AN ATHONITE GERONTIKON

Sayings of the Holy Fathers of Mount Athos.
Publications of the Holy Monastery of St. Gregory Palamas.
Kouphalia- Thessaloniki- Greece

ARCHIMANDRITE IOANNIKIOS

Chapter I.
On Christ-like Love

The ever memorable Simeon, the hermit of St. Anne's, devoted himself to the service of the sick and elderly. His kalyve1 which was dedicated to the feast of the Purification, had no water nearby. He toiled constantly, making wooden kitchen utensils to sell in Karyes, where he always went on foot. He died in 1933 at the age of 69.

At one time some monks of New Skete cleaned up the area where the bones of the reposed fathers were kept. An elder by the name of Daniel, who lived in the fort of the skete and served everyone with no complaints, once while helping on the cleanup team addressed the reposed, saying: "You struggled while living on Earth, so you have received your laurels and found your place in Heaven. Pray for us, Holy Fathers."

Then a voice was heard coming from the heap of bones: "You must have love — no one can be saved without having love!

An elder said "We are Christians, but no one keeps the commandment of 'Love your neighbour as yourself."
There were some monks, brave both in body and spirit, who were consumed by the virtue of love. Nothing could stop them, neither hard work nor the danger of contracting infectious diseases while taking care of their sick brothers. Father Panteleimon from St. Anne's was such a hero. He devoted himself to the service of others. He nursed those afflicted with tuberculosis, fed the starving during the incredible hunger of the German occupation, and finally died in 1948 after having contracted the disease himself — all without uttering any complaints. Instead, he always gave praise to God.

Ignatios from Chios, a monk of St. Anne's, gained distinction not only during our country's wars, especially in the Balkans, but also for his efforts in striving for love and charity. On his arrival at the hermitage he built a hut by the seashore in honor of the Lord's birth. There he offered hospitality to everyone, especially to the shipwrecked. He risked his own life helping many New Zealanders and British soldiers escape. All the fish he caught he would give to the destitute and persecuted. He died when he fell off a cliff in 1 947. They found him holding his forehead, with a cross in his mouth.

Another charitable fisherman was Father Sophronios from St. Anne's, who lived in a hut below Loviarika. At first he had gone to the monastery of Lavra, wanting to be tonsured a monk there, but he came back unsuccessful, Satan then attacked him by deriding him and saying sarcastically "You went as Spyros and returned with the same name — Spyros" (that was his secular name) . But he refused to despair. He returned to the monastery, was tonsured, and began to live the angelic life. He lived completely destitute, but he had a great deal of love in him. He gave away all the fish he caught to the poor fathers. He reposed when he was ninety years old.

Isaak the Dionysiatan, while praying unceasingly forgot to go to sleep, particularly at night. He devoted his prayers to the health and salvation of the workmen in his holy monastery often in tears and anguish in his loving heart. For awhile he stayed on the upper floor of the monastery's metochion.2 --The workmen could hear him praying out loud, wailing and saying "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, be merciful to the workmen. Give them their daily bread and bless them, for they are working so hard to get their daughters married off, and to help their children complete their education."

An Elder said:
Sometimes we say we have love, but what kind of love is it? What I mean is, what land of spiritual love, for I am not referring to worldly love. How can any man reach the state of considering all mankind as his brothers and sisters? Perhaps some of these people are heathen or Jehovah Witnesses. Yet, nonetheless, they are brothers in flesh, though not of course in spirit, as the Orthodox are to one another. But they are still blood brothers. We ought to shed our tears for them as well. In another instance, if an Orthodox were to become a Jehovah Witness or a Catholic, how I would weep. Now there are millions like them. Have I wept enough? No, and therefore, I am far from having true love in me.

There once was a hermit, well known to all the caves of the Athonite peninsula, who had a bright and joyful face. He would put out a cup to gather water and would wait twenty-four hours for it to be filled. Such was his patience and perseverance. His wish was to die on the day of the Elevation of the Holy Cross, celebrated on the fourteenth of September; for the fathers say that on that day there is no examination of the souls on the ascent to heaven. He was totally poor. He owned nothing, but his soul was adorned with Christ-like love.
If he knew of someone who was sick somewhere, he would gladly go to look after and serve that person. He was always ready to help, serve, and care for the elderly. He had nursed fifteen elderly and sick hermits. O man of God! You were truly an imitator of the Lord. You became a Zealot and followed Christ's example of washing his disciples' feet.

Elder Gideon from the monastery of Lavra became simple Paul the Second. As he watched an airplane flying over, he was observed praying.
"What are you doing there, Father Gideon?" "Well, I am praying, using my prayer rope," he would answer in a simple manner, "so that no plane will crash, and all the people travelling will reach their destination unharmed."

