THE LION OF THE HOLY MOUNTAIN—THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SAINT PAISIOS

THE LION OF THE HOLY MOUNTAIN—THE LIFE AND TIMES

OF SAINT PAISIOS

A commentary about the Saint by Christie Nicolles as written

In the National Herald in New York

       

     I would suggest that anyone who intensively studies the life of St. Paisios of Mount Athos is awakened to the reality that this Saint has rocked their world.   In meeting this contemporary legend by reading the books about his life one becomes amused and endeared to him by his often humorous antics that make us laugh.

            Pilgrims from the far corners of the world came to see this poor hermit at his hermitage on Mt. Athos and he would often say in response to their visits: “These people come to find refreshment from a big watermelon (referring to himself) but instead they find a big gourd.”  But the ascetic life he led in crucifying himself to the world made a visitor realize how far away he was from the sanctity of Paisios. 

            For whatever reason I am attracted to this holy man for it allows me to enter his spiritual world and I place his icon everywhere I move about in my daily routine, even on my bicycle.   This divinely illumined person is very important to the contemporary world for he has mastered the spiritual dimension of humanity and has achieved Theosis (Vision of God).   He was canonized a Saint of the Orthodox Church by the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 2015.  This canonization was brought about in the response to the Orthodox faithful who were being impacted by his miraculous life.  In spite of his apparent holiness there were a few envious monks of Mt. Athos who believed that he was a sorcerer.  Wasn’t Jesus also accused of this by His contemporaries?

            In July of 1994, as he was dying at the convent in Soureti, thousands of people had gathered outside the Convent to receive his final blessing.  The throng of people suddenly saw the Elder appear above the convent roof bestowing his blessing upon them.  This miraculous event happened while Paisius was on his death bed in the convent.  Today there is a sweet-smelling fragrance that flows from his gravesite, from his clothes and in his monastic cell.  His intercessions have saved people’s lives from life-threatening illnesses and from terrible accidents.  For example in 2006, a taxi driver was driving to the City of Thessaloniki when he saw a monk thumbing a ride on the side of the road.   He stopped and picked up the monk.  The monk got into the car and sat next to him on the passenger seat. Without ever meeting this man the Elder knew his name and said to him: “Costa you have a tumor in your lung and you should go immediately to have it checked out.” After saying this, the monk simply disappeared.  Amazed at this happening the driver took the advice he got seriously and went to see a doctor.  He was told by the doctor just what the monk had said to him, he had a tumor in his lung.  What is more important about this miraculous encounter, the tumor was at the very early stages of development and it could be treated.  When the taxi driver spoke about this encounter with a priest the priest showed him a picture of Elder Paisios.  Upon seeing the picture the taxi driver verified that it was the same monk who had hitched a ride with him on his way to Thessaloniki. 

            Many people have called him another Nostradamus for prophesying the Greek financial crisis of today.  Even the Wall Street Journal wrote about him and his predictions that we are living today.  He has also predicted that Russia will invade Turkey and liberate Constantinople. The City will then be handed over to the Greeks.  Paisios was scolded for saying this by his contemporary fellow monk Elder Porphyrios.  Porphyrios told him to keep silent about this event for reasons only the Saint knows.  Both of these monks were canonized Saints of the Church one year apart, Porphyrios in 2014 and Paisios in 2015. 

            It is reported that the Pope of Rome hearing about the holiness of these men desired to meet them at the Vatican.  Both of these Saints rejected the invitation of Pope.  Without ever communicating with one another both of these Saints rejected the invitation. They were guided by the Holy Spirit and they responded by saying: “No, we cannot go because the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope continue to demonstrate the arrogance of egotism for they want to subjugate the Orthodox Church to the delusion of the Papacy and they do not repent for its errors. We will help the situation better through our prayers.”   When did the Pope ever speak up for Holy Orthodoxy?  History records that the Vatican has not been very nice to the Orthodox Church since the great schism of 1054.

