Introduction
Some comments made by Misha: This letter
was received in 2006. It was kept hidden because of personal reasons by
its recipient. Today the time has come to publish it after getting the
permission from its author.
A friend, G, met Fr Paisios, whose
existence he was not aware of, in 2001(seven years after the elder’s
passing), when G went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Mount Athos. The
following letter describes the beautiful circumstances of the meeting,
the conversation and his acquaintance with Elder Paisios.
I would like first to give thanks to the
Lord, for people like Elder Paisios, and especially for dear G, who so
openly entrusted me with the details of his acquaintance with Elder
Paisios. I pray that Our Lady and the Elder will protect him and his
family now that he is in foreign land.
My friend Misha, Hello!
Finally, almost five years later the
story of my meeting with Elder Paisios is coming to a positive
conclusion and therefore I can finally draw the line and find some peace
at last. It is impertinent that I share this experience with someone.
Especially since this someone is you, who have already met Fr Paisios.
Even here, I can discern his intervention. I only want from you to
listen to the whole story as a form of confession. I am certain that you
will show the necessary understanding like no one else would. This is
enough for me. I will also include some pictures with my story, since a
picture is worth a thousand words.
25 November 2001
The path towards the Holy monastery of
Karakallou: a few hours before I met with Fr Paisios. (The picture has
been changed a little by the recipient to protect the privacy of the
author)
I met the Elder at a similar point on
the path, and he was dressed in exactly the same way. The only
difference with the picture is that during the day of the meeting, the
day was cold and dull and there was some snow on either side of the
road. It was also especially muddy since it had only recently been
cleared of the snow. At this point the road was coming into a V shape. I
was getting ready to follow the left path towards the beach, since I
had wrongly assumed that the monastery was close to the beach.
The Elder suddenly appeared and after
telling me “You are not going in the right direction, follow me” he
began taking the right hand side of the road. While I was following a
few steps behind, I was wondering why on earth wasn’t he freezing since
he was so thinly dressed. And also: “Why his shoes weren’t so muddy like
mine were?”
I was impressed by how quickly he was
walking. I had started losing my breath and I felt relieved when he
finally told me: “Follow this path and Christ and our Lady will protect
you. I will return to my Skete”. Beforehand, he had also commented that
“they use the bulldozers and destroy the paths of the Holy Mountain” and
asked me: “Is it snowing in I…?”
It all lasted more or less ten minutes.
When we each went our way, I felt that something completely strange had happened but I could not fathom what it was.
I left the Holy Mount Athos on the 15th
of December. Just as the ferryboat was being towed away from the Daphni
dock, I felt utterly and deeply pained for leaving. Five years later, I
know now that a huge part of me is still there.
I celebrated Christmas and the New Year 2002 with my family. Afterwards, I picked up my rag sack and went off once again.
The pain of being away from Greece was
very strong once again. The years go by and the possibility of never
seeing Greece again was becoming more real.
(A personal account follows for the years 2002-2003)
The pain was not as tough now, but the
remembrance of my meeting with Elder Paisios was getting stronger. This
led my brother to tell me on the phone once: “Please, let’s not start
with this monk again!”
(More personal details follow regarding 2003-2004)
During the Olympics I had the incredible
urge to build a small chapel in our place. My desire was very strong
even though I had never been openly religious.
My relationship with the Church was formal. I was just showing respect for my religion and the Church and nothing more.
During the autumn of 2004 I started
drawing the design and gathered together all the materials. In 2005, I
built the chapel inside the room I used to have as my hobby/computer
room.
Everything was going well and I was
enjoying myself. It was strange but sometimes the room was filled with
some wonderful scent, and I didn’t know where it was coming from. My
wife could not smell anything. I built it piece by piece, using good
quality cement and I hope it will last for many years to come.
I finished beginning of May 2005 and
took all the pieces down to the garden in order to put them together.
