Elder Porphyrios
Mount Athos
A good friend of mine who recommended the book about Elder Porphyrios, said: "It is like bathing in the Light of the Holy Spirit".
One of the great spiritual Fathers of the Orthodox Church, elder Porphyrios is the contemporary saint who began his monastic life on Holy Mount Athos at the age of twelve and reposed in the Lord in December of 1991, when