            Saint Paisios for me is a combination of General Patton and a sacrificial lamb.  He was not afraid to speak up against the lukewarm attitude that he saw in the life of the Orthodox Church of Greece.  He said: “We should witness to our faith with boldness.  Today, there is no manliness at all in the leadership of the Church.  All I see is indifference and no warriors.  Godlessness and blasphemy are allowed on television and in movies and the Church does nothing to denounce them.  These people have to be excommunicated for their lack of leadership.  A lukewarm clergy lull the people to sleep.  The priests do not become holy simply by wearing a robe. They are cowards.” Wow.

            He rebuked the scourge of political correctness and knew clairvoyantly how much worse it would get for Greece.  I can vouch for this observation because of a survey I took of the Orthodox faithful.  After a two-year survey asking many churchgoers if they truly believed in the teachings of the Church, I was horrified to learn that the majority of Orthodox faithful do not believe in them.  Apart from the philanthropic works of the Church, the faithful collectively give their allegiance mostly to the secular aspect of Church life.    No matter how many times the faithful receive Holy Communion; these people are simply cultural Christians.  Some even dismiss the admonitions of the Elders like Paisios.   These people believe that the secular way of life is the highest form of living in this world.  

            I say woe to our Churches that are descending into nothing but social clubs preferring entertainment over and above the mastery of one’s spiritual weaknesses.  Saint Paisios wanted to live a secluded life in the desert of Mt. Athos.  Kierkegaard said: “In early Christianity to be holy meant to separate oneself from the crowd—to do what was not easy; today one becomes a Christian through the easiest of processes;  the sacraments have become a social function—the Eucharist and a cocktail party go hand in hand.”   Once the beloved Paisios complained; “My time gets wasted on crowds refusing to abandon their secular thought processes.”

            During his tour of duty with the Greek Army, St. Paisios begged the Theotokos (Mother of God) in prayer saying: “Let me be tortured but don’t allow me to kill anyone.”  Paisios’ worldly name was Arsenios Eznepedes and he got his wish from the Holy Mother for he became a radio operator. He was held captive by the communists of Greece and he suffered much. He even had mystical experiences while serving in the army.  Once while praying in a deserted area of Tripoli, he was taken up mystically and was enveloped by the Uncreated Light. He said, “Monks are the Church’s signalmen; when they make contact with God through prayer, then God comes and helps the world even more than if these people were living in the world.” 

            Once he heard a Captain blaspheming all things holy and he responded to him by saying: “From now on I refuse to obey your orders for you are blaspheming God and are offending the oath that I took when I entered the army. We ought to obey God rather than men!”  In 1949 Arsenios was discharged from the Army and he began another kind of military service: he enlisted in Christ’s Monastic Order. 

            The Elder confided in his fellow monk Isaac: “From the age of eleven I read the lives of the Saints, I fasted and kept vigil.  My older brother would hide my books but I just went into the forest and read the books there.”  At age fifteen, a friend of his brother, Costas, told his brother, ‘I’ll make him give up this stuff.’  He told me about Darwin’s Theory of evolution and I was very shaken up by that.  I again went into the woods and prayed about this.  Christ Himself then appeared to me in a glowing Light.  He was visible to me from the waist up.  He looked at me with great love and said; ‘I am the resurrection and the life: he that believes in Me, though he were dead, yet he shall live.  He was holding open the Book of the Gospels in His left hand.”  In seeing this vision of Jesus Paisios was convinced of the truth of Jesus Christ and not in the wisdom of man. After having this vision Paisios thought to himself, “Costa, come back now and we’ll talk.”

            For the rest of his life, Paisios repeatedly saw the Theotokos, his own guardian angel, various Saints, and Christ Himself.  These were visions not seen in dreams but during the day while he was wide awake.  The missionary Mother Gavrilia lived in India and she met many people who were looking for an Indian guru.  She would send these men to a true man of God, to Elder Paisios. 

