Teachings. Athonite Elder Porfiry Kavsokalivit. Children and youth

24.09.2019

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November 27, 2013 Holy Synod The Patriarchate of Constantinople decided to canonize Elder Porfiry. On the eve of December 2 - the day of remembrance of the elder - the portal Pravoslavie.Ru introduces readers to a brief biography, as well as selected miracles and instructions of the saint.

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“In order to have the right to walk the true path, one should constantly read the Holy Scriptures, the lives of saints, and other church books. If, while reading, any word or thought from what you read strikes you, stop reading and linger on it longer, think about it carefully. You will soon see what great benefits this brings.”

“Read more to enlighten your mind. You know, I read a lot myself. So that no one would bother me, I climbed up one tree using a ladder that I made myself. When I went upstairs, I dragged her along with me so that no one would notice anything and so that I would not be disturbed. So I could read carefully and reflect on what I read for many hours.”

Confession is a gift of God's love to man

Elder Porfiry Kavsokalivit is very widely known in Greece. We will not be mistaken if we say that this is one of the most revered elders of the Greek Church. There are about ten books in Modern Greek about Elder Porphyry Kavsokalivt. All books are very different.
There is no doubt that the best and most profound book is the publication by Anastasia Dzavara “Memories of Elder Porfiry.” Hereinafter the translation of the names is our own. This book is apparently not published in Russian. The memoirs of Anastasius Dzavara are a golden fund of teachings by Porfiry Kavsokalivit. Anastasios was the elder’s favorite child, and Geronda revealed to him, as we would say, the Secrets of Divine Love.
The second most important book is “Elder Porfiry Kavsokalivit Life and Words.” This is a collection of teachings selected from other memoirs. This book contains the Autobiography of the Elder and some teachings. (However, the translation cannot be considered satisfactory for reasons that can be found out in more detail on the website).
The third book, “The Flower Book of Advice,” is also not original. This is a compilation from various publications. If the second book contains the original Autobiography of the Elder, then here is only a selection of teachings on the basis of a symphony. This book produces pleasant impression mainly because it contains a lot of advice from Anastasia Dzavara’s publication “Memories of Elder Porfiry.”
The book “Tsvetoslov of the Councils”, like the second “Elder Porfiry Kavsokalivit. Life and Words”, published by the Monastery of the Life-Giving Spring; the symphony was collected and prepared by nuns. In this regard, I just want to remember: Elder Porfiry Kavsokalivit himself said that women and men have too different spiritual paths. What is important to a woman is not always suitable for a man...
The fourth book worthy of attention: George Krustallaki “Elder Porfiry - spiritual father and mentor”, this book has also been translated into Russian. This is one of best books about the old man. The book includes original memoirs.
We will only briefly mention the remaining books. This is the book of monk Agapius “The Divine Light that Elder Porfiry kindled in my heart”, the book of Yannitsyoti “Near Elder Porfiry”, Ioannidi “Gerondikon”, Hieromonk Damascene “He who is virtuous for the sake of God will be loved by Him...”, Ioannidi “Elder Porfiry”, Anastasia Kaliatsu “Father Porfiry”, “Elder Porfiry” published by St. Barnabas, and, of course, the book of Hieromonk Christodoulus Agiorite.
We decided to make a complete selection of the elder’s teachings, because we do not understand on what basis one teaching can be chosen and another thrown out. This approach surprises us extremely... The translation of all teachings was done by the monk Macarius Kavsokalivit, using, where possible, the existing Russian translation. However, we do not organize these teachings into a symphony, and have even decided not to maintain a precise division into passages.
The fact is that all the passages are too different in volume and information content. And besides, this is ugly and not acceptable for publishing text on the portal. For example, look at the Autobiography: one page contains three paragraphs, and the other contains three sheets. We did not know who compiled the Autobiography and who titled the passages, how it happened, whether the Elder participated in it. Therefore, we have retained the tabulation of the original source.
But in other cases, such unevenness can be avoided. We will not provide a quotation either, so as not to confuse the reader with Greek sources. But if anyone wants to read the original text, write - and we will give exact links...

(IN electronic edition the teachings on illness are relegated to the end of the book, since illness was not the beginning, but the crown of Fr. Porphyria).