The charitable elder Charalambros from New Skete was bedridden with a very serious illness. He was visited by Father K.
"How are you getting along, Father?" asked Elder Charalambros.
"Well, Geronda, with your blessing."
"Do you have food? I have some dried bread," he said, and with some effort he got up, stretched his thin legs as much as he could, and took from the shelf a loaf of the bread. "Take it, my brother and father, and pray for me."
"This action strengthened me," Father K. said later, "and it remained fresh in my memory for the rest of my life. He was wrestling with death, yet the care for his brother took precedence over his own mortal struggles."

An elder said, "We will cry over the ruins of our skete, for love doesn't exist there. So much money .... Give a bit to a poor person, so that you will be building a little hut in heaven."
Elder Avvakoum was a disciple of love. Once, with much self-denial, he kept in his hut a youth infected with tuberculosis, looking after him for many months. Joyfully he nursed him, caring for him like a loving mother. Even though he himself was fasting, he nourished his patient with meat and other nutritious foods. He struggled hard with the young man's affliction, and the youth finally died in his arms after repenting and confessing his sins. Before the young man's repose, the elder tonsured him a monk, giving him the name Phanourios.
Another time some pilgrims found Father Avvakoum in his hut crying. When they asked him what the matter was, he told them that shortly before their arrival, some visitors had told him about some blind children who were suffering in the world, and he could not hold back his tears. His was a true affection, unselfish and practical.
Rightfully it has been said about Elder Avvakoum: "One sure thing about this man: he attracted his fellow men toward him like a healing fountain." . . .

Elder N. gave away everything he had. This ever memorable monk had as his motto "God loves the cheerful giver."
A charitable group of five brothers of St. Anne's Skete would fill up the sacks of any fathers who came for the vigils with lemons and oranges picked from their orchard.
And again some other fathers would gather vegetables from their gardens and put them out near the paths of the skete which were most frequently used by monks, pilgrims, and workmen so that all might freely share the fathers' charity, taking whatever was needed.
In far away paths even to this day, next to several prayer stands, one might find a little bread and olives to be used by any tired traveller. It is a continuation of the Athonite hospitality in Panagia's garden, where the monks see in every visitor Christ himself. This is in accordance with His word: "I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you took me in" and "In as much as you did it to one of the least of these, my brethren, you did it to me" (Matthew 25: 25-40).

St. Agapios the worthy labourer led an ascetic life at Koutloumousiou's skete near the Holy Monastery of Vatopedi. He was captured by the Turks and after twelve years in captivity was freed miraculously by the Lady Theotokos and returned to Mount Athos to his elder. The elder reprimanded him for secretly leaving his captivity. The holy Agapios obeyed him, returned and, by his virtue and holiness, persuaded the Turk and his two sons to come to the Holy Mountain where they were baptized and became monks.

The words of our contemporary wise Father Athanasios the Iviritan — mellifluous, loving, and filled with the desire for God — are echoing in my deafened ears, awakening my in- sensitive heart: "Heavenly pleasure and enjoyment beyond this world come the moment any man contemplates the mystery of the divine plan of God's incarnation, for the salvation of mankind through the Virgin Mary Theotokos. Jesus and Mary, Mary and Jesus, these two most wonderful names — that is paradise!"

"The Lord brought me down from the plane of mystical visions to the level of the practice of the virtues," an obedient monk once said. He had been caring for his aged, senile elder who was suffering from prostate infections. The elder had uncontrollable urination, which kept his disciple awake all night long.

Another one said: "Our love should be brotherly love to relatives or strangers alike."
On the treacherous Karoulia lived a Russian ascetic, Father Zosimas, a man of perfect love. He looked after the sick and gave a helping hand anywhere it was needed. During the war he fed many hermits by making baskets and selling them.

Father Gabriel of New Skete said: "Even though a man participates in the Holy Mysteries daily or gives away all his possessions to charity and reduces himself to skin and bones from fasting and doing many prostrations, he will not have God's mercy unless he has God-like love. That is why St. Paul, the great apostle to all the nations, when praising love said: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become as sounding brass or a clanging cymbal" (I Corinthians 13: 1).