            In 1949, Paisios went to Mt. Athos and lost his way to the Monastery of St. Ann and ended up on the peak of Mt. Athos.  Realizing that he was lost, he prayed to the Holy Mother to help him find his way.   Suddenly an anchorite (a monk who lives a life of extreme ascetism) with a radiant face appeared before him.  He was old and his clothes showed that he had no contact with the world.  He said to Paisios, “my child, this is not the path to St. Ann’s and he pointed in the right direction he should take.  His face glowed with light!  I asked the man where he lived and he said on the peak of Mt. Athos.  I later related this experience to Elders of the Holy Mountain who said this man was one of the twelve righteous anchorites who live invisibly on the peak of Mt. Athos.”  Later when Paisios developed his spiritual life he too could become invisible to people around him and he also could be in two places at the same time.

            A Christian Martyr from the third century miraculously appeared to Paisios in his cell on Mt.  Athos.  Paisios tells us the story as it unfoled: “I returned to Mt. Athos after visiting the outside world regarding serious Church problems; I was in my cell.  I heard someone knocking on my door and then heard a female voice saying ‘by the prayers of the Holy Fathers.’  I asked myself, how could a woman be on Mt. Athos?  I then asked the person who knocked on the door to identify themselves.  The response was, ‘I am Ephemia.’ She knocked a second and a third time and then the door opened by itself although it was locked.  I then saw a woman wearing a head scarf accompanied by the Evangelist Luke.  The woman’s whole body glowed with a brilliant light.  This indicated to me that it wasn’t a demonic delusion that I was seeing.  The woman then said to Paisios ‘I am the Martyr Ephemia.’ In order to test the reality of her being there I said to her “come let us venerate the icon of the Holy Trinity together.”  She repeated after me everything I said to her.  Finally realizing this was truly St. Ephymia of the fourth century Paisios said: I will now venerate you also.  I venerated her by kissing her feet.  She then sat down and answered all the questions I had about the problems in the Church of Greece.  This went on for hours.  She told me about her life as a martyr and then she vanished.  After this encounter, I was ecstatic for days.  Following this meeting with St. Ephymia , after the Mother of God, I love St. Euphemia the most.” What an exalted passion he had for St. Ephemia after this encounter.  He even wrote a poem about this Saint.

             Thanks to Professor Kyriakos Makrides’ superlative books the Elder was introduced to the world.  One of these books is entitled “Mountain of Silence.”  Mr. Makrides asked his mentor Fr. Maximos who built a Church in Limassol, Cyprus dedicated to St. Paisios: “What chance has someone married like me and living in the world can attain union with God?  If in order to get to God one must perform excruciating spiritual exercises, what chance do I have to be united with God?  Fr. Maximos responded by saying: ‘In reality living in the world is the same as being a monastic.  You are asked to transcend and forget about yourself about your ego for the sake of the other person.  That is the meaning of marriage—husband and wife are to live a holy life, a sacrificial life for one another.’ 

            In order to explain the giving of oneself for the sake of the other, he tells us the following true story as told to him by Elder Paisios.  “A doctor visited me from America.  He was an Orthodox Christian but he had little to do with Church life.  He didn’t attend Church or fast during the prescribed fast days.  This doctor had an experience and he wanted to discuss it with someone.  This is what he told me.  One night while praying in his room the heavens opened up and he was enveloped with light.  The ceiling of the room seemed to disappear.  I remained in the presence of that light for a long time.  It was the Uncreated Light that the Orthodox Church talks about.  Now the question is, what did he do to become worthy of having an encounter with divinity?  The following is the story of the turmoil in his life that brought about his encounter with the Divine Presence.  He was married with children.  His wife said to him one day, ‘I am sick of being a housewife.  I want to go out with my friends alone.  The husband accepted this for the sake of his children.  After this the wife wanted to go on a vacation by herself.  What could the husband do, so he gave her money and a car.  She then asked to rent an apartment to live on her own so she could invite her friends over.  The husband asked her how our children felt about this.   She was adamant about doing these things.  In the end she extracted large sums of money from her husband and disappeared.  Years later the husband found out that his wife ended up being a prostitute in the night clubs of Piraeus, Greece.   The husband was distraught about this.  He thought he would go and look for her.  He then prayed saying: “May God help me, how do I save this person?”

