Gerontissa Gavrilia: She was the close friend of Fr. Gabriel Tsafos
An interview with Abbess Filothei
___
There are people of enduring love and this fact puts them on a permanent
basis first in the heart and then in the memory of the people they once met. We
will refer to a woman with an open heart, a nun, a
missionary who has shown that we are capable of love, we are loving beings.
Anyone who loves will eventually suffer, but this is preferable, because
suffering broadens the heart and makes man open. So he can love indefinitely
and emerge as a person without self-seeking, says Herzegovina Bishop Athanasios
Yeftic. Gerontissa Gavrilia Papayannis was a nun of love who just did not seek
to be known, but her co-workers, who knew her, bear witness to Gerontissa until
today and highlight her. Abbess Filothei from the holy shrine of Panagia
Vrioulon gave an interview to "Orthodox Truth" about her research
with the blessing of Metropolitan of Argolida Nektarios and his urge to collect
data from people who lived near Gerontissa. Abbess is giving us details of a
dynamic course:
“We decided to do this and explore the life of this form. We have met
Gerontissa through our spiritual father, Father Gabriel Tsafos, in the past,
and that is why the Most Reverend Bishop Nektarios has come to us for research.
Our Elder Gabriel, priest at St. Andrew's Church on Amerikis Square in Athens
and Gerontissa stayed at Medias street very close to the church. So he brought
her to the church and we met her there. That's how we got to know her. They
both had a deep spiritual relationship and love for each other. There is a
letter to Father Gabriel where Gerontissa is asking him when she dies to be
buried in the area where the monastery of Our Lady of Vrioula is now built. The
shocking thing, of course, was that when this letter was written, there was not
even a monastery there.
At the Feast of the Archangels Michael and Gabriel, that she was
celebrating too, Father Gabriel went to the Divine Liturgy and always offered
her a bouquet of flowers and said to her: "Gabriel goes to another
Gabriel" and she was so petite that you couldn't see her face behind the
flowers. Many people, artists, students, young and old, who had or didn’t have
any connection with the Church, came to meet her. However, she had a special
characteristic: She did not want people "not tuned in" as she used to
say and sent many to the elder to confess. So later, when they were confessed,
they would have a common language and be able to communicate. Many children,
who would not be accepted in the church environment, were accepted by Elder
Gabriel and Gerontissa."
Abbes Filothei talks to us about her personal
encounter with Gerontissa Gavrilia when the second was ninety-one and the first
nineteen.
I first met her when I was 19 years old. She was
91!
“Gerontissa Gavrilia Papagiannis was the first nun I’ve ever seen in my
life. I was nineteen years old, a student of Theology and my name was
Anastasia. She came to meet us at Saint Andrew’s Church on the eve of the
celebration day of Saint Filothei in 1988. I marveled that she had clarity of
mind and purity of face like a young child.
She answered all of our questions and gave each one of us a blessing.
Soon I visited her at home and sat with her for an hour. I said to myself,
"How beautiful is monasticism, if it’s like this, I love it! If that is
how beautiful the church is, we will stay here". Whatever she did she did
with levity and joy, giving always blessings and her face was shining with joy.
Before I went to meet Gerontissa I had an accident getting off a trolley
because I was in a hurry and I seriously hurt my knee. I thought that it was my
mistake to hurry up and that I had a sense of pride and arrogance at that time,
a mistaken feeling that I was "someone" and after realizing this
failure I replied to myself: "Well, you know you hurt yourself like this
because you are proud, God did it to make you better." So when I met her
at her home at Medias street, I confessed to her about the event and my
thoughts. Upon hearing this she stood up, opened her arms, embraced me, and
said, "Well done, so good, well done, so you must do, and not say “ah what
happened, what a bad day, what a sad day”. To reinforce me, she mentioned an
incident in her life when once a photographer took pictures in the monastery
and was immediately struck by a severe headache that she interpreted to be an
information from angels she respected and loved, that she had not behaved
properly. She immediately apologized and the headache passed right away. In all
her life, whenever Gerontissa got sick, she used to blame herself as a sinner.
She never believed that someone transmitted a disease or that someone else was
to blame.
The dynamic and profound Christian life of the
nun. Everybody who got to know her agrees that she was full of acceptance.
“At that time I started attending Church and had a friend who was a
magician, an entangled human being. I informed him that I would meet nun
Gavrilia and suggested that he would come with me. He appeared to me as if he
was hit by a strong current and refused to follow me. I mentioned it to
Gerontissa without telling her that he was entangled with magic and then
responded with ''stay far, far, far away” as if she understood immediately what
it was all about. This man moved away from my life on his own. I also wanted to
become a Missionary and give anything I can offer to the Church and not just
take. She responded instantly with blessings and joy without second thoughts
and pessimism, she was open and believed in God. I told her a lot and I felt I
made her dizzy:
- I made you tired Gerontissa!
