-HELP! HELP, Priests of the Most High, help..., Orthodox Christians, help!... Liturgies, prayers, Memorials, Trisaya... HELP.., Christians!

 Years ago, a young priest told the following terrible story:

“My mother, who did not want her son to become a priest, died in the third year after my ordination. As her son, I, as a priest, did not pay much attention to her death. I did what was necessary and nothing more.

One afternoon, towards dusk, I was passing outside the Cemetery. So I thought:

“Shall I not light the candle for her?”

I did indeed light it and sat down on a stone. However, I did not have a liturgy with me, so I did not recite the Trisagion for her. As if I was a little dizzy, however, and suddenly I thought that the graves began to open, the dead bodies of people to rise and cry out!.

-HELP! HELP, Priests of the Most High, help..., Orthodox Christians, help!... Liturgies, prayers, Memorials, Trisaya... HELP.., Christians!

I also see my mother, a little frightened:

-HELP, my son, she told me, help! Help, now that you are a priest, help for everyone, help, help.. and she fell on me, tearing with cries of despair, asking for help for her soul.

Then I came to my senses, terrified… It was already evening… I ran away… my robes were torn… and from my terror I did not sleep all night.

The next morning I said to my elder sister:

“Look and see.

For three years I will celebrate Mass every day for my mother, for all the dead, for all those who are written there, in the Cemetery, and for all the names of the deceased that they will give me from here and there.”

I celebrated a thousand and a hundred Masses continuously, without interruption!

A thousand and a hundred Memorials with kollyva, with Trisaya, with everything that was due; every day!

Many times at night I saw souls saying “thank you”, some because they were thirsty, others because they were refreshed, others because they were full, others because they were warmed up in the freezing cold!

“Thank you, I’ve warmed up, my father”, they would say to me, “I was cold, I’ve warmed up, I thank you”. Others thanked me because they saw a little light and others held “loaves of bread in their hands…”.

Very Rev. Stefanos Anagnostopoulos

Book: Experiences during the Divine Liturgy