The following
article is pre-published, and will appear in the September 2012 issue of the
Greek periodical ΔΙΑΛΟΓΟΣ. The author has allowed for its distribution, because
of the hard times we are living in, especially in Greece.
A few weeks
ago another contemporary miracle of Elder Paisios was received in a small village of Serres. It was described by the
subdeacon Amphilochios of the Holy
Cathedral Church
of the Archangels in Serres, as lived by Pantelis K.
Pantelis, 18
years old, a young drug user, had a terrible accident with his motorcycle just
outside his village, which resulted in serious head injuries and he suffered a
concussion. He was probably under the influence of substances because, although
he was in rehab programs, this demon of heroine was not leaving him. He entered
the intensive care unit of Serres
General Hospital
with head injuries.
The doctors
had him in repression, and after an inpatient infection he was found to be in a
coma with the final opinion being that he was brain dead. The doctors, having
no other possibilities available to them, threw up their hands and told the
bereaved mother that the situation was in God's hands.
The date of
the final opinion of brain death was on July 13th. In one day her son would
have been 18 years old, and instead of entering adult life, she saw him
struggling in bed, not against the known battle of the scourge of drugs, but
quite directly for his very survival.
The lovely
Mrs. Anastasia would not put this down. With the exhortation of her Holy
Spiritual Father, Papa Athanasios, she took the bus to Thessaloniki the next day, and headed for the
Holy Monastery of Saint John the Theologian in Souroti.
She knew of
the greatness of Elder Paisios, but she did not know that on that day, July
14th, it had been 18 years exactly since the repose of the Elder. When she
arrived and saw the people gathered, she was surprised, but when she was told
that her only son was born on the same exact day the Elder reposed she almost
fainted. She felt something that she still cannot describe. A union with the
divine, the aura of the Elder, and in general that something good would come
from this.
Despite the
critical situation of her son, she did not use it to get ahead, but waited with
humility and kneeling for more than four hours until it was her turn to
venerate the place where Elder Paisios reposed. She prayed for her child and
took some dirt from the grave, which she brought to her spiritual father, who
after praying over it made it into a protective amulet. Mrs. Anastasia ran to
the hospital and placed it underneath the pillow of her son.
That very same
night she saw in her sleep Elder Paisios, saying: "Do not be afraid.
Pantelis will become well."
The next
morning Pantelis recovered and was healthy, something which the doctors were
unable to explain. A sharp fragrance had invaded the room and it was later
found that it came from the pillow of Pantelis, under which his mother had
placed secretly the amulet with the dirt from the grave of the Elder.
The only thing
Pantelis remembers from his dormancy, is the figure of an elder dresseed in
black, telling him: "Come, get up my lad to go with your mother. Your
kolyva are not on the belt. It will be a long time until we eat them."
From that
morning Pantelis had an aversion to drugs and is healthy, reading and trying to
enter university. He confesses to the spiritual father of his mother and he
wanted this miracle his family lived distributed, by subdeacon Amphilochios.
"God,
sometimes, when a person does not understand with the good, gives him a trial,
to recover. If there was not a little pain, sickness, etc., people would become
beasts, and would not approach God at all." - Elder Paisios
Translated by
John Sanidopoulos
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