A
SHOCKING EVENT THAT TOOK PLACE WITH THE ELDER
IAKOVOS
TSALIKIS….. “I saw your guardian angel”
SAINT
IAKOVOS TSALIKIS NOV. 5, 1920-NOV. 21, 1991
The following is a dialogue between
Klitos Ioannidis and Dr. George Papazahos.
Dr. Papazahos was a cardiologist in Athens, Greece and was the personal
physician of Saint Porphyrios. Klitos
Ioannidies is the author of books about Saint Porphyrios. In fact, the book that I used to translate into
English was authored by Klitos Ioannidis. In that book about Saint Porphyrios “Elder
Porphyrios, Testimonies and Experiences,” there is a whole chapter about the
doctor’s personal experiences with the Saint.
I found this article especially interesting because the doctor apparently
had a very close doctor/patient relationship with this other Saint of the
Church. Elder Iakovos was a contemporary
of Saint Porphyrios and they would often communicate with one another in
prayer. In fact, when Elder Iakovos died,
Saint Porphyrios was not able to attend his funeral. In spite of his physical absence
from the funeral Porphyrios managed to be present at the funeral through his
powers of spiritual communication. When
I say spiritual communication, I mean that Saint Porphyrios was literally present
at the funeral in spirit and observed everything that took place at that
funeral service. This event is referred to by Saint Porphyrios in the book that
I translated.
This following
is being translated from the Greek by:
+Fr.
Constantine (Charles) J. Simones, January 12, 2015, Waterford, CT,
860-460-9089,
OUR
GUARDAIN ANGEL
KLITOS
IOANNIDIS: Mr. Papazahos, how did you
get to know Fr. Iakovos?
GEORGE PAPAZAHOS: He was admitted to the Government Hospital of
Athens for the problems he was having with his heart. As soon as I heard that he was in the
hospital, I went to see him. It was the
day when they moved him from the Intensive Care Unit to a room that had three
beds and a cot. They put the Elder on
the cot. My first impression when I
first saw him was something that cannot be described. If I told you that he was a man who was literally
glowing is missing the point. His
appearance was quite something else. He
literally was filled with light. When I
entered his room, other doctors were there making their daily rounds with their
patients. Coincidentally the doctors
there were my former students from the University. As soon as they saw me, they approached me and
apprised me of the condition of the Elder.
When they finished and left the room, I went and sat next to the Elder
Iakovos. As soon as the Elder saw me, he
made the following observation about me which literally made my hair stand on
end. As a Christian I had never thought
about this before.
He said to me: “I do not know
you. This is the first time that I meet
you. But I can see your guardian angel standing
behind you.” That which he said
literally shook me up. I do not say this
out of pride, and then he added: “All human beings have guardian angels and I
now see your guardian angel. Be very
careful that you never act in such a way that you chase away your guardian
angel from your presence.” I get the
chills every time I think of what he said to me when I met him for the first
time. The Elder Iakovos finished his
statement by saying: “That angel has been assigned to you from the day of your
baptism. From the day of your baptism he
accompanies you and he should never leave your side. It is he who will finally take your soul into
his hands and will guide it until the Day of the Great Judgment. While guiding you to the Judgment the demons
will attempt to bad mouth your acts in life.
They will say to the angel ‘he did this evil deed and he did that sin. The
guardian angel will defend your soul by responding that he also did this good act
and that good deed. He is your lawyer
and he will aggressively defend you.
Therefore, be careful; do not ever distance yourself from him. I saw that he was close to you.” From that very moment I never forget that
next to me I am being escorted in life by my personal guardian angel. This is a great message of joy to all those of
us who have been baptized as Orthodox Christians.
KLITOS
IOANNIDIS: That was truly an amazing experience Mr. Papazahos, that the Elder
Iakovos was able to see your guardian angel.
GEORGE
PAPAZAHOS: When I encountered the Elder
Iakovos, I had the feeling that I was in another world. He spoke about my problems in a very
different way, making me realize that although he was next to me, he was living
in another dimension. And that filled me
with a feeling of joy.
KLITOS
IOANNIDIS: He was coming from another
place.
GEORGE
PAPAZAHOS: He would inform you that we
were created to dwell someplace else other than this world.
This
dialogue is taken from the book “Contemporary Saints” by Raphael Xilotimpou. The book was printed on the Island of Cyprus
in 1994.