His parents were poor, pious peasants. Evangelos received his education in two primary classes rural school. Since childhood, he helped his parents with the housework: herding sheep, working in the garden. At the age of 8, the boy went to work in a coal mine and then behind a store counter.

Already in adolescence, he was overcome by the desire to devote his life to monastic deeds. At the age of 13, he went to Mount Athos and was accepted into the Kavsokalivsky monastery, where he lived as a novice for 6 years, receiving the name Nikita in the ryassophore.

The young man wanted to work on Mount Athos all his life, but at the age of 19 he received pneumonia, which turned into pleurisy. The elders ordered him to leave Athos and go for treatment. Having completed a course of treatment and feeling better, he returned to the place of his tonsure. However, the illness made itself felt again, and the elders, seeing that the Athonite climate could kill their student, sent him back without blessing him to return to the Holy Mountain.

He was forced to return to Euboea and first asceticised in the monastery of the holy martyr Charalampios in Avlonari, and then in the monastery of St. St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Ano-Vafea.

At the age of 20 or 21 he was ordained hieromonk by Archbishop Porfiry III of Sinai, who gave him his name.

Soon, despite the priest’s young age, Metropolitan Panteleimon of Karista appointed Father Porfiry as the monastery confessor. Father Porfiry carried out this obedience in the monastery of St. Charalampia until 1940. Many of the surrounding residents turned to him, lines of people waited their turn, confessions lasted for hours without a break.

In the year he was elevated to the rank of archimandrite.

There are known cases of the elder’s insight and healings through the priest’s prayer.

The Lord commands to fight sin to the point of bleeding (Mark 9:43-47). During Great Lent, the Church calls upon us to pray with prostrations for cleansing from idleness, despondency, covetousness, idle talk, condemnation... True love to God and neighbor is acquired only through the struggle with passions, weaknesses, temptations, through fulfilling the commandments of God and repentance, that is, everything that is opposed to the “easy path” through love.

Perhaps Saint Isaac the Syrian answers this question with the greatest accuracy and power. He decisively condemned the unreasonableness of the desire for love of an ascetic who did not overcome his passions through severe battles against evil:

"There's no way to get excited in the soul Divine love... if she has not overcome her passions. You said that your soul did not overcome passions and loved the love of God; and there is no order in this. Whoever says that he has not overcome passions and has loved the love of God, I don’t know what he is saying. But you will say: I did not say “I love,” but “I loved love.” And this does not take place if the soul has not achieved purity. If you want to say this only for the word, then you are not the only one saying, but everyone says that they want to love God... And everyone pronounces this word as if it were his own, however, when pronouncing such words, only the tongue moves, the soul does not feel what he says"

Of interest is the report of Athanasios N. Papathanasiou, Doctor of Theology, editor-in-chief of the journal Synaxis, dedicated to the personality of Elder Porfirios. In particular, it says:

...Elder Porfiry did not leave almost a single written source. We have at our disposal testimonies of people, eyewitness accounts, which, naturally, are very contradictory. Some of them capture the elder’s judgments, others the opinions that he expressed out of condescension towards people, and thirdly, and worst of all, Porfiry’s words are refracted in such a way as to confirm the beliefs of the narrator himself! On this moment there is nothing we can do about this other than doing respectful theological work that might, perhaps, in time, lead to the truth...

Elder Porfiry completely disagreed with waging a frontal battle against evil. He believed that the object to which you direct your mind, to which you direct your strength, will determine your existence, whether it is about what you love or about what you hate. Undoubtedly, the elder was convinced that the life of a Christian consists of counteracting the works of Satan, but he categorically insisted that the person himself must turn to Christ, to His love and light. This light and its spread drives away the darkness, and not the fight against darkness as such. The direct struggle with darkness brings into the center of the life of the “crusader” the darkness with which he is supposed to be fighting!..

His position regarding the problem that worried many in Greece was fundamental: the question of the number 666 and the Antichrist. Elder Porfiry refused to place the Antichrist at the center of his concerns. He insisted that the power of the "seal" lay not in the mechanical use of numbers and symbols, but in who it received human heart as your master...

