From the
"Life of Elder Paisios the Athonite
One time a
young man with long hair in a pony-tail came to see the elder. The elder asked
him,
"Hey,
young man, what work do you do?" "I'm a student," he answered.
"Do you have any classes left to pass?" Asked the elder. "I have
eight."
"If you
want to pass them, come over here so I can give you a haircut," he told
him smiling. He went into his cell, brought his scissors and cut his hair. The
young man considered it a blessing, and he told others about it, and they went
to receive a similar blessing. "I've tonsured many people," he would
say laughing. "Elder, what do you do with their hair?" Smiling, he
would answer, "I keep it and give it to the bald." Another time he
mentioned humbly, "If there's a chance that I'll be saved, it will be
through the prayers of mothers. Do you know how many letters I receive in
which, being moved, they thank me, since I convinced their children to cut
their hair and take out their earrings?"
He didn't
want men to have long hair, because he considered it effeminate, and quoted the
passage by the Apostle Paul, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him.
(1 Cor 11:14 ) When he would see young men with long hair he would ask them,
"The dedicated (monastics) and the absent-minded [1] let their hair grow out.
Which of the two are you?"
[1] This is
another clever witticism of the elder's. The words that he chose,
"acpisgomevoi" (those dedicated) and "acfrigrftievoi" (the
absent-minded), are phonetically similar - Ed.
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