In Greece Hieroschemons John told me a parable about how one family lived on a desert island among the ocean, abandoned there by shipwreck. All members of the family ate roots and herbs and lived in a cave. The children did not remember when and how they got to the island. They forgot their homeland and did not know what bread, milk and fruits were. One day a boat with four natives came to the shore. All the victims were very happy with them and immediately decided to leave the island at once. But the boat was so small that it could not accommodate the whole family, and the father went first. Mother and children wept bitterly, seeing him in the departing boat.
But the parent comforted the family, saying goodbye: Do not cry, it's better there, and we'll all see each other. Soon the boat returned and was taken away by his mother. The children cried even more.
"Do not cry," their mother consoled them, "we'll soon meet in a better country."
At last the boat approached the children. When the last inhabitants of the island found themselves in the boundless sea, they were very frightened of their dark carriers, and this fear did not leave them all the way. But what was their joy when they met their parents on the beach.
"Dear children," said their father, "in our transition from a desert island to a fertile land, there is a great deal of meaning: we all have to move from this world to the best. For our land is like an island; the country in which we now find ourselves, a weak likeness of Heaven, and the rapid passage from the island to here is death. The boat is a stretcher, on which four bearers in black clothes will carry us. When the time comes to leave the earth, people who are godly, loving God and obeying His will, such a transition is not terrible; for them death is a transition to a better life. "
Hieromonk Evtikhy (Dovganiuk)
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