Inside St George Karslides cell and chapel

Dearest brothers and sisters in Christ, Christ has ascended! Truly He has ascended from earth to heaven!

Here, at the Ascension Monastery, St George Karslides, in Taxiarhes (Sipsa), Drama, the sisters celebrate its annual Feast with a hierarchical Holy Liturgy at the Ascension chapel of the Saint and a blessing of the waters.

St. George last words were “Open to me the gate of loving-kindness, blessed Mother of God”. His dead body was supple, just said the case of those on the Holy Mountain.The two cypress trees at his grave bent, as though in veneration, as he had foretold, and lots of birds gathered at the time of his burial, with no fear of the large crowd of people. Everyone felt, was certain that they were burying a Saint.

Indeed, for centuries, Middle Eastern and European cultures have revered the cypress as a symbol of the transition between life and death, with cypresses symbolizing the uplifting of the human spirit and the possibilities of eternal life. So many poems have been written about them by poets and philosophers. Cypresses are even discussed in Gerontikon (see below). But such participation of Nature in a Saint’s life is of an entirely different level.

This miracles brings to my mind another one, from the life of the Theotokos. The Synaxarion of the DORMITION (KOIMISIS) OF THE THEOTOKOS,
One of the Virgin’s prayers at the Garden of Gethsemane was to behold the holy Apostles who were then scattered throughout the world preaching the Gospel. When our Lady knelt and offered her petition and thanksgiving to her Creator, her prayer was accompanied by a wonderful manifestation: the olive trees growing on the Mount of Olives bowed with the Theotokos as though they were animate. When the Theotokos knelt, the trees bend down, when she arose, the trees straightened themselves out again. Thus, even trees revered and honored the Lady and Mistress of the cosmos. (Source: The Great Synaxaristes of the Orthodox Church)

Also, in the life of St Irene Chrysovalantou, we read that during one of her all-night vigils, one of the nuns, unable to sleep, left her cell and entered the courtyard. The nun was blessed to witness Irene motionless, hands raised in prayer and floating off the ground and two cypress tress bent to the ground before her. After Irene had finished her prayer, she blessed the trees and they returned to standing upright. God is glorified in His Saints.

At the Ascension of our Lord feast, the cell of the Saint is open all day for pilgrims, a rare privilege, and Gerondissa Porfyria assigned my obedience for today to “guard” the chapel, the Saints’ relics which the Saint had brought from Russia (and his own of course), and the Saint’ holy cell which all have the fragrance of myrrh. I was speechless at the honour and the blessing!

The cross on his skull! He is one of few Saints known to bear an imprint of the sign of the cross on his skull.

St. George Karslides cell

Here, when a special needs pilgrim prostrated last Sunday, the Saint ‘visited’ her and blessed her with an amazing abundance of fragrance felt by everybody here. Miracles of healing happen all the time. The faith of the pilgrims is so powerful. God is glorified in His Saints.

The cell next door to the Saint’s cell. Originally used for storage by the Saint. Later, + Gerondissa Akylina moved here in the final years of her life and had the care of the now Gerondissa Porfyria (cf the framed photos over the bed).

Sayings of Saint George Karslides (+ 1959)

– “God cares for everyone. Despair is basically a lack of faith”
– “The Panagia does not want big candles, she wants mercy shown to the poor.”
– The Elder said that what saves man is “the good works of God: humility, obedience, love, and mercy.”
– He said to a woman he met at the monastery: “What? You go to church every day and have not forgiven your children?”
– “Do not sit at the hour of the Divine Liturgy. Your mind should not fly here and there. As long as you are in church make the decision to devote all of the time to prayer.”
– “Do not think only about what to eat, what to wear, how large a house you will build. Knock on the doors of the poor, the sick, the orphans. Prefer more the houses of the sad rather than happy. If you do good works, you will have a large reward from God. You will be made worthy to see miracles, and in the other life you will have endless jubilation.”
– “The Christian who loves all people has a great reward, especially if he forgives those who do him evil. For if we don’t love our neighbor, all the good works we do will be worthless. They amount to nothing, we will be worthless. Love, my brethren. God requires love from us.”

Cypress and Gerontikon

One great elder was strolling at a place with different cypresses, big and small. The elder told one of the pupils, “Pull up this cypress!”

The cypress was small and one of the brothers did it with just one hand. Then the elder pointed to another cypress tree, bigger than the previous one, and said, “Pull up this one, too! The brother began to sway it in both directions and finally rooted it out.

Afterwards the elder showed his pupils an even bigger tree and told the brother to do the same thing. It took far more efforts and time for the pupil to pull up the tree. Then they came across an incredibly big cypress and the elder had the same request for his pupil. Though the brother was breaking his neck to pull it up, he failed to do it. On seeing that the elder told another brother to help him. Eventually they managed to pull up the tree together.

Then the elder said the following, “Here is how our passions work: we can easily eradicate them while they are small. However, if we neglect our fight with them, they get stronger. The bigger and stronger they get, the more effort is required to pull them up. Then there is a moment when it is impossible to root them up alone, and we remain helpless until we begin to seek help from the saint people who offer their assistance to humans upon God’s grace.