- No, how old are you?
- Nineteen.
- Me too.
I was in heaven when I left."
Elder Filothei takes us through and then analyzes
elements of the dynamic and profound Christian life of Gerontissa Gavrilia.
“Later we met her with Father Gabriel in the Metochi of Saint Nektarios,
at the monastery of Holy Protection (Agia Skepi) in Aegina, where she stayed
for a year. She lived there in a small house. It was very simple and humble.
Our elder, because of his origin from Asia Minor always liked decoration and
being well-groomed. He started suggesting to her to make some changes of
several things. Then Gerontissa politely interrupted him: "Father, I will
do nothing. Those who come will be visiting the poor monastery." Then she
went to Leros and after about two years she reposed.
In the research we have done on Gerontissa, there are reports from
people of different character, age and different countries, often with other
traditions who have met her. I spoke to more than sixty people and the common
element, in which everyone agrees is that in this beautiful soul there was love
and acceptance. You wouldn't think about what you should wear when you go visit
her, how you're going to behave because she's a nun. Next to her we all felt
like home, that we were having a good time and there is no reason to go
somewhere else. There was no such thought as "Oh, but she's a nun."
This woman had the gift to let you be who you are, that would have shocked
anyone. There was someone who had nothing to do with Christ and she heard him
unravel the most disgusting thing and she did not grimace to make him feel bad.
She didn't exist. She became the other person. Her trait was that she made
herself empty. When that man was leaving, Gerontissa wouldn't sit and think and
say, "Oh, poor guy, what's going to happen now!" She knew Him who
saves. She had this poor man in her prayers and knew that He would save him and
not herself. She could see and help a lot of people every day in this way.
Everywhere she worked as a missionary: in her cell at Medias street, or in the
Himalayas.
Strong bonds
At this point, though, I would like to emphasize that Gerontissa
Gavrilia repeatedly said that she owed her love for humans to God and to the
life she lived in her early childhood. She had a lot of love for people because
she received a lot of love from her family. She had a strong bond with her
mother, and when she left that life, she dedicated herself completely to
Christ. She was always open to people by exemplifying her mother's love for
others. She often referred herself as the Mission for the Church abroad,
without indicating that she had done anything important.
The great work of Gerontissa and her meeting with
Indira Gandhi
Gerontissa Gavrilia was always simple, she could live in Indira Gandhi’s
palace, and shortly afterwards in an Indian hut. She could be invited by the
maharaja and right after went to a slum and assisted the children at the place
where the lepers lived. Once, after she became a nun she was at the palace and Indira Gandhi introduced her to a prominent
politician as a physiotherapist and Orthodox nun. Then the politician, thinking
she was Catholic like Mother Teresa, asked if she comes from the Roman Catholic
Church, and then the Indian Prime Minister replied "No, it’s something
completely different".
Her character evolved from her experience. She communicated with people
with caress, with a smile, love and prayer. This was her teaching, but actually
she often taught in other ways: When she lived at Medias street in Athens,
Greece, nun Augustine, who stayed with her narrates a beautiful story: “It was
Wednesday and some ladies came to visit her, they had just started gossiping
and were accusing some women. Then Gerontissa got angry, got up, went to the
fridge, grabbed a piece of cheese and gave it to them. They wondered why she
had given them cheese on a fasting day. Her reply "If you eat so much of
the flesh of others, why don’t you eat the cheese". She believed that a
basic principle to making some steps in spiritual life is self-denying and
self-criticism, not condemnation of others. This kept her mind focused on God
and did not disrupt her prayer.
She paid special attention to prayer. She would spend some time per day
and some days per week in prayer and only then she would accept people to come.
We know from the notes she left that she sometimes wrote her prayer. She
sometimes wrote the Six Psalms or "Lord have mercy" or "Glory to
God."
In fact, as she was getting older, her writings were unstable. She loved
prayer a lot. When I was a student and had first met her I asked her how I could
exercise the Jesus' prayer. She enlightened me by saying: "Feel your pulse
and at this rate you say: "Lord have mercy", you eat and say
"Lord have mercy", you wash your face and again "Lord have
mercy". Praise God. If you forget it, do not worry. Don’t hesitate to
resume." A well-known psychiatrist, one of her spiritual children, told us
that an important element of her character was that you wouldn't feel guilty
being with her, you would feel liberated. She showed that your relationship
with God would never start with guilt, but with the fact that you want this
relationship with God, Christ. Say His Name with love."
A revealing conversation with the nurses at the
Pammakaristos clinic where she was hospitalized when she was hit by cancer.