One hundred and fifty years had passed since the holy Gerents, the builder of St. Anne's Skete lived, when a giant of asceticism, the elder Damaskinos, came to spend his ascetic life in a dreary hut on the north side of the skete. He was one of the strongest pillars of the skete in the sixteenth century, and he never consumed anything but dry bread and water. His prayers were of rare warmth, love and sympathy for the entire world, and his love burned like a candle.
He would pray like this: "Lord, make all idolaters unbelievers, atheists and heretics to repent, to learn the truth and to believe in you, to become 'one flock with one shepherd, and to glorify You, the only true God in Trinity-God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit-so that no one will be left out of Heaven, my Lord."
Frequently, he would go into ecstasy and have visions of great mysteries and thus be filled with divine joy and thanks- giving.

The time my ever memorable elder decided to write Memories of Panamas Garden, he was ill and not able to write it himself. But when there was some free time, unforgettable moments for me, he would narrate and I, the least of all, would compile what he said with his blessing.
We wrote about his brother monk Stephanos, who was the last one remaining from their synodia. We corresponded and were received as guests frequently in his hermitage hut.
"We did not have a pack animal to transport our loads," my elder said. "Nonetheless, we had the blessed 'pack carrier of love' whose name was Stephanos. Most of the time while carrying on his back an oversized pack and as he was climb ing from the dock up to the hill, he uttered the Jesus Prayer out loud. The fathers at the skete knew that Father Stephanos was coming, for they could hear the well-known sound of his voice: 'Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us.'
Frequently while conversing with someone, he would re peat out loud in a simple manner the same prayer, regard less of whether or not he had put the person he was with in an awkward situation.

"Being a Spartan, he had a harsh and awkward manner, forward and solemn—a severe monk, you would say, if you had not known him well. However, he had an unbelievably sensitive heart, full of compassion for the poor. On Mount Athos personalities are straightened out, becoming simpler. Masks of social politeness and pretentious courtesy are removed. These personalities are sanctified in the fountain of spontaneous love that is not found anywhere else in the world.

"I will never forget Father Stephanos' love and self denial. He would always wear the most inexpensive clothing, and he would do the heaviest jobs and eat the worst food. He would collect the left-over food from the day before, put it in a bowl, add a bit of water, and eat it quietly. Often Elder Paisios would say to him jokingly, 'Hey, old man do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing'" (Matthew 6:3). Stephanos, do you remember the nice meals we enjoyed in America? We ate like kings! And now, you are eating this watered-down food!'

"He would nod agreeably, almost with indifference, emptying the bowl with pleasure as if he were eating a gourmet meal. His hut to him was like a little palace in Heaven, surpassing the skyscrapers of America in comfort and in happiness, and his food was the best in the world.
"When he became ill with cirrhosis of the liver, we visited him in his hermitage. We would find him sleeping on a table. We offered to take him to Thessaloniki for therapy, but he adamantly refused. 'If our Panagia wishes for me to be cured, that is fine. Whatever she likes, and anyway she wants it. But 1 am not leaving Athos,' he answered. This ever memorable monk was hard on himself yet so kind to his brothers. His enormous pack displayed the struggles of his charitable heart as he travelled on foot through rocky, desolate places, bringing food and medicine to the destitute hermits. Often enough when he used a mule for transportation, it was during the night so that his virtue might not be known."


"To pray for the world is as if you are shedding blood," St. Silouanos of Mount Athos said. And again, "Our brother is our life."

Elder Avvakoum had the characteristic of spontaneous deep love which is so often found on Mount Athos. He served as an infirmarian in the holy monastery of Lavra. Days, nights, months and years, summer and winter, Elder Avvakoum spent his time over the washtub, washing the clothes gladly and without complaint for the sick brothers and for many lay people in need. He went back and forth from the washtub to the kitchen, preparing meals, feeding the sick, and providing them with fresh clothes so that they would always be clean.
I was privileged to meet and know Elder Modestos, a member of the monastic community of Konstamonitou, a tireless scholar of divine love. All his discussions were centred on love, the axis of spiritual life. Frequently he would say: "Unless we feel that all mankind are our brothers and sisters, and that we are their brothers and sisters as well, the Holy Spirit will never dwell in our hearts. The Lord loves everyone the same, the biggest sinner and the most holy man. In the same way we should embrace everyone in our hearts. Love tolerates, gives in, and endures. 'God is love'."

An elder said: "Anyone who loves God loves not only his fellow man, but the entire creation as well: trees, grass, flowers. He loves everything with the same love."
The brothers of New Skete have told me that the elder Neophytos, from the time he became a monk to the time he died in peace, remained in Panagia's garden for sixty-five years without ever leaving, even once. This ever memorable monk practiced love towards everyone as a virtue higher even than the virtues of solitude and renunciation of the world. Because of this, he loaded himself with the pilgrims' luggage, carrying it from the dock to the main part of the monastery