘s, not St. Paisios’! So we have to be very careful!
*
The only prophesies I traced in reliable recordings and publications of St. Paisios’ life and words the last two weeks are the following, presented in an article by Athanasios Zoitakis. If in a hurry, go straight to the Constantinople prophesies towards the end. i have also skipped lots of already fulfilled prophesies, such as the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, the Turkish invasion to Cyprus in July 1974.
*
In the first epistle to the Corinthians, Apostle Paul names the gifts of the Holy Spirit to Christ’s Church: But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues (1 Cor. 7–10). The Lord generously rewarded His disciples and apostles with these gifts—unlearned fishermen became theologians, prophets, and teachers. They preached the Gospel truth throughout the world, worked amazing miracles, and at the end of their lives were vouchsafed to receive a martyr’s crown.
It is no accident that the Holy Church calls St. Cosmas of Aitolia “equal to the apostles”. A fiery and sincere preacher, even during his lifetime he worked a multitude of miracles and healings, and was vouchsafed a martyric death.
The saint was not only an outstanding Orthodox enlightener; he is truly considered a great prophet of latter times. St. Cosmas of Aitolia left a great number of stunningly exact prophecies about the future of mankind (about scientific inventions, wars, and ecological catastrophes). Many of his predictions have already come to pass, while others are still awaiting their fulfillment.
These are not dreamed-up predictions in the spirit of the false prophecies of the much-hailed Nostrodamus, which had as their goal to lead man away from Christ, but true testimonies of the Holy Spirit, called to help us not fall into diabolical snares and to preserve the purity of the Orthodox faith.
St. Cosmas of Aitolia preaching to the people. Photo: Mystagogy.
Every town, every village that St. Cosmas visited preserves his prophetic words. Many of the saint’s prophecies have come down to us not only in written form, but also as oral history. People have been brought up from childhood on the saint’s precepts, and therefore even today there is no one in Greece who isn’t familiar with the prophecies of St. Cosmas of Aitolia.
Many of his prophecies are bound up with specific spheres of life, and cannot be understood without knowing the local realities and historical contexts. Some, to the contrary, are bound up with the destiny of universal Orthodoxy and the modern world. The majority of St. Cosmas’s prophecies have been preserved to our times. Some of these prophecies are known through the books, manuscripts, and codices of the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries. During the Second World War, a teacher in a school in Northern Epirus found a collection of seventy-two prophecies written in a Koran in the Albanian language. The saint’s prophecies were so essential to life, so popular, and important to the people that some did not want to part with his words even during the period of cruel persecutions, and they “hid” the prophecies of the great Orthodox saint in the sacred books of Islam.
If the main task of the prophets of the Old Testament period was to foretell the coming of the Messiah, then the main work of New Testament Prophets has been to foretell the end of the world and the Second Coming of Christ. All New Testament holy men, endowed with prophetic gifts (including St. Cosmas), foretold not some new events or states, but rather prepared their flock for the Terrible Judgment and the Second Coming of our Lord and Savior. They prepare us not only for overcoming the hardships and temptations of the last times, but also for the main goal of our earthly existence—“a good defense at the dread Judgment Seat of Christ”.[1]
“The prophets were great martyrs! They were greater martyrs than the martyrs, despite the fact that they did not all die a martyr’s death. This is because the martyrs did not suffer long, while the prophets saw how evil was being committed and so suffered continually. They shouted and shouted, while everyone else just blew their own horns.”[2] These words belong to our contemporary Athonite Elder Paisios of the Hagiorite. Elder Paisios (like any other Greek) was from early childhood immersed in the traditions connected with the name of Equal-to-the-Apostles Cosmas. Later in conversations with people who came to him he would often cite from the sermons and prophecies of this saint. The elder spent a long time restoring the monastery in Konitsa—a place that was uninterruptedly connected with the name of St. Cosmas of Aitolia (now there is a magnificent church built in his honor there). But the most important thing is that Elder Paisios explained to us certain of the saint’s “Constantinople” prophecies, which had previously evoked heated arguments amongst researchers.
The two saints were bound together by their common pain for their native land and the Orthodox Church. Both were outstanding missionaries, who brought a multitude of their contemporaries to Christ. There lives are examples of sacrificial service to God and neighbor.
Sts. Cosmas and Paisios showed with their entire lives that love for God is unthinkable without for your people. At the same time, in their relationship to their motherland these two ascetics were alien to superficial ardor, which flares brightly but quickly dies out. They showed that love for one’s motherland is a daily, exhausting and dangerous labor, bereft of anything showy and especially not carried on with any earthly reward in mind.
For this sacrificial labor first of all is needed deep humility, and dedication to God’s will. Elder Paisios’s life was penetrated with this. We can find such readiness for this self-denial in the words of Holy Hieromartyr Cosmas, which are a program for his entire work on earth:
“You may say, ‘But you are a monk, so what are you doing in the world?’ And I, my brothers, am not doing rightly. But because our people have become unlearned, I said, ‘Let Christ lose only me, but receive all the rest. Perhaps by God’s mercy and by your prayers I will be saved’.” Here Equal-to-the-Apostles Cosmas stands on equal ground with Apostle Paul, who said, For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh (Rom. 9:3).