Elder Porfiry, obviously, was not a public theologian. He was, as I said, a gardener doing grafting, i.e. bucer; and as such it brings in key criteria. His sober meekness is radically different from the almost offensive delirium of zealous aggressiveness that flourishes in our time under the pretext of defending the faith. “In our missionary zeal,” he said, “let us be unobtrusive... A few words... The best mission is our good example, our love, our meekness.” Evidence shows that Elder Porfiry did not invade a person’s personal space. He did not talk about God unless asked, and was in no hurry to sprinkle holy water on everyone present when he was not sure that they wanted it...

The elder had the deepest respect for liturgical life and its sanctifying power. However, in a completely childish way, he once expressed his disagreement with Saint Andrew of Crete, since in his main creation, the Great Canon, a mournful gaze, turned to the underworld, to death, prevails, while Porphyry himself preferred to turn his gaze to the love of Christ. When his interlocutor cited, in contrast to his words, an example from the Canon, where Saint Andrew talks about St. Ignatius the God-Bearer (the saint who expressed his fiery love for Christ), Father Porfiry said a wonderful phrase: “Oh, this is no longer the Canon, this is fire. The Songwriter has disappeared in this Canon! Saint Ignatius swallowed him up and demolished him.”

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Elder Porfiry Kavsokalivit: biography, instructions, miracles

In 2013, the Holy Synod of the Patriarchate of Constantinople decided to canonize Elder Porfirios (Bairaktaris) Kavsokalivit and established a day of remembrance for St. Porphyria - December 2.

Elder Porfiry (Bairaktaris) is one of the most revered ascetics of piety of the 20th century in the world. The abundance of spiritual gifts that God awarded him is amazing: love for God and people, meekness, long-suffering, insight, the gift of healings. Father understood the language of birds, saw the depths of the earth and the abysses of the sea, contemplated ancient events as if he were a direct witness to them, saw angels and unclean spirits and the very soul of man. People were healed from his touch, although he himself had been sick all his life and did not ask the Lord for his healing.

LIFE STORY

Elder Porfirios, in the world Evangelos Bairaktaris, was born on February 7, 1906 in Greece, in the village of St. John Caroustia, in the province of Evia. His parents were poor, pious peasants. Evangelos received his education in two classes of a rural elementary school. Since childhood, he helped his parents with the housework: herding sheep, working in the garden. At the age of 8, the boy went to work in a coal mine and then behind a store counter.

In his early youth, Evangelos read the life of St. John Kushchnik. It made such a strong impression on him that he secretly went to Holy Mount Athos from his parents. There Evangelos gave himself into obedience to two virtuous and spiritually experienced elders who lived in St. George's cell in Kafsokalyvia.

One morning they sent him to chop wood for the stove. In their search, the young novice reached a ravine, which was quite far from the monastery of Kavsokalivia, in which he then lived with his elders. When the boy began to chop wood, an accident happened to him: the handle of the ax fell off, and the blade pierced his leg, seriously injuring it. Blood gushed from the wound. There was no one nearby, and, without a doubt, the boy should have died from loss of blood. Feeling mortal danger, with all his might he began to loudly call for help to the Mother of God: “ Holy Mother of God, help me!". And the blood stopped immediately.

Soon Evangelos became a monk with the name Nikita. One day, having come to church early, he stood in a dark corner and prayed. At that moment, Monk Dimitri, a 90-year-old Russian elder, entered the temple. Looking around and not noticing anyone, he began to pray, doing prostrations. During the elder’s prayer, such grace shone upon him that he stood in the middle of the temple without touching the floor. The divine grace poured out on the holy elder also touched the young monk Nikita. On the way back to the cell, after receiving the Holy Mysteries, the heart of Father Nikita was filled with such joy and love for God that, raising his hands to the sky, he loudly exclaimed: “Glory to Thee, God! Glory to You, God! Glory to You, God!”

He wanted to labor on Mount Athos all his life, but the Lord decreed otherwise. Nineteen-year-old Nikita received pneumonia, which turned into pleurisy. The elders ordered him to leave Athos and go for treatment. Having completed a course of treatment and feeling better, he returned to the place of his tonsure. However, the illness made itself felt again, and the elders, seeing that the Athonite climate could kill their student, sent him back without blessing him to return to the Holy Mountain.

