Life of Saint Paisius the Svyatogorets / Orthodoxy.Ru

Life of Saint Paisius the Svyatorets

January 13 marks two years since the canonization of St. Paisius the Holy Mountain in 2015. Hieromonk Isaac, one of his spiritual children, compiled the life of an elder, revealing the secret of the birth and formation of the personality of a saint in a pious and courageous large family during the harsh years of hardship and war.

Heirs of the Cappadocian fathers

The homeland of Elder Paisios is the Akritan village of Faras (or Varasio), located approximately 200 km south of the main city of Cappadocia - Caesarea. Now this is the territory of Turkey.

There were 50 churches and many holy springs in Faras. Some of them have existed since the Byzantine era. Heirs to the tradition of the great Cappadocian fathers, local residents loved the Church, retained reverence for the shrine and an ascetic spirit. All year long on fasting days, most Pharasiotes ate food and drank water once a day - at nine o’clock Byzantine time, at three o’clock ours. “Parents gathered their children in the fortress, left them toys to play with, and at three o’clock in the afternoon, when the church bell rang for the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, they went to church and received communion,” Elder Paisiy Svyatogorets recalled the Lenten days.

A prominent bearer of the Cappadocian tradition was the parish priest of the village of Farasy, Saint Arsenios of Cappadocia (1841–1924). The ancestors of Elder Paisius were distinguished by their piety. His grandmother, Hadji-Khristina, owned a small temple in honor of St. Archangel Michael, located some distance from the village. From time to time she retired to this church, spending time in silence, prayer and fasting. One winter, a woman was covered in snow, and every day she found hot bread on the church windowsill. Christina prayed and reverently tasted this Divine gift.

Arseny's family

Reckless Heart

The elder’s father, Prodromos Theodosiou, belonged to a noble family that ruled Faras from generation to generation. Due to persecution by the Turks, he was forced to change his last name and began to call himself Eznepidis, which means “foreigner.” Prodromos was an excellent craftsman, engaged in iron smelting, and worked in Faras as a peasant. As a 16-year-old young man, he entered into a fight with a lion, wounded him and emerged victorious from the fight. In his later years, Prodromos saved his village many times from the Chets (Turkish robbers).

“Courage and bravery are one thing, but malice and criminality are completely different,” the elder later reasoned. - Taking enemies prisoner in order to cut their throats is not courage. True courage would be to grab an enemy, break his rifle, and let him go free. That's what my father did. When he caught the couples who were raiding Faras, he took away their rifles, broke them and said: “You are women, not men”... The heart must become reckless,” Paisius the Svyatogorets instructed his children.

The elder’s mother, Eulogia, came from the Frangopoulos family and was a relative of the Monk Arsenios of Cappadocia. Eulogia was married to Prodromos Eznepidis at a very young age, at the age of 15.

These pious people gave birth to ten children. The first-born - Catherine and Sotiria - died in infancy. When the Monk Arseny baptized their third child, also a girl, he ordered her to be given the name Zoya, which means “life.” Since then, none of their children have died.

Birth and baptism of a saint

The future elder was born on July 25, 1924, on the day of the Dormition of St. Anna. At the baptism of the baby, the parents were going to give him the name of his grandfather - Christ, but by the Providence of God everything happened differently.

The abbot of the Vatopedi monastery, Ephraim, says: “Saint Arseny, without asking anyone, lowered the baby into the font and proclaimed: “Arseny is being baptized.” All the relatives were there, both uncles and aunts. They all started screaming and being indignant, taking offense at Father Arseny. “Who is he? I didn’t ask anyone!” – he really didn’t ask anyone “I gave him my name!” He's vain! And he’s pretending to be a saint!” Saint Arseny heard this, of course, but continued the Sacrament of holy baptism with the fear of God. As soon as the Sacrament ended, Saint Arseny invited everyone and said: “Don’t shout, don’t judge me, because that’s what you’re sinning.” When I took the child and had to say, “The servant of God is baptized,” I saw a light cross on his forehead, and Grace at that moment told me: “He will become your successor.”

Parents of Saint Paisius the Svyatorets

In the same year, 1924, the Greeks of Asia Minor were uprooted from their fatherland. This is an event of the 20th century. called the “Asia Minor catastrophe.” After the defeat of Greece in the Greco-Turkish War, a population exchange took place, which was carried out on an ethnic basis: the Greeks living in Turkey were expelled to Greece, and the Turks who were in Greece moved to Turkey. About 1.5 million Greeks were expelled from the territory of Asia Minor. According to official data, more than 350 thousand people died at that time. In fact, the losses were much greater.

“We set off on the journey on August 14, 1924,” the elder said many years later. “Moreover, the Turks arrived ahead of schedule and began to drive people out... Although it was an exchange of population, and not a resettlement, the Turks, as always, behaved like evil wasps...”