Wars, hunger, cold, unthinkable catastrophes and tragedies—all this was prophesied by St. Cosmas. But he names these events not in order to frighten the fainthearted and impressionable. The saint gives practical advice on how to overcome the adversities and withstand them while preserving our faith. He suffered through every word he spoke and they therefore had importance and significance not only for his contemporaries, but also for subsequent generations.
The prophecies of St. Cosmas of Aitolia have become essential instructions for several generations of people living on the Balkan Peninsula. Let us also listen to his words, follow his instructions, and preserve our hope and faith that with God’s help, all trials will in the end be turned to our benefit.
The prophecy of “the desired”
With his prophecies, St. Cosmas of Aitolia was able to return his compatriots, who had been languishing for over 300 years under a foreign yoke, to hope in their national rebirth. St. Cosmas’s contribution to the future liberation from Turkish rule was enormous. Here are the words of a song that became the anthem for the Greeks fighting against foreign rule:
Help, St. George Help, St. Cosmas, To take back Constantinople again And the Church of Hagia Sophia.
St. George, as we know, was the protector of armies. And St. Cosmas became for the participants in the national-liberation movement a symbol of the struggle for the rebirth of Orthodoxy and the Greek motherland. They were inspired by his prophecies, which awakened faith and hope in them.
The saint, of course, could not speak openly with his flock about national liberation. He used the words, “the desired”, “the longed-for”. “When shall ‘the longed-for’ come?” the saint was often asked.
Here is how he answered that question:
“This place will one day become Romean[3] again. Happy is he who will live in this country.”
The saint often pronounced this prophecy when visiting the enslaved Balkan lands to preach. They were all soon liberated from the Turks.
“The desired will come to you in the third generation; your grandsons will see it.”
These words were again pronounced in Epirus. This Greek province was liberated during the Balkan war of 1912–1913, when the grandchildren of those to whom St. Cosmas spoke this prophecy were still alive.
“There is yet much suffering ahead. Do no forget my words: pray, act, and be calm. Until this gash on the sycamore tree closes over, your settlement will be enslaved and unhappy.”
The saint said this in the Epirus village of Tsaraplana. The gash on that tree cicatrized in 1912.
From the time the local inhabitants heard that prophecy they would go everyday to the sycamore and see if the wound on the tree had cicatrized. Over 130 years passed, and then the joyful news spread around the region: “It’s happened! The saint’s prophecy has been fulfilled!” And people were not deceived in their expectations—just a few months later they received their long-awaited freedom.
“The desired will come when two Pachalias will fall on the same day.”
The Annunciation and Pascha fell on the same day in 1912. Just a few months later, the regions to whose inhabitants the saint had addressed his prophetic words were liberated from Turkish rule (this is how Elder Paisios interpreted St. Cosmas’s prophecy).
“May these mountains be blessed: They will save many souls.”
The saint said these words in Vonitsa. In May 1821, the inhabitants of this area, following the prophetic advice of St. Cosmas, found refuge in the Lefkada Mountains.
“Thank your fate that you will find yourselves in the high mountains—they will save you from many calamities. You will hear danger, but you won’t see it. You will suffer for three days and three hours.”
Metsovo. Photo: Wikipedia.
The saint pronounced this prophecy in the town of Metsovo. On May 27, 1854, there was in fact a cruel three-day battle. Many local people were able to escape death by hiding high in the mountains.
“O blessed mountain! How many women and children you will save when difficult years come.”
On November 4, 1912, the saint’s words were fulfilled. In the mountains of Siatista, 45,000 women and children were saved.
“First will come the red caps, then in fifty-four years they will be replaced by the English, and then there will be a Greek state.”
The saint pronounced this prophecy about the liberation of the Ionian Islands on the island of Cephalonia. These words were fulfilled with amazing accuracy: After the Venetians the islands were taken over by the French (a folk name for them was the “red caps”), and on the fifty-fourth year (!) the English replaced them, and only after that did the Ionian Islands, as St. Cosmas foretold, receive their long-awaited liberation.
“Catastrophe will reach the cross, but it won’t be able to go any lower. Do not be afraid. Do not leave your houses.”
With these words the saint addressed the inhabitants of Polineri. At the place where he preached, the saint as was his custom raised a large cross with which this prophecy is connected.
In November 1940, the armies of fascist Italy invaded Greece. Meeting practically no resistance they captured more and more territories. Finally they reached the cross about which the saint had prophesied. Alarmed at the threat of the Italian forces’ further advancement, the Greek authorities issued an order to evacuate the inhabitants of several areas, including Polineri. A one hundred-year-old inhabitant of the village of Tegos Nasioulas had not forgotten the saint’s prophetic words: He addressed his fellow villagers, convincing them not to leave their houses. The authorities considered them saboteurs who were trying to hold up the evacuation and make it easier for the Italian forces to advance. They asked the old man to be silent, even beat him cruelly, but he was he did not back down.
The Italians did in fact reach the cross, but they could not go any further—the Greek forces stopped their attack.