WE
SAW THE SAINT WITH OUR OWN EYES BLESSING US
ANOTHER
SHOCKING MIRACLE BY ST. DAVID OF EVIA, GREECE
SAINT
DAVID OF EVIA, GREECE 1519-1601
With a great deal of emotion I would
like to share with you an event that took place at the Monastery of Saint David
forty five years ago. At that time I was
living with my parents in the village of Kokkinomilia. It is a beautiful place in northern
Evia. It is a mountainous place with a
great view of the Aegean Ocean. At that
time I was a cantor for the villages of Koulouri and Marouli, two adjacent
small villages filled with life and beauty.
On October 31, 1960, my wife and I decided
to visit the Monastery of Saint David.
We wanted to do this because it was the feast day of the Saint. Travel at that time was made either by mule
or by walking. Our daughter suddenly got
sick and this made us cancel our pilgrimage.
Even though our daughter got better that night, our trip was
canceled.
On December 5, 1960, on the eve of
the Feast Day of St. Nicholas, we embarked upon the pilgrimage that we had
canceled previously. When we got to the
Monastery we met thirty other pilgrims from the central part of Evia, from the
village of St. Ann. When we arrived at the Monastery we met the Abbot Fr. Cyril
who today serves the Monastery. At that time he was a layman and he was with
his mother. Fr. Cyril was on leave at that time from his
army duty. The Vesper Service that evening
was being served by Fr. Iakovos Tsalikis and Fr. Gregory who today is the
priest in our village of St. Ann. We
were informed by them that there was a twelve year old girl present who was
having conversations with Saint David.
Her first contact with the Saint
took place in the Church of Saint Ann on the occasion when the relics of St.
David were being offered for the faithful to reverence. At this vigil at St. Ann’s Church the twelve
year old girl suddenly saw Saint David and began a conversation with him. This encounter was later repeated again at
the Monastery of Saint David. We were
greatly astonished by this. We were
witnessing the converstaion and we could tell by the answers the girl was
giving to St. David what he was saying to her.
Please note that while this was going on we never saw the Saint nor
heard his voice.
THE
UNFORGETTABLE DIALOGUE WITH THE SAINT
We now offer to you the amazing conversation
which greatly impacted our lives. The
Saint said: “Your teacher Mantz…..is sinful. ‘No, holy one, he is a good person”
answered the girl. “Yes, a day will come
when he will repent and through his preaching two thousand people will believe
in Jesus Christ,” said the Saint. The
Saint asked the girl if she wanted to see hell.
Her answer was positive. “Yes, I
would like to see hell and those who dwell there.” We would like to point out at
this point that while this was going on the girl was in a trance. They immediately found themselves in
hell. The girl was horrified with what she
saw and she yelled out; “Holy one take me out of here because I cannot endure
to watch the suffering.” But before they
left the girl asked the Saint to explain to her a particular fearful sight that
she was watching. “Why is that woman
eating her child?” “Because in the world
she gave birth to the child and then she killed it,” answered the Saint. She again begged the Saint to take her from
that place because she could not stand to look upon that fearful sight. We could tell from the scared look on her
face the terrible things she was seeing.
Saint David then asked her: “Do you now want to see the chosen ones in Heaven?” “Yes, holy one,” was her answer. They suddenly found themselves in
Heaven. The girl said: “Holy one, how
bright the sun is here and how beautiful the roses are. Holy one, how come some of the roses have
blossomed, some are half open and some are closed?” Saint David responded: “The open roses are
the pure souls of Christians. The half
open roses are the souls of Christians that are not so pure. Those that are
closed are the souls of those who do not believe.” The girl asked: “Holy one why are those
people with the white wings sweeping the roads?” Saint David responded: “Those angels who are
sweeping the streets are preparing them for the soul of Fr. Iakovos to pass by.”
Fr. Iakovos was with them on this spiritual journey and he heard all these
things. The girl asked: “Will the soul
of Fr. Iakovos come by soon?” “His arrival will be greatly delayed because he
must hear the confessions of the people?”
I then saw Fr. Iakovos wiping his tears with his handkerchief.
During the course of the conversation
a bus arrived with about thirty five passengers. They all entered the Church. When they entered the Church they found the
people in the Church standing in absolute silence. This aroused their curiosity
and they asked us what was happening. We
told them that we were living a miracle.
We are listening to a conversation the girl is having with Saint
David. They laughed and made fun of
us. Suddenly the dialogue of the girl
and the Saint stopped. Perplexed, the
girl asked the Saint: “Holy one, why are you leaving; is it because the souls
of the Christians are not clean?” He
responded saying: “The bus that just arrived with thirty five people is filled
with disbelievers except for one elderly woman who is eighty five. It is because of her piety that the bus has
arrived safely.” “What did you say Holy one?”