Approximately half of those Greeks who left their native lands came to Greece. Someone died of hunger, someone from unkind hands, from deprivation, from illness... Elder Paisius was approximately 40 days old at the time of the resettlement. On the ship, in the hustle and bustle, someone stepped on a baby, and his life was in mortal danger. But God preserved His chosen one.

Arriving in Greece, the refugees spent a short time in the port of Piraeus, and then were transferred to the fortress of the island of Kerkyra, where the Monk Arsenios died and was buried according to his own prophetic words: “I will live in Greece for 40 days and die on the island.” Refugees moved from Kerkyra to Konitsa.

Young Arseny

The Greek government allocated plots of land for settlers from Asia Minor, and Paisios’s father, the old man Prodromos, while remaining the headman of the Pharasiote refugees in Konitsa, first of all made sure that other Pharasiotes received the land. For his family he left the worst allotment - the most barren plots of land. Clearing and developing these never-plowed plots, he burned thickets of thorny bushes. Then the old man's eyes were damaged from fire and smoke.

Universities of Elder Paisius

Little Arseny learned from his parents reverence for God and sacrificial service to people. Instead of fairy tales and children's stories, they told him about the life and miracles of the Monk Arseny.

The second person after the Monk Arseny, who had the most beneficial influence on the elder’s entire life, was his mother. He felt a special love for her and helped her as much as he could. From her he learned humility. His mother advised him not to try to beat his peers in games (the boy was called a “refugee” for his fast legs), so as not to be proud later, and not even strive to be the first to take a place in the line of classmates, because, as she said, “you will be the first or the last to get there.” “There’s no difference.”

The mother taught the children abstinence: she did not allow them to eat anything until it was time to eat. She considered violating this rule to be a grave sin, similar to fornication. Since childhood, Arseny preferred tasteless food, which, in addition, he did not salt, so as not to drink too much water. He washed his own clothes. She taught him never to pronounce the name of the tempter - the devil.

Asia Minor disaster

Twice a day the whole family prayed in front of the home iconostasis. However, the mother said the Jesus Prayer while doing housework.

Reply to Darwin

Having learned to read, Arseny obtained the Holy Scriptures and studied the Holy Gospel every day, reading the lives of the saints. His older brother hid books from him, fearing that this hobby would have a bad effect on the boy’s studies. However, on great holidays, Arseny stubbornly did not go to bed, lit a lamp and prayed, standing on his feet all night. Then his brother forced him into bed, wrapping him in blankets.

One day, one of Arseny’s older brother’s friends, Kostas, told the teenager Darwin’s theory. “I’ll go and pray,” the boy decided, “and if Christ is God, then He will appear to me so that I will stop wavering in my faith. He will give a sign - with a shadow, a voice or something similar.”

Having retired, he began to bow and pray - this continued for several hours in a row. Completely exhausted, he stopped and suddenly remembered the phrase spoken by Kostas: “I admit that Christ was an outstanding man - righteous, virtuous. His fellow tribesmen were jealous of His virtue and condemned Him to death.” Arseny thought: “Since Christ was like this, then even if He was just a Man, He is worth loving, obeying and sacrificing for His sake. I don't need heaven or anything like that. All sacrifices are worth making for the sake of His holiness and His virtue alone.”

With sister Christina

After this, Christ Himself appeared to the boy in an abundance of Light. “I saw Him from the waist up,” recalled Elder Paisios. “He looked at me with much love and said: “I am the resurrection and the life: believe in Me, even if you die, you will live” (John 11:25).

The same words were written on the opened Gospel which He held in His left hand.”

After this event, Arseny began to strive with even greater zeal. If someone offered to marry him, he resolutely objected: “I will be a monk.”

Firefly and the Carpenter

According to the testimonies of the elder’s classmates, in elementary school he was a diligent student. The boy’s shining eyes were so lively and expressive that he was nicknamed “Gumbisya” (firefly). However, there was no gymnasium in Konitsa, and Arseny did not have to study further. In order to support his family, he began working as a carpenter, sincerely falling in love with the craft of the Lord Jesus Christ.

To the question: “Does he regret not receiving an education?” – the elder subsequently answered negatively. He only regretted a little about his ignorance of the ancient Greek language: “If I had completed at least a couple of classes of high school, then I would have understood the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers better.”

By nature he was an artist and poet, wrote poetry, troparia, and knew how to draw. If he took on something with his own hands, he did it flawlessly: he made windows and doors, sewed ceilings and laid floors, carved iconostases and even made coffins, for which he never took money, thus sympathizing with human pain.

Peasant everyday life

During the difficult years of the Greco-Italian War, occupation, and civil war, many poor people came to Arseny’s mother to exchange jewelry for a couple of handfuls of flour. The old man’s mother gave flour and bread to the unfortunate people, but did not take anything in return.