Prophecies about Constantinople
Regaining Constantinople has always been the dream of the Greeks and other Orthodox nations in the Balkans. Its fall was the most devastating and tragic date in Greek history. The rebirth of a national state did not reach its logical conclusion: the restoration of an Orthodox Empire with its capital in Constantinople. Having foretold the liberation from the Turkish yoke, St. Cosmas also foretold the future liberation of Constantinople. The “Constantinople” prophecies still await their fulfillment.
Many of St. Cosmas’s prophecies have long remained a puzzle to us and were the subject of the most contradictory explanations. Moreover, in the people’s consciousness they were mixed up with the many false prophecies that exist about the liberation of the City. Elder Paisios not only explained the saint’s words, which are still hard to understand, but he also helped separate the “wheat from the chaff”—the true testimony of the Holy Spirit from the predictions of false prophets who have led us into confusion and error.
The two saints are not only bound together by common prophesies about the fate of the City, but also by the their love of Byzantium and dedication to the idea of an Orthodox, multi-national empire—a sentiment natural to the majority of Greek ascetics.
For them Byzantium is not just a political program but also a way of thinking and perception of the world: “Byzantium placed the beginning of the Holy Mountain [Athos]. Today the Holy Mountain could renew Byzantium, if only we would preserve that strength in ourselves, not ‘be lazy’, not ‘lose our color’. Look, people are now disappointed in everything and are looking for something that is not of merely transitory value. This is very easy. If only we ourselves would not fade.”[4] Byzantium is an image of a sovereign state that is inseparably connected with Orthodoxy, founded upon Orthodoxy. It is a “Christian kingdom”, as St. Cosmas of Aitolia accurately defines it.
“The red vests will drive the Turks from the City”
We do not yet know the meaning of this prophecy. Some express the supposition that the color red will be present in the uniforms of the liberating soldiers.
“There will be so much blood spilled in the City that a three-year-old calf could swim in it.”
This prophecy was supplemented by Elder Paisiios: “In Constantinople there will be a fierce battle between the Russians and the Europeans. Very much blood will be spilled.”[5]
“Armies will pass through the valley of Mouzini headed for Constantinople. Let the women and children go to the mountains. They will ask you, ‘Is the City far away?’ Answer: ‘It is near’. By answering that way, you will avoid much disaster.”
The Mouzini Valley is located in Northern Epirus. Although this Greek province is now in the territory of Albania, it has a significantly non-Albanian (mainly Greek) population, whom St. Cosmas addressed in his prophecy.
“When you hear that a fleet is sailing in the Mediterranean Sea, know that the Constantinople question will soon be resolved.”
It is clear from the prophecies that in the struggle for Constantinople, the opposing sides will make broad use of their navies.
“The armies will not even get halfway to the City when they will hear news that “the desired” has come.”
Certain of St. Cosmas’s “Constantinople” prophecies were deciphered in the late twentieth century and supplemented by Elder Paisios the Hagiorite.
“Here is what the elder said when he was asked one day about the events in Serbia:
“ ‘Today, for the sake of the Turks the Europeans are creating an independent state with a Muslim population (Bosnia, Herzegovina). However, I see that in the future they will carefully divide Turkey itself as well: the Kurds and Armenians will rebel, and the Europeans will demand recognition of these peoples’ independence and rights to self-government. Then they will say to Turkey: “We once did you a favor, and now in the same way, the Kurds and Armenians should receive independence.” Thus will they ‘nobly’ divide Turkey into parts.
“St. Arsenius of Cappadocia told the faithful in Faras that they will lose their fatherland, but soon they will gain it back again.”[6]
“There will be yet another foreign army. It will not know Greek, but it will believe in Christ. They will also ask: ‘Where is the City?’”
The fate of Constantinople will be decided in a military and diplomatic contest of the largest world sovereignties, for whom for some (as yet unknown) reason the break up of Turkey will be profitable.
St. Paisios the Hagiorite.Elder Paisios emphasized that this will happen without Greece’s direct participation: “We will take Constantinople back, but not we ourselves. Because the majority of our young people have become degraded, we are not capable of such a thing. Nevertheless, God will arrange it that others will take the City and give it to us.”[7]
Many Greek researchers are convinced that Russia, of the same religion as them, will take an active part in deciding the Constantinople question. Truly, the Russian people fit to the greatest degree St. Cosmas’s description: “They will not know Greek, but they will believe in Christ.”
“One day a group of children, students of the Athonaida, decided to go to the elder and ask him whether the Greeks will take Constantinople and will they, the children, live to those times. They came to Fr. Paisios’s kaliva, took their treats, but were afraid to ask the question. One made a sign to another, and he to a third. But in the end, no one could bring himself to ask the elder. Then the elder said to them himself: ‘Well, young fellows? What did you want to ask? About Constantinople? We’ll take it, we will, and you will live to see it’.”[8]
“The antichrists (that is, the Turks.—A.Z.) will leave, but they will return, and then you will chase them to the Red Apple Tree.”
In Greek folk tradition the Red Apple Tree is the name for Kokkini Milia—a place somewhere in Mesopotamia, where the Turks will be driven after the liberation of Constantinople.
Of course, now it seems to us that the liberation of Constantinople, just like the break up of Turkey along with the strengthening of Russia are almost impossible. But let’s not forget that all is possible to God, and the situation in world politics can make a 180-degree turnaround at any moment.