"She was once diagnosed with cancer and was hospitalized at a
clinic near St. Andrew's church. The nurses who took care of her kept shocking
testimonies about her. I was informed by them how she with calmness coped with
her illness and her strong faith. She kept the fasts while she was in the
hospital and when her sisters told her to eat because she would fall down, she
refused, "But, you know… I have no cancer in my soul, I have it in my
body." She even talked to her cancer and said: "Come on, my little cancer,
it’s enough… you stayed with me for a long time." When Easter day came,
she was healed."
Fearless Soul
How was this fearless soul facing death? From the
words of Abbess Filothei we realize that Gerontissa Gavrilia as a true
Christian, could not accept that death was the end. Let us leave the narration
of Abbess Filothei herself:
"She was not afraid of death, she likened it with a fence, and the
man with a flower, whose stem passes through the hole of the fence and comes
out the other side that we do not see. The little rosebush blossomed on the
other side of the wall, but we can't see that. But the flower has flourished.
This is how she used to describe death. She had a love affair with Christ and
was not afraid of death. Finally, on March 28, 1992, she reposed peacefully and
the people around her felt a sweet and bitter joy. Father Nicodemus, the
Archpriest in Leros, was at her funeral. The people who lifted her coffin felt
it was very light. The residents of Leros told us that they felt a sense of
peace, but also had a sense of her presence. Gerontissa had received permission
to build a monastery in the area before leaving for the eternal life. However,
she did not see it being created, and when she reposed she was buried in the
church of the island. From there she could see Asia Minor and Constantinople,
her hometown. Actually she had expressed her desire to be buried at the
Psychiatric Clinic of Leros Island, which was not done as you can understand.
Until today many people come to venerate her grave from many places".
We thank Abbess Filothei for trusting and sharing with us and our
readers. We speak openly, without shame, to the reposed and to the saints too.
We need to shed light on their lives on earth, and we bow silently to
their new status, coming from the other side of the fence, which was said and
experienced by Gerontissa Gavrilia. We are asking her to show us in some way
the rose, as it blossoms in the new place.
P.S.
"Memory Eternal, my friend and beloved father
Gabriel! Your ancestors from Vrioula, Asia Minor are waiting for you."
August 1, 2018, the day the interview was written, we were saddened to
be informed that the Elder Gabriel Tsafos had reposed and went to meet his
Creator, together with Gerontissa Gavrilia. As a memorial, we have collected
some information that outlines the personality of an original confessor and
pioneer in his approach to young people, even marginalized people. He was the
founder of the Holy Monastery of Our Lady of Vrioula.
For 47 years he was a priest at Saint Andrew’s Church, Lefkosia street
in Athens. This is the place where he met Abbess Filothei, who was a student of
Theology and was seeking "Abba say a word”. Elder Gabriel would discharge
them when she and her friends asked him : "How should we dress in order to
visit Elder Gabriel? What should we wear?” Elder Gabriel replied to the young
women: "We don't go to our spiritual father like we go meet a politician
or any other person. To such a spiritual woman like nun Gavrilia, we go plain,
as we are."
According to the Abbess, he and his spiritual daughters founded the
monastery that still comforts many people. He had a strong love relationship
with his mother, but also a strong spiritual heritage: Two of his uncles have
been monks, both coming from Vrioula. First elder Ignatius who lived for 70
years in Mount Athos, and the second, the blessed Seraphim, who lived next to
Saint Iakovos Tsalikis in the monastery of Saint David, Evia. Both his uncles
inspired him through their humility, humor and love for people and their place of
origin. Elder Gabriel was the soul of St. Andrew's Church at Amerikis Square. A
humble priest with a huge job. He often spoke about his origin that influenced
his identity. He always referred to the value of the heart in human life. He
suggested that we should lean on God, and lately
kept saying we should be hooked on God.
Gerontissa Gavrilia said that the love of Christ and of the angels
guided her to get very closely connected with Fr. Gabriel Tsafos. When Elder
reposed, father Alexandros Karyotoglou said: “I served as a chanter for 25
years at the chapel of St. Andrew, after an invitation of Father Gabriel. I met
him during our university studies. A man of a rare and genuine love. Humility,
humor, deep and essential Faith. After Easter I participated in the Divine
Liturgy at the Monastery. We looked into each other’s eyes, he kissed me and I
kissed him. At the hospital he might have recognized me, I caressed him… All
said in this touch...!
Memory Eternal, my friend and co-priest father Gabriel. Your ancestors
from Vrioula, Asia Minor are waiting for you and so many others ...".
________
Sophia Chatzi
published in the Greek newspaper
ORTHODOX ALITHIA, 2018, August 8th
sources:
the article in greek: https://apantaortodoxias.blogspot.com/2019/02/blog-post_528.html
translated in English by https://orthodoxgladness.blogspot.com/
Δεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:
Δημοσίευση σχολίου