“There is an Athenian on the bus who is tall and bald. He has a dog that he feeds better than he does
his child. Many poor people who came to
him for help are turned away by him.” We
understood what was being said by the Saint by hearing the questions of the
girl.
The man that was described by the
girl approached me and asked: “What is
this place that we are visiting?” “It is
the Monastery of Saint David,” I responded.
“But the man that was described by the girl is me. How does she know these things about
me?” This man took his wife’s hand, they
went and stood before the icon of Saint David and said to the Saint: “Unknown
Saint, I do not know who you are but I want to thank you for I have found faith
in God in this wilderness.”
The girl directed her attention to
those who had entered the Church and said: “I request those of you whose souls are
burdened with sins must leave the Church because the Saint does not want to
look upon you.” The passengers of the
bus left the Church for they did not want to stay any longer. As soon as they left the dialogue of the
Saint and the girl continued. The time
was now past midnight. “Holy one do not
leave, I am not tired,” said the girl and immediately she continued. “Oh, at three o’clock you will perform a
miracle?” She rubbed her eyes and turning to her friend next to her, said: “I
am falling asleep.” “Yes, you are
falling asleep,” she answered. “Forgive
me, Holy one, I have come here to honor you and I am falling asleep,” she said
to herself. At that moment we realized that
she was unaware of all the things that were happening to her.
We, in anticipation, were waiting for
the miracle to happen at three o’clock which the Saint had previously announced. It was 2:45 a.m. and the bells of the
Monastery began to ring joyously. We all
rushed outside to see who was ringing them. They were ringing by
themselves. We believed that this was
the miracle that we were waiting for. We
again entered the Church. The time was
now 3 a.m. Suddenly all of our attention
was focused on the upper part of the icon screen. High up near a small window on the white wall
appeared a shadow which attracted our attention like a magnet. We asked ourselves, why is that black shadow
on the wall attracting our attention?
We then saw the head of Saint David appear with his white beard, exactly
as he is depicted in his icon. In fact,
we could also now see his stole with two or three crosses on it. He was moving his head. He was holding the censor in his hand and he
began censing. We could hear the little
bells on the censor ringing loudly. Tears of compunction filled our eyes. We beseeched the Saint to have mercy on
us. Our tears flowed continuously. The Saint held the censor in his left hand
and he blessed us with his right hand. I
confess that I will remember this for as long as I live and I will not forget
the sweetness of his face. It was a
sweetness that brought joy to our souls.
At the moment that the Saint bent over to kiss the girl, he yelled out
loudly: “My Holy Mother, my Christ.
Jesus is passing by. The Holy
Mother is passing by along with Saint Basil the Great, Saint John Chrysostom,
Saint George, and Saint Demetrius.” He
continued to announce a whole host of Saints for a long time as they passed in
review.
We could only see Saint David who
was bowing before the procession. We
could not see anything of what the girl was talking about. Amongst other things I would like to share
with you an equally unbelievable incident that happened to my wife that
evening. She was holding our little girl
in her arms that whole night without getting tired. At one point, when she attempted to get a
better look at the Saint she felt that the child had become unbearably
heavy. She attempted to put the child
down but it remained in her arms even though she was no longer holding it. Saint David remained visible to the naked eye
for a whole hour in the Church. “My
children here is the Saint, he is here near us.
You should ask him to help you always.
Let us now start the Matins Service that will be followed by the Divine
Liturgy.”
At the end of the Divine Liturgy I
conversed with the young soldier and my friend who is now the Abbot of the
Monastery, Fr. Cyril. “Costa did you see
what happened tonight,” I said. “Yes
Steve, these are living things, I am shocked by them. As you see I am a soldier
and I say to you now that when I am discharged from the army I will come here
immediately. I will not go back to my
village. I want to serve the Saint who
appeared to us tonight and I have seen him alive with my own eyes. What other proof do I need?” And finally, this is the way it
happened. When he was discharged from
the army he went directly to the Monastery.
Today he is the Abbot of the Monastery of Saint David.
I pray with my whole soul that he
will always be worthy of his calling. I
pray that Saint David and his predecessor Fr. Iakovos will grant him the
strength, the patience and good health to serve the faithful who journey to
this harbor of faith so that they may find peace for their souls.