“One day, Mr. D. K. visited Elder Paisios. At that time the USSR was a strong and seemingly invincible world power, and no one could even suppose that it could be destroyed (this was in the Brezhnev era).
But Elder Paisios said to him, by the by:
“You will see that the USSR will break apart.”
Mr. D. objected:
“But Geronda, who could break apart that enormous might? No one would even dare to touch its toenails.”
“You’ll see!”
The elder foretold that the breakup of the USSR will be obvious even to Mr. D., despite his advanced age.
The Elder went on:
“Know, that Turkey will also fall apart. There will be a war that will last two periods. We will be the victors, because we are Orthodox.
“Geronda, will we suffer losses in the war?”
“Eh, at the most they’ll occupy one or two islands, but they will give Constantinople to us. You’ll see, you’ll see!”
“The Turks will leave, but they will return again and reach Hexamilia.[9] One third of them will perish, one third will come to believe in Christ, and another third will go to Kokkini Milia.”
“No one can explain this, and all make mistaken suppositions. They say that Hexamilia is in Langadas, Kilnis,[10] in Thrace,[11] in Corinth; but no one knows that what the saint was talking about is the six miles of territorial waters[12].[13]
“Once, I met Elder Paisios, who was somewhat disturbed and upset. He gave me some treats and then began the conversation himself:
“ ‘Certain people came to me and said that a war will start, the Turks will enter Greece, and they will chase us six miles to Corinth (that is how they explained the prophecy of St. Cosmas of Aitolia, with their corrupt thinking). <…> Although I don’t like to talk on the theme of prophecies, they forced me to explain to them the meaning of the six miles about which St. Cosmas spoke. This is none other than six miles of the sea shelf. It is what we and Turkey have been gnawing at each other about in recent years and about which we will finally “lock horns”. But they will not enter Greece, they will only advance to these six miles, but then they will meet with great calamities from the north, as it is written, and all their plans will collapse.”[14]
“Today, reading prophecies is the same as reading the newspaper—they are so clearly written. My thoughts tell me that many events will take place there: The Russians will occupy Turkey, Turkey will disappear from the map, because one third of the Turks will convert to Christianity, a third with perish, and a third will head for Mesopotamia.”[15]
The prophecies of Sts. Cosmas and Paisios talk about how a third of the Turks will become Christians. It is notable that even now there are many crypto-Christians amongst the Turks. Many pilgrims who have been to Turkey tell about how during their travels people would come up to them, ask them for icons, prayer books, and look for opportunities to confess and receive Communion.
“Then it will come, when there will come two summers and two Paschalias together.”
For a long time the meaning of this prophecy was hidden from us, and only at the end of the twentieth century did Elder Paisios shed light on St. Cosmas’s words.
“They started telling me what St. Cosmas had said: ‘Then it will come, when there will come two summers and two Paschalias together’. They say that now (when Pascha coincided with the Annunciation and the last winter was like summer) it means that the Turks will attack Greece.
“We’ve all become prophets, father, and explain things with our minds however we want… Here I was forced to tell them that when St. Cosmas said, ‘Then it will come…’ he didn’t mean the Turks at all. He meant that liberation will come for the people of North Epirus. And truly, after this year, after so many years the borders were opened, and now they can more or less be connected with their fatherland.
“My father, I understood that these people bring very great harm by explaining the prophecies with their poor minds. And more than that, they pass on their false thinking to others.”[16]
The author, Athanasios Zoitakis, is a doctoral candidate in history and teaches Church history in the History Department of Moscow State University. He is also currently the editor-in-chief of thePravoslavie.ru Greek edition.
[12] The zone of six miles, including several islands in the Aegean Sea. The Turks are now actively making claims to this territory. The continually violate Greek air space, and in 1996, due to these territories a military conflict nearly broke out between Greece and Turkey. (These conflicts are still coming up at the time of this translation.—Trans.)
Dear brothers and sisters, Christ is in our midst.
War is raging all over the world and the Fathers are urging us to fall on our knees and pray. Not stop our obediences, but pray!!! I am not ignoring this appalling tragedy unfolding day after day before our own eyes, but in this specific blogpost and in a couple more to follow, I would like to address one rather sensitive matter unfolding in Greece these days, and that is the Holy Synod’s of the Church of Greece decision, on June 12 and 13, 2025, under the presidency of His Beatitude Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece, to endorse the new “personal number” system introduced by Presidential Decree 40/2025. This system aims to replace existing identification numbers, such as the ID card number, tax number (AFM), and social security number (AMKA), with a single unified number to streamline public sector registry integration. In its official statement, the Holy Synod clarified that the personal number does not raise theological concerns or infringe on individual freedoms, including personal data rights. This approval and endorsement is one problem, but the Synod’s insistence “that the personal number does not raise theological concerns” is even more problematic since it seems to contradict most recent Saints’ opinions on this matter.
For this reason, I would like to present to you in a series 3 documents I have from + Gerondas Gregorios, my spiritual father of blessed memory, and St. Paisios, starting with the “Signs of the Times”. The following text of Saint Paisios is written in the Saint’s own hand, in the year 1987, and it was the only time he had given the order for it to be distributed in photocopies (with his handwriting and spelling errors), because as he himself said, he knew that they would try to deny that He had written it and to distort His opinion. What follows is the translation of St. Paisios’ text:
After the demonic storm, the Divine sunshine will come.