Beginning of August 2005 everything was ready. They sent me a small bell
from Greece, some Holy water from the Church at Spata and some oil from
Saint Efraim’s oil lamp.
On the 15th of August we inaugurated the Church and devoted it to our Lady. We called it “The Omnipresent Lady”
The icons have been sent as gifts from my family in Greece. Then all of a sudden weird things started happening.
During the following day, I was working
at my computer. I often work with many pages simultaneously. When I
finished and was closing the pages, the Elder’s picture showed up, which
I had been searching for, for so long. I still didn’t know his name. I
was so shocked that I immediately picked up the phone to speak to my
sister: “I found the monk. He has been showing me his shoes, as if he
was asking me ‘do you remember me?’ ” I also told her that I would send
her a picture to show to our parish priest, in case he knew who he was.
My sister, who is more down to earth, told me that it looks like he is
either going to show up again or give clues as to his identity.
A few days later, I listened purely by chance to Manos Tsimilides’ programme
‘Agrypnos’ on ΝΕΤ. I heard him tell one of his listeners who was looking for the saints of the day, to look up in www.eortologio.gr. I curiously looked up the page, a truly wonderful one and very useful for people like me. I then wrote
something entirely common in the Guestbook. Ten days later I received an e mail from www.kivotos.1821.gr
in which they were informing me about their website. I replied asking
them ‘where did they find my address’ and they replied: From
the eortologio.
I very much like the site ‘kivotos
Help’. They are wonderful people. I especially like the answers they
give to their members’ questions. We went on to exchange some very
interesting e mails. In one of them, I referred to the difficult times
the modern Greek family is going through. They agreed with me and said:
“Especially now that Elder Paisios is not with us anymore, to help…” I
asked who exactly Elder Paisios was and they said that he was one of the
best and most loved Hgiorites of recent years. They sent me two
pictures. I thought that it was the right time to ask them about my
elder and I sent them his pictures. I am sure they thought that I was
mocking them. They simply send me his address:
I visited the page but I still didn’t
know his name in order to ask of him. I surfed in the internet many
hours before I finally came to realize that my elder, was indeed
Paisios. I believed that he had died after our meeting on the Holy
Mountain on the 25th of November 2001. I asked for some more details and a brief resume of his life at the Forum of ‘athos edo’.
G angelos replied with a brief account
of his life and recommended the book which hiernmonk Isaak had written.
When I read about the date the elder had passed away, it was as if I had
been hit by a thunderbolt. Even my wife realized it and asked me what
had happened.
I asked for the book to be sent from
Greece. It is one of the most difficult ones I had ever read. It has
affected me a lot. It is difficult for me to grasp all those willing
hardships that he had imposed upon himself. The strength of his will was
something unbelievable.
This is shortly my account of the
meeting with Elder Paisios. I have no doubt that he had saved my life at
that time in the Holy Mountain. He now does the same by leading my life
slowly towards salvation. It has been difficult for me to write this
letter to a stranger. It is something I have never done before. I would
just like to show that I am not being fanatical, or rather that I have
not gotten on a high horse. I am a normal person with my weaknesses…(
some personal details are given here)
Many the Lord have mercy on me.
It is strange but something inside me
tells me to trust you. It is something I cannot explain. But during the
last few years, so many things have happened which I cannot explain
anyway. I leave it up to you to consider if it is worth publishing this
story. I think I owe it to him, that people should learn about this
story. You may use my letter and the pictures as they are or you can
tamper with them as you see fit. I hope I didn’t pester you with my
rambling. I wish you all the best. Have a nice weekend.
Kind regards,
G.
Some further comments made by Misha:
All the personal details of my friend G
are available to everyone. The letter in its entirety (and the parts
which we have today left out) will be handed over to the right place so
that it can be evaluated and presented for the benefit of those who
respect the Elder. I ask all those friends who may wish to reproduce it
to preserve its content and name its source in order to prevent things
like “the malfunctioning phone” which often appears in personal account
stories.
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