So, at the age of 19, Father Nikita left Athos and settled in the monastery of St. Charalampios in Levkona, not far from his native village. At the age of 21, Nikita was ordained a priest by Archbishop Porfiry III of Sinai, who gave him his name. Soon, despite the priest’s young age, Metropolitan Panteleimon of Karista appointed Father Porfiry as the monastery confessor. Father Porfiry carried out this obedience in the monastery of St. Charalampia until 1940. Many of the surrounding residents turned to him, seeking healing for their spiritual wounds. Father Porfiry tirelessly served God and people. Lines of people waited for their turn, as confessions lasted for hours without a break. And so it went on day after day. For his tireless work in 1938, Father Porfiry received the rank of archimandrite.

In 1940, Father Porfiry came to Athens, where he was appointed parish priest in the Church of St. Gerasimos at the Athens hospital. During the thirty-three years of his service in this place, Father Porfiry helped thousands of people find peace of mind, many of them, by the grace of God, he healed from various kinds diseases.

After retiring, Father Porfiry continued to serve and confess in the ancient abandoned church of St. Nicholas in the Pendeli area until 1978. When he had a heart attack, he lived with his friends in Athens for several months, after which in 1979 he settled in the Milesi area, where he built a large courtyard with a temple in honor of the Transfiguration of the Lord.

Father Porfiry never gave up hope of returning back to Athos. When in 1984 he learned that the last inhabitant of his native St. George's cell had left it and gone to live in a monastery, he hurried to the Holy Mountain. The Lord fulfilled the cherished desire of His faithful servant, and the elder spent the last two years of his life on Athos.

During this time, he often talked about how he would give an answer to Last Judgment. I recalled a story from the patericon in which one elder, feeling the approach of death, prepared a grave for himself and said to his disciple: “My son, the stones are slippery and the path is steep, you may get hurt if you decide to carry my body to the grave. Let's go there while I can still walk." The disciple, supporting the elder by the arm, led him to the grave. The elder lay down in the prepared grave and gave up his soul to God.

At the elder’s request, a grave was dug for him not far from his cell. On the last night of his earthly life, the elder confessed, after which the disciples began to read the canon on the outcome of the soul, and then, according to the rosary, the cell rule of the great schema-monk.

The last words of the elder were the gospel lines: “Let them all be one.” Then, barely audible, he whispered: “Come,” and breathed his last. The Lord took his bright soul at 4:31 am on December 2, 1991.

MIRACLES

Speaking about the spiritual gifts of Elder Porfiry, another world-famous Greek Elder Paisios the Holy Mountain said: “He has a color TV, but I only have black and white.”

God exists

For some time, a professor of theology lived in the monastery with the priest. He was much younger than Father Porfiry and was his spiritual child. One day the professor suggested we talk about the existence of God. Having discussed this topic from all possible points of view, the professor and the priest came to the conclusion that God exists. However, the young professor turned to the old man with a request. When he dies, he will come to the professor and tell him whether there is a God. In response to this, the priest asked why the professor thought that he would be the first to die? To this the young man replied that the priest was twice his age, so naturally the older one would die faster. But Father Porfiry, by the grace of God, knew that the professor would die first, and very soon. The priest did not say this, but promised that he would come after death to say whether there is a God. The professor also made the same promise to the priest in case he did die earlier.

After some time, the professor left the monastery and went to the city. Less than a year had passed since the priest and the professor parted, but on one of the great holidays, when Father Porfiry and his brethren were preparing for a festive meal, a man from a neighboring village came to the monastery and reported that the professor had died. Some time later, after a long prayer, Father Porfiry turned off the light in his cell and tried to fall asleep. Suddenly, a thunderous voice is heard from the darkness, accompanied by an incomprehensible noise. "God exists! God exists! God exists!" - the voice repeated three times. It was the professor's voice! In fear, the priest knelt down and began to pray for his soul. And so on until the morning! Is it possible after this to doubt that “God exists”?!