I
Behind the secular spirit of today’s “freedom” of disrespect for the Church of Christ, for elders, parents and teachers, who fear God, lies spiritual slavery, anxiety, and anarchy, which lead the world to a dead end, to mental and physical destruction.
So, behind the perfect “service card” computer security system, lies the global dictatorship, the slavery of the antichrist. “Rev. John ch. 13’ 16 “to give them a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that they may not buy or sell except one who has the mark, the name of the beast or the number of his name. Here is wisdom; let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast; for it is the number of a man, and his number is sixty-six”. = 666.
Saint Andrew of Caesarea concludes the following: “About the impure name of
II
Antichrist. And the accuracy of the vote, as well as the rest of what is written about him, will be revealed by time and experience will bring wisdom;…… but divine grace did not deign to write the name of Lymeon in a divine book; as in a gymnasium, there are many things to be found…. ” Saint Andrew of Caesarea, explanation of the Apocalypse of John, pp. 341-42, ch. 11. –
The strange thing is, many spiritual people, besides giving their own interpretations, are also afraid of the worldly fear of being enveloped, while they should be spiritually concerned, and help Christians with good concern, and stimulate them in faith, to feel divine comfort.
I wonder! Don’t all these events concern them? Why don’t they put at least a question mark on the interpretations of their minds? And if they rely on the antichrist for the sealing, how do they lead other souls to perdition? This means; “…deceive, if possible, even the elect.” Mark. 13’ ”.
Those who interpret them with their minds will be deceived.
And while the signs are clearly visible; “the beast” in Brussels with 666 has almost sucked all the states into the computer. What do the card, the identity card, “the introduction of the sealing” reveal? Unfortunately, we only watch the radio to see what weather we will have.
What will Christ tell us? “Hypocrites, you know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot understand the signs of the times?” Matt. chap. 2, 5!
So after the card, and the identity card, “the envelope” to proceed cunningly with the sealing, they will continue to say on television that someone took his card and withdrew his money from the bank.
On the other hand, they will advertise “the perfect system”; the sealing on the hand or forehead with laser beams, which will not be externally discernible, with 666 the name of the antichrist.
Unfortunately, again “certain gnostics” will swaddle their spiritual children like babies, supposedly so as not to worry; “this does not bother, it is nothing, it is enough that you believe inwardly!”. And while we see the apostate Peter who externally denied Christ, and it was denial, they deny the Holy sealing of Christ that was given to them in Holy Baptism; “Seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit” by accepting the seal of the antichrist, they also say that they have Christ within them!!
Unfortunately, such logic was also held by certain “gnostics” in the years of the Holy Martyrs, who were trying to convert the prospective martyrs, as Basil the Great mentions in his speech to the Martyr Gordius: “… many were foolish in trying to convince the Martyr to deny only with words, and to hold the faith with the soul, the inner disposition, because God does not pay attention to the tongue but to the disposition. However, the Martyr Gordius was inflexible and responded: “He does not tolerate any tongue created apart from Christ to speak against the Creator… do not be deceived. God is not mocked. “From our own mouths he judges us, from our words he justifies us and from our words he condemns us”.
Also, during the reign of Decius, he demanded by decree that the pagans confess their religion, and all those Christians who declared themselves Christians and sacrificed to idols received a certificate and were spared martyrdom. Not only were these deniers of Christ, but also those who gave money to the pagans in the commission and received the certificate without refusing, the so-called “libellophores” and these our Church considered apostates – fallen.
And while we have so many examples, such as the miracle of Saint Theodore, which is celebrated every year on Saturday of the First Week of Lent: “Julian the transgressor, knowing that the Christians They are rather purified by fasting in the first week of Holy Lent, which we also call Clean Week for this reason, and it was then decided to defile them. Therefore, he secretly ordered that during those days, odors contaminated with the blood of idolatrous sacrifices be placed in the market. But the Martyr Theodore, in a dream, divinely revealed to the then Archbishop of Constantinople, Eudooxion
and having made the matter known, he ordered him to summon the faithful immediately on Monday morning and prevent them from using those odors, and to make up for the lack of necessary food from what was at hand with kolibons”…… In this way the purpose of the transgressor was thwarted, and the pious People, preserved undefiled……” – Horologion the Great, p. 446…-
To abstain from idolatrous sacrifices is a rule of the Holy Apostles. Acts. Apos. chap. 6e’…… “And the apostles and the elders were gathered together…… to abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication…”.
Despite all that I have mentioned, one unfortunately hears a mass of nonsense from certain “Gnostics” of today, one saying; “I will accept the identity with 666, I will also put a Cross”, and the other saying; “I will accept the seal on the head with 666 and I will also make a Cross on the head…..” and a mass of similar nonsense, who think that they will be sanctified in this way while these are errors.
Only those that accept sanctification, only those are sanctified. Like; Water,
accept sanctification, and it becomes Sanctification. Urine does not accept sanctification.
Stone, by a miracle, becomes bread. Impurity, does not accept sanctification.