            You see, he was hurting for her. There was no male ego, no contempt; he felt pain for the wretched state she was in.  That was the moment when God flooded him with divine light.  You see he was in America living in an environment that was not very spiritual.  Yet many monks on Mt. Athos do not sacrifice as much as he did with his wayward wife.”

            The Lion of the Holy Mountain was also friends with a bird and a red robin that lived with him at the hermitage.  The name of the robin was Olet.  When he called Olet, the robin would come to him and sit on his shoulder and eat out of his hand.  Paisios said that when I was sick the bird wouldn’t eat the food that I left for him.  He would rather fly to where I was in order to see what was happening to me.   Animals sense a person’s disposition.  The forest near the Monastery had bears, jackals and snakes.  Paisios would talk to them and feed them.  Once he told some visiting priests that they should love even snakes; when he said this a large snake drew close to him and stood up straight before him.  Truly the life of this man embodies Shakespeare’s Hamlet—“There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

            Many people have witnessed the face of St. Paisios light up with the Uncreated Light of God.  Several monks have witnessed him fully enveloped in a blue light outside of his cell.  Another person has reported seeing him levitate above the ground.  The nuns at the convent that he established in Soureti saw him rise in the air during the Divine Liturgy and later confided in them that he was taken up by the angels and saints.  While living alone on Mt. Sinai he still kept in contact in a miraculous way with the outside world.  St. Porphyrios said that Paisio had his own television.

            Even American senators, members of Parliament and King Constantine visited him.  When the president of Greece came to see him on Mt. Athos his security guards abandoned him to seek out the Elder Paisios for his blessing.  Though he was a poor hermit, the Elder had the courage to raise his voice before the powerful of the day.  One year on the eve of the elections in Greece, he recalls sitting on his wooden bed saying the Jesus Prayer and suddenly the devil appeared in the form of a high ranking politician whom he criticized for doing destructive things for the country. The demon was threatening me but he couldn’t come near me as he was bound by the power of Jesus.

            Paisios disapproved of godless politicians.  He said, “If a hand won’t make the sign of the Cross, who cares if it’s a left hand or a right hand politician.  A prime minister he publicly called detrimental to the country and the Church asked to meet with him in Soureti.  The Elder responded, “Let him come—I’ll tell him to his face what I think about him.  Imagine what he’d say regarding today’s Prime Minister Tsipras or president Obama?

            When asked when Cyprus would become free, Paisios replied, “Cyprus will become free when the Cypriots repent—they need to build spiritual fortresses in order to get rid of the bases of the British and the Turks.”  He considered the situation in Cyprus to be a spiritual one.  “And Greece has lost its way—sin rules the people who vote for anti-Christian laws.” 

            St. Paisios was asked if he becomes filled with pride after receiving so many honors from the people.  He replied, “My greatest enemy is my name.  How can I be prideful when I know who I am?  And when I think of the gallons of blood that Christ shed for me, I almost lose my mind.”  My favorite salient point of St. Pasisio is: “Logic is harmful when we use it to scrutinize the divine.  Angels and Saints enter through our windows, we can see them, talk with them, and there is no way to explain this logically.”

            St. Paisios would become very upset with people who tried to photograph him or tape his voice secretly.  If he discovered this happening he would take the audio tapes and burn them.  He would also make sure in a miraculous way that the photos they took of him would come out blank.  To a visitor who wanted to write an article about him he said, “What’s this some kind of joke?  If you want us to have a nice day together don’t write anything about me.” 

Edited by:

+Fr. Constantine (Charles) J. Simones,  Waterford, CT, USA, March 8, 2016, 860-460-9089,   ΔΟΞΑ ΤΩ ΘΕΩ ΕΝ ΤΟΙΣ ΑΓΙΟΙΣ ΑΥΤΟΥ

GLORY TO GOD IN HIS HOLY SAINTS