Source

In one mountain village there was no water. Its residents appealed to various authorities, paid money, but to no avail. Everyone unanimously said that in this area there is no groundwater. So the villagers were forced to collect rainwater. And so, one person, who was the father’s child and knew about his ability to find water, asked him to help this trouble. The priest immediately replied that there was a lot of good water in the village, and showed on the drawing the place where it flows. After ardent and persistent requests, Father Porfiry himself went to this place and pointed out exactly where the water was and at what depth it was. And indeed: when they began to search, it was in that place and at that depth that they found water that flowed in the clearest spring!

Then all the villagers began to call the priest a saint and a prophet. Everyone wanted to touch him, kiss his hands, feet, caress him, everyone vying with each other wanted to welcome him into their home. And since they came and bowed at his feet, considering him a saint, the priest was very upset and asked to immediately find a way to take him away from the village. It so happened that at that time there was a bus going to Athens.

Father Porfiry, with great difficulty, escaped from the embrace of the residents and boarded the bus; and although the people tried to detain him, he still left. And here, after so much admiration and worship, a great test awaited the priest. The bus conductor, a non-believer, began to say various nonsense, causing laughter among non-believing passengers and indignation among believers. Thus, the bus passengers were divided into two camps: some for the priest, others against. The noise and altercation threatened to turn into hand-to-hand combat. The conductor continued to stir up passions. Father was very upset and tried not to take part in the squabble. When the bus stopped so that the passengers could rest a little, the priest approached the conductor and said: “I may not know how to find water, but I know that you suffer from syphilis. Be careful, don't get married now because you might infect your wife and children. Continue treatment, you will get better, and then get married.” The conductor simply became speechless when he heard the priest’s words, and from that moment he was silent the whole way, as if he had swallowed his tongue. The passengers also fell silent.

Death of mother

The sick mother of Father Porfiry had been lying in the Athens Polyclinic for several days. The doctors told him that she was recovering, but the priest, by the grace of God, foresaw that she would not leave the hospital alive. One day, Father’s brother Anthony went to visit his sick mother (he died a year before Father). When he asked the doctors how his mother was, they replied: “Excellent! Tomorrow she will leave the hospital, and this evening we will prepare an extract from the medical history. Anthony, whom Father Porfiry loved very much, came home reassured. Suddenly the phone rang. It was the priest. He told Anthony to go to the hospital immediately, otherwise his mother would die and they would not have time to take her blessing. To this, the father’s brother said that he had just returned from the hospital, and the doctors told him that tomorrow their mother would be home. But Father Porfiry insisted on his own. And indeed, as soon as they arrived at the clinic, the mother barely had time to bless them. The Lord called her to Himself, and Father’s gift of insight was confirmed this time.

Healings

The elder could heal by touching the sick. One day a doctor and his wife visited him. Having presented the questions that worried them to the elder and having received a comprehensive answer to them, the couple already began to say goodbye. Father Porfiry, with his usual fatherly smile on his face, took the doctor’s wife’s hand, right in the place where she was in severe pain. The elder knew nothing about this disease, which they had long tried to treat with injections and strong anti-inflammatory drugs. When Father Porfiry took her hand, the woman felt a warmth pass through her entire body, and she became slightly dizzy. But this feeling immediately passed, and with it the pain in my hand. The woman said with tears to the elder: “Do you know about this too, father?” From that day on, she threw away the medications and never went to the doctors again.

Father Porfiry healed not only people, but also animals. One Sunday, in Northern Evia, where he was resting, there was a next case. One shepherdess asked Father Porfiry to pray for her herd of goats, which had suffered some kind of illness. Father agreed and stood in front of the goats, raising his hands to the sky and began to read various verses of the psalms relating to animals. None of the goats moved. As soon as he finished the prayer and lowered his hands, a goat came out of the herd, approached the priest, kissed his hands and quietly walked back.