Arseny often saw his mother crying and worrying about his brothers who fought in the war. At this time, he was a consolation and support to the family and put aside thoughts of monasticism for a while. Later, the elder will say: “Wandering does not mean making yourself comfortable, and letting your relatives go to waste.”

In the house, he took upon himself all the peasant work, of which there was a lot. His parents hired a worker to help him, but this man turned out to be unscrupulous. He mounted a horse and rode, and Arseny could barely keep up with him on foot. The worker looked like an owner, and Arseny looked like a farmhand. However, the young man never ordered him to work, but worked a lot himself, and the worker - when he was in the mood. Moreover, when taking horses to pasture, Arseny removed the saddles from them, which he carried on his back. He preferred to suffer and get tired himself, but not to tire the animals.

Paisiy Svyatogorets

In 1945, Arseny was drafted into the army. Many times he took the place of his family soldier colleagues at the forefront: “You have wives and children who are waiting for you, but I am free.” For most of his service he was a radio operator and safely retired from the army in 1949.

“My Mother will henceforth be Mary, the Mother of God”

After the war, he again responds to his father’s request for help: his older brother got married, and it was especially difficult for his father. And only on March 27, 1954, after the established test, the novice Arseny was tonsured a monk at the monastery of Esphigmen on the Holy Mountain - he accepted the ryassophore with the name Averky. And in 1956, already in the Philotheus monastery, the ascetic was tonsured into a mantle with the name Paisios - in honor of the zealous Metropolitan of Caesarea Paisios II, who was from Faras.

On October 6, 1963, Mother Paisius died, whom he loved extremely, but left for the sake of love for Christ and the Most Holy Theotokos. The elder was honored to see the Most Holy Theotokos more than once, talk with Her and even take food from Her Most Pure hands.

Having become a monk, he no longer came to his parents' house - even when he lived in the Stomion monastery, not far from his hometown. Paisius entrusted his relatives to the care of God and did not worry about them, did not even pray, but only wrote their names in the memorial so that the priest who performed the liturgy in his cell would remember them at the proskomedia.

To the monks who asked the elder about connections with relatives, he said: “We don’t need to cling to them. Contact with family is a human consolation, while we, monks, must seek consolation from God. A monk who loves his parents very much remains spiritually underdeveloped, and the Lord does not give him this Grace - to feel like family of all people and love everyone equally.” The crown of all the exploits of Elder Paisius was love, about which he himself spoke: “I feel for all people exactly the same love that I had for my relatives. Now I feel the people of the whole world as brothers and sisters.”

Veneration of the Reverend

January

2015

The Holy Synod of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, having considered many evidence of his holiness, unanimously decided to canonize Paisius the Holy Mountain.

This happened just 20 years from the date of his death - July 12, 1994.

July 12 is the feast day of St. Paisius.

Hundreds and thousands of pilgrims come to his grave, which is located behind the altar of the Church of St. Arsenius, every day.

Icon

On the icons, Saint Paisios is depicted wearing a monastic hood or a simple cap. He has a white beard and may be holding a scroll with spiritual instructions in his hands. In another version, the hands are simply folded on the stomach. Sometimes Paisius is depicted together with the Monk Arseny. In the life-size icon, the Elder leans on a staff or holds a cross, like the martyrs. There are also known images of the Elder with an icon of the Mother of God, which he holds to his chest.

Relics

On the territory of the monastery, twenty kilometers from Thessaloniki, near the village of Suroti, there is the grave of Elder Paisius the Holy Mountain. The main church houses the relics of St. Arseny of Cappadocia.

Return to Athos

In 1964, Saint Paisius the Svyatogorets returned to Mount Athos, from where he subsequently traveled quite rarely. First, the elder stopped at the Iveron monastery.

In 1966, Saint Paisios became seriously ill and was hospitalized in Thessaloniki. As a result of the operation, the old man lost a significant part of his lungs. Elder Paisios spent the recovery period before returning to the Holy Mountain in the monastery of St. John the Theologian in Souroti, near Thessaloniki. Saint Paisios returned to Mount Athos after restoration, and in 1967 he moved to Katunakya.

Since then, many began to come to Athos and seek a meeting with Elder Paisius. His name became well known far from Mount Athos. Thousands of sufferers flocked to him after learning about the amazing qualities of Elder Paisius.

The following year, Paisiy moved to the Stavronikita monastery, where he significantly helped the brothers of the monastery in their work promoting the reconstruction of the monastery. Elder Paisios also helped in the cell of John the Baptist as a singer. Since 1968, the saint lived in the cell of St. Tikhon, with whom he was connected by close spiritual friendship.

Miracles

It is impossible to count the miracles performed by the Monk Paisius during his lifetime. Even more miraculous incidents have happened and are happening in the world every day through prayer to the Elder. Sometimes people who don’t even know the saint receive salvation from him in unforeseen situations.