Therefore, the devil, the antichrist, when he is in our identity or on our hand, or on our head, with his symbol, is not sanctified by putting on a Cross.
We have the power of the honorable Cross of the Holy Symbol, the divine grace of Christ, only when we are content with the Holy Seal of Baptism, when we renounce Satan, and we are united to Christ, and we accept the Holy Seal; “Seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit”. –
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.
These are the two cypress trees which bent at his burial and “un-bent” 40 days later
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.
Elder Gabriel, disciple of St. Paisios– cell of St. Christodoulos of the Koutloumousiou Monastery, Holy Mount Athos
Prayer of an Old Man
Lord, you know that I have already reached old age.Help me to realise this reality more deeply, so that I may not become tyrannical or boring or burdensome or unsympathetic and hateful to those around me and especially to my occasional co-workers.
Deliver me from insisting on my outdated ideas with senile stubbornness. I do not ask You to improve my judgment or memory. You gave me these invaluable gifts to a certain extent in my productive age. I thank You for this precious gift of Your goodness. Now, as my entire biological, psychological and spiritual existence is declining, the decline of my judgment and memory is bound to naturally follow. Often this situation diminishes me, saddens me, humiliates me beyond imagination and not rarely does it humiliate me in my own eyes, forcing me to constantly apologise for my small or large blunders and gaffes. Of course, I do not fully understand this alteration. However, You, Lord, You know how much my diminution and shrinkage are also necessary to me at this point. I humbly accept it, because You know. And since You know, I do not need to know the deeper “why”. Besides, I cannot understand it. So why should I be sad and suffer for this? Should I not humbly accept the corruption of my nature? And should I not also humbly submit to the order, which You, with such kindness for Your creatures, and therefore for me, have determined?
Seal my chatty lips with an inviolable seal so that I may not burden others with boring, meaningless and without any interest or meaning, retold stories of outdated events of some distant and forgotten years of an insignificant era. At the same time, however, soften my reactions and judgments about the judgment and memory of others. And never allow me to feel pangs of jealousy about the freshness of memory and the power of judgment of others. Make me, on the contrary, rejoice in it and thank You wholeheartedly for the flowers of youth, when I happen to be among them and smell their fragrance.
Enighten me with the meaning of the words of Your Apostle: “Even though our outward man is decaying, but the inward man is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). And may I strive to live this reality.
Finally, support my faltering and unsteady steps with Your “high arm,” so that I may no longer roll on, attached to the earth and contemplate “earthly things,” but instead have my gaze fixed on Heaven and help me contemplate the heavenly realities, until I rest in Your loving divine embrace.
“Toward the last years of his life, I had the blessing to speak with him in private and pray together. Those piercing, blazing eyes! Elder Eusebios, the mystic, the poet, the Seer of God, as they called him! This Meeting burns still in my heart! I have also met a number of his spiritual children and know firsthand how much he helped them in all their lives’ trials and tribulations, how Father-like he stood by their side! May we have his blessing!” (Little city hermit)
*
A distinguished scholar and theologian, yet humble; a tireless writer knowledgeable of many foreign languages and translator of ascetic texts; a holy spiritual father who dedicated his life to the salvation of the soul of his fellow man; a true Father of the Church, divinely illumined,frequently included in the ranks of Saint Paisios and Saint Porphyrios. This is how his disciples and spiritual children remember hieromonk Father Eusebios Vittis, who reposed at the age of 82, in his hesychastirion (skete) in Faya Petra of Sidirokastro (Greece), where he spent the final years of his life in prayer. “He was very humble. He did not want his name to be put on any of his books and he signed them with a pseudonym “Kehri” (translation: millet seed), signifying something “utterly unimportant.”
Hieromonk Eusebios Vittis came from Ptolemaida. He began his priestly work as a clergyman in Sweden.The lack of Orthodox priests in this country at the time made him decide to become a priest. His ordination took place in Stockholm. He then travelled all around the country to serve the various emerging Greek communities. Soon he startedleading his life as a part-time janitor in a retreat house and diocese center belonging to the (Evangelical-Lutheran) Church of Sweden.He cared for the Orthodox and all people indeed without pay. He bought an old house in the forest a few kilometers away from his work and turned on of the rooms there to a chapel.The Holy Hesychastirion (Skete) of St. Nicholas in Ratvik, Sweden is entirely his own work. There he withdrew in 1973, with the aim of devoting himself to prayer, meditation and writing. Fr. Eusebios kept the Athonite schedule, and as recorded in the bulletin of the Metropolis of Sweden and all Scandinavia (1979), the monastery was seen throughout the years as being “the sleepless lamp of the Metropolis of Sweden and a place of spiritual healing for the faithful.” The visitors of the holy hesychastirion found comfort, rest for the soul, and the road leading toward salvation.
In 1980 Fr. Eusebios returned to Greece, in obedience to his spiritual father, and retreated to a hermitage in Faia Petra, Sidirokastro. Hespent the last years of his life on earth in prayer and confession.Christ is Risen!
*
Another Prayer of an Old Man …
Psalm 71
I have a safe place in you, O Lord. Let me never be ashamed. …3 Be a rock to me where I live, where I may always come and where I will be safe. For You are my rock and my safe place. … 5 For You are my hope, O Lord God. You are my trust since I was young. 6 You have kept me safe from birth. It was You Who watched over me from the day I was born. My praise is always of You. …
9 Do not let me fall by the way when I am old. Do not leave me alone when my strength is gone. 10 For those who hate me talk against me. Those who want to kill make plans together. 11 They say, “God has turned away from him. Run and catch him, for there is no one to take him out of trouble.”
12 O God, do not be far from me! O my God, hurry to help me! …
17 O God, You have taught me from when I was young. And I still tell about Your great works. 18 Even when I am old and my hair is turning white, O God, do not leave me alone. … 20 You have shown me many troubles of all kinds. But You will make me strong again. And You will bring me up again from deep in the earth. …
A blessed Feast of the Annunciation to you, dear brothers and sisters in Christ. May the Theotokos, the invincible Defender, in her irresistible might, keep us safe from all trials. I am so moved by the icon, how Gabriel’s feet suggest that he is running to share the news with Mary!
Last week in England, I had a day of dogs! Any number between 5 to 1 to the houses we visited in various pastoral visits. How comforting is their unconditional love, their presence with the elderly, the housebound, the downtrodden.
Certainly, the dogs have characters, the obedient, the timid, the loud, the excitable, the nervous,the angry, the loving. A bit like humans.
As much as Fathers and Saints have always shown love for God’s Creation, they have also warned us against idolatry:
Let us consider St. Silouan the Athonite words:
“There are people who grow attached to animals, stroke, caress them and talk with them; and they have abandoned the love of God, and thus the love between brothers, for which Christ died in terrible agony, is lost. It is foolish to do so. Feed animals and cattle, and do not beat them—in this consists man’s duty of kindness towards them; but to become attached, to love, caress and talk to them—that is folly for the soul.
“The soul that has gotten to know the Lord always stands before Him in love and awe; how can it be possible to love, stroke and talk with cattle, cats and dogs at the same time? This means that someone has forgotten the commandment of Christ to love God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind (Mt. 22:37)…”
True, it is hard for us to accept these words: is there anyone among us who has never patted a dog, or stroked a cat or talked to them, thus expressing their love for them? Moreover, they too need our love: just feeding them is not sufficient. They are emotional creatures: dogs, for instance, experience a whole gamut of emotions.” (“The Blessed and the Dumb”)
Aren’t these words by the Saint very strict, maybe even too strict? Isn’t really the problem when affection (or, rather, attachment for a pet) replaces our love for people and God, making up for a lack or a complete absence of the latter?
As my spiritual father told me, we need “a strong balance here. No tightrope but one foot firmly planted in the love of the creator and one firmly planted in the love of His Creation. It is when we love dogs to the exclusion of God therein lies the problem. There was a popular sign in the back of car windows some years ago “A dog is for life not just for Christmas!” I would add “God is for life, not just for Christmas!”
This day of dogs reminded me of an obedience of mine back in Greece: to undertake dog walking of an ill person’s therapy dogs. These dogs offered him comfort, companionship, and joy but he could not take care of them. Many a time, I found myself grumbling about this extra, ‘pointless’ work every day. Surely I had other, far more important tasks and obediences to undertake? Then one day I read the following by St. Paisios which brought comfort and peace to my heart, and from that day onwards, I have started to learn saying Yes, from the heart, to the love of God, even in ‘pointless’ works:
“My mind tells me that even the animals are better than me; so, I humble myself and obey them. Very early this morning, being tired from praying all night and exhausted because of my illness, I lay down to rest. After a while, I heard a kitten meowing outside my cell as if she needed something. I really wanted to rest, but I humbled myself and went against my own will. I obeyed the kitten and replied to her calling. I went to open the door. It had started to rain and I let her in so she wouldn’t get wet. What do you think then? Should I obey the animals or not? My thoughts tell me I should.” – St Paisios
“So, I humble myself and obey them. … What do you think then? Should I obey the animals or not? My thoughts tell me I should.” – St Paisios
The aerial toll houses, the demons, our guardian angel and the Sacrament of Confession by + Elder Efraim, St. Andrew Skete
“… From the moment the soul leaves the body and until the third day is completed —counting with our own earthly time, because the soul does not experience time, unlike us who both measure and experience it— the soul passes through the aerial toll houses during this three-day period. As the demons fell at the words of Archangel Michael “Let us stand aright!”, some remained in the highest layers while descending and remained in the air… These are the so-called aerial toll houses. (1)
So as the soul of every Orthodox Christian ascends to Heavens after death, every soul without exception passes through the aerial toll houses. However, not everyone is forced to stop at the aerial toll houses. Only those who have unconfessed sins… The faithful who have repented and confessed their sins in the Sacrament of Confession, pass through the customs like a … rocket ! By express! That is, they are not forced to stop anywhere, their way upwards is not blocked…
They will stop somewhere, mid-way, only in the case where there is still an unconfessed sin. If it is not a mortal sin (2), this sin is “weighed” and overcome with any good acts they have committed, and they continue to the next aerial toll house, and so on and so forth, until they arrive in front of our Christ! If anyone’s upward movement is blocked midway by some mortal unconfessed sin, then they are destroyed on the spot and fall straight to hell…
We have cases, mostly of women, who have committed adultery or fornication, and who have confessed heavier, worse sins, but these sins they did not confess, out of shame, because of our old self and of the enemy who incited them to act in this way. So, they did not confess them at the risk of losing their souls. In the case of clergy this is even more terrible! Therefore, special attention must be paid here. Allow me to repeat this: when someone has confessed all his sins to a priest, he passes through the aerial toll houses without being hindered or stopped by anyone.
The worst aerial toll houses that today imprison and prosecute people are: First, of witchcraft, second, of homosexuality and immorality, then of selfishness, avarice, blasphemy… Mainly the first two that I mentioned. Satanism and immorality in their most extreme form worldwide…
During the first three days, the soul goes through the aerial toll houses, and when we pass through all of them, then the Guardian Angel of each one of us leads our soul to Christ, to the humanity of the Lord, because the Divinity is not visible… We then see our Christ as we see Him in the icons. Christ has exactly this form, the form that He had in the flesh.
This is the form He has when man stands before Him and worships Him. Our Christ then blesses him without saying anything at all. The soul worships Him and He only blesses it without saying anything. It is our first personal worship of Christ.
*
(1) Cf. The Holy Anaphora in Divine Liturgy:
Deacon: Let us stand aright! Let us stand in awe! Let us be attentive, that we may present the Holy Offering in peace.
The Holy Anaphora echoes the following incident:
The leader of all the angelic hosts — the six-winged Seraphim, the many-eyed Cherubim, the God-bearing Thrones, Dominions, Powers, Virtues, Principalities, Archangels, and Angels — is the Archangel Michael. When Satan, Lucifer, fell away from God and drew a part of the angels with him to destruction, then Archangel Michael stood up and cried out before the faithful angels: “Let us attend! Let us stand aright! Let us stand with fear!” and all of the faithful angelic heavenly hosts cried out: “Holy! Holy! Holy! Lord God of Sabaoth! Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory!”
(2) According to Gennadios Scholarios, George Koressios, the Orthodox Confession, and Chrysanthos of Jerusalem, mortal sins are those voluntary sins which either corrupt the love for God alone, or the love for neighbor and for God, and which render the one committing them an enemy of God and liable to the eternal death of hell. Generally speaking, they are: pride, love of money, sexual immorality, envy, gluttony, anger, and despondency, or indifference.”
Where the Soul goes away after death—The Great Journey
+ Elder Efraim, St. Andrew Skete
Our soul is taken out by Christ, with the executive minister Archangel Michael, to whom He gives the command. Archangel Michael is the one who “takes out” our soul by the command of the Lord. It is a supreme honour for us Orthodox that our Christ has appointed the leader of the Angels, Archangel Michael, to take out the soul of every Orthodox Christian.
When the leader comes to take the soul, not the officer, the soldier, but the leader, it means that we are princes! Like likes like. “Birds of a feather flock together”. The baptized Orthodox are the spiritual princes of the Kingdom of Heaven. It is the greatest honor that Michael, the leader of all Angels, comes!! He is cheerful, joyful and not at all strict, as some want to present or depict him… Angels have nothing to do with fear, terror and ugliness… Especially the Archangels Michael and Gabriel… If some are afraid, it is not from the sight of the Angel, but from the sight of their own unrepentant state… As at the sight of our Christ, some are demonized and go to hell because the unrepentant people themselves are not receptive to the divine vision.
So the Angels come, the demons come, the Saints come, the senses are dulled, and when the eyes, the physical eyes, fall asleep, then the soul with the mind sees everything. The soul has already entered the sphere of eternity of the other world before it even leaves the body. These are the last moments, the last photographs from which we can determine whether this soul is judged or is saved…
These are some secrets that the saints have revealed to Gerondes to pay attention to and discern … That is, if there is anxiety or sweating… the movements of the eyes right and left, up and down, the movements of the hands, the change of colour, screams or blasphemous expressions, a stench emitted from the mouth of the soul-bleeding person or from the environment, or agitation and fear, an increased heart rate and sweating, shared by the rest of us, in an incomprehensible way… all these mean that we have the presence of demons and that something is wrong… We must then be very careful and perform many forty-five liturgies.
But when he falls asleep, from the moment the guardian angel receives the soul, then such grace and cheerfulness are painted on the reliquary that you constantly want to be near him without fear or hesitation… These are perhaps the last moments because time is measured as the burial and at that moment we are given the opportunity by God to experience this mystical spectacle…
This is very important for us. We do not feel the separation… We want to be constantly close to the dying person… There was a monk that his “death-agony” lasted fifteen whole hours, and I was by his side all this time until his final breath. He had a little difficulty, but in the end he was saved… His death-agony lasted many hours and was exhausting for everyone…
So Archangel Michael takes the soul and delivers it into the hands of other Angels who depart for the aerial toll houses. As for the Guardian Angel, he stands next to the relic and does not leave until the burial. When there are cases when the burial is delayed (due to some circumstances, e.g. group deaths) the Guardian Angel remains near the deceased relic until the body is buried… As a debt of honour!
This is very important! Nonetheless, the soul, together with the other Angels, begins its journey…
The Valley of the Shadow of Death By George Inness, 1867
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.),
ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN FAITH AND LIFE 