God knows everything

One day the priest and his three spiritual children got tired and decided to catch a taxi to get to the monastery. At that moment a taxi appeared in the distance. The elder's three fellow travelers decided to stop him. “Don’t worry,” said the elder, “the taxi will stop on its own. But when you get into it, you must not talk to the taxi driver, only I will talk to him.” That's exactly what happened. The taxi stopped, although they did not raise their hands, everyone got into it and the elder told them where they should go. When the taxi driver set off, he almost immediately began accusing the clergy of all mortal sins. Each time he blurted out another accusation, he turned to the elder’s spiritual children sitting behind him with the words: “Isn’t it true, guys? What do you say to this? But they, out of obedience, sat in silence. When the taxi driver realized that they were not going to answer him, he turned to Father Porfiry and asked: “What do you say, dad? What they write in the newspapers is all true, isn’t it?” The elder replied: “Son, I’ll tell you a short story. I'll tell it only once, you won't have to listen to it twice. There lived one man, in one place (he named this place), who had an elderly neighbor who owned a large plot of land. One night he killed his neighbor and buried him in the ground. Then, using false documents, he took possession of his neighbor's land and sold it. And do you know what he bought with this money? He bought a taxi." As soon as the taxi driver heard this story, he shook all over, then turned to the side of the road and shouted: “Be quiet, father. Only you and I know about this." “God also knows about this,” answered Father Porfiry. “He told me to give this to you.” Look, repent and correct your life.”

Elder Porfiry is alive with God even after death

When Father Porfiry departed to the Lord, one of his spiritual children was working in another city and did not know about the death of the priest. Upon returning to Athens, the man had certain family problems, and, as always, he decided to call Father Porfiry for advice. He took the phone, dialed the number and heard the old man’s voice on the other end. He greeted the elder, asked for his blessing and began to explain to him his needs. The elder listened to him and gave him valuable advice. The delighted spiritual son said: “I’ll come to you soon, as soon as I’m free,” to which Father Porfiry replied: “Don’t call me again, because I’m already dead.”

But God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, and we believe and know that Elder Porfiry is alive with God and hears our prayers and is strong to intercede for us sinners before the throne of the Most High.

Sayings and advice

The elder, if the interlocutor did not accept his first advice, gave in and gave him another, easier advice. But the first advice was spiritually more useful.

Take care of the lamp of life

Elder Porfiry predicted to one of his spiritual children that he would live for so many years. When this man put his health at risk, the elder declared that he could have died. To a perplexed question about how this agrees with the prediction given earlier, the elder replied: “What I told you is true. Nothing changed. The lamp of your life has oil for as many years as I told you. But if you drop it, the oil will spill and the lamp will go out! That is life! God gives us the valuable gift of life; we accept it and are obliged to protect it, and not expose it to dangers, and, moreover, senseless ones.”

No quarrels in front of children!

- Your children should never hear you quarreling among yourself... even that you raise your voice at each other!

- But is this possible, Geronda?

- Of course available! Therefore, remember my words well: never quarrel in front of children... Never!

If only we could see how Christ loves us!

“The Lord never leaves us anywhere. From the moment He came to earth, born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and became the God-Man, He is always with us. If we saw how Christ loves us and what He does for us, we would be clouded in our minds from immeasurable joy. We would remain in His arms and would no longer care about anything.”

Love for God must be limitless

“Our love for God, my child, should be limitless, it should not be fragmented into attachment to various things.

Here's an example: a person, say, has one battery of a certain energy capacity. If he wastes this energy on various matters that are not related to love for God, then the charge remaining in him for this love will be very small, often it can even be completely insignificant. If we turn all our energy to God, then our love for Him will be great.

I'll give you another example.

One girl fell very much in love with a young man named Nikos. Every night she woke up and, secretly from her parents, barefoot, jumped through the window into the street and, despite the pain from the thorns digging into her legs, ran across the field to meet her lover. When she returned back to the house, Nikos always seemed to be next to her. Whatever work she took on, her Nikos was here, she saw him. Likewise, you, my child, must direct all your strength to God. Your mind should always be on Him, because that’s what God wants.”

Pray for patience

“Pray not that God will deliver you from your various illnesses, but that through mental prayer, being patient, you may find peace. This will benefit you greatly."

“Do not ask God to ease your suffering from various illnesses, do not force Him to do this in your prayers. But endure your illnesses with unfailing steadfastness and patience, and you will see what benefits you will receive from it.”

As a result of cancer, paradise was filled with

During a conversation with his spiritual children, the Elder said: “The cure for cancer is very simple. Doctors use it every day, it is always at their fingertips, as I know, by the grace of God. But God does not reveal this remedy to them, because recently Paradise has been filled with cancer as a result of cancer!”

Teachings. Athonite Elder Porfiry Kavsokalivit. Children and youth

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