The children of a priest of the Greek church were jumping on the roof of the house. One of them fell into an open hatch from a height of the fourth floor. When the frightened child was examined, not even a bruise was found. When asked who saved him, the boy pointed to a photograph of Elder Paisius.
An unchurched man was involved in a serious car accident. While in intensive care, he saw an old man who healed him. Afterwards, seeing a photograph of Paisius the Svyatogorets in a bookstore, the man recognized the Elder, read the book and became his admirer, radically changing his life.
The young man “flew” on a motorcycle into an oncoming car and remained alive, thanks to the Elder who appeared and grabbed him by the hand. Seeing the photograph later, he also recognized him.
The scarf of St. Paisius healed a woman suffering from breast cancer.
One woman, in desperation, wanted to kill her sleeping husband, who was not helping her feed her family, and had already grabbed a knife when an unknown monk appeared to her and stopped her. Leaving the house, she saw a photograph of a stranger in a newsstand. It was the monk Paisius from Suroti.
A woman named Ekaterina mistakenly took the wrong pills that were needed for her illness. She felt bad. She looked at the photograph of Paisius Svyatogorets and told him that she felt very bad. At night, the Elder appeared to her in a dream and told her to read the instructions for the pills she was taking. She stood up and read on the packaging that these pills were not suitable for her at all.
L.N. Maslova, a doctor, said that what happened was that she injured one eye. She was taken to the hospital by ambulance. At night, Elder Paisios appeared to her and touched her head. She recognized him because she had read his books. After that my eye stopped hurting.

The Church teaches that until the end of time there will be holy people among us on earth. Through their prayers this sinful world will continue to stand. Elder Paisios is such an extraordinary saint that he can be compared with the famous miracle workers of antiquity. But he lived at the end of the twentieth century!

This means that in our time the Lord gives His grace to those who open their hearts to Him.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him, and he with Me” (Rev. 3.20).

Author: Alexander Babushkin

^sss^Venerable Paisius the Holy Mountain^sss^

Firefly and the Carpenter

Proceedings

The Monk Paisius the Svyatogorets left a rich spiritual heritage. He possessed, among other things, literary talents. Many teachings, stories, letters written or told by the Elder to his contemporaries who came to him have been collected.

Geronda Paisius compiled the life of the saint with whom his parents lived in the same village - St. Arsenius of Cappadocia, and restored the chronicle of the Konitsky monastery of Stomion. The sisters of the monastery where the saint rests are engaged in publishing the elder’s works. Thanks to this, the entire Christian world has the opportunity to read unique stories from his life, as well as miraculous incidents told by him.

According to the elder, the “Words” series was published, including 6 volumes: “With pain and love about modern man”, “Spiritual awakening”, “Spiritual struggle”, “Family life”, “Passion and virtues”, “On prayer”. The last book in this series describes the pious custom of Elder Paisios reading psalms for various needs, “Psalms for every need according to Saint Arsenius of Cappadocia.”

Peasant everyday life

Paisiy Svyatogorets

The end of his life

After 1993, Elder Paisius began to experience bleeding, but he still refused hospitalization, citing the fact that “the earth will fix everything.” In November of the same year, Saint Paisius the Svyatogorets went for a holiday to the monastery of John the Theologian in Suroti. From there, Paisiy went to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with a tumor in the large intestine. On February 4, 1994, the elder underwent another operation.

Although the disease did not recede (metastases appeared in the lungs and liver), Saint Paisios announced his desire to return to Mount Athos, but high fever and difficulty breathing forced him to stay.

At the end of June, his doctors announced that the old man had no more than two to three weeks to live. On Monday, July 11 (Feast of Agia Ephemia), Saint Paisios prayed for the last time on his knees before his bed. In the last few days of his life, he decided not to take any medications or painkillers, despite being in terrible pain. In the end, Saint Paisius the Svyatogorets departed to the Lord on Tuesday, July 12, 1994, at 11:00. He was buried in the sacred monastery of St. John the Evangelist in Suroti.

Panaguda

In 1979, Saint Paisius the Svyatorets left the monastery of the Honest Forerunner and went to the Kutlumush monastery. Panaguda was an abandoned, dilapidated monastery, and Paisius worked hard to restore it. It was there that he remained for the rest of his life.

From the moment Elder Paisiy Svyatogorets settled in Panaguda, the flow of people to the elder’s monastery did not dry up. There were so many people that Saint Paisius had to paint signs to the path leading to his cell so that visitors heading towards him would not disturb other monks.

In addition to the endless stream of pilgrims, the elder received a huge number of letters. They especially saddened the saint, because they invariably talked about the troubles and illnesses of those who wrote. Despite his busy schedule of receiving visitors, Saint Paisios continued his ascetic life, resting only 2 to 3 hours a day. He continued to receive those asking and try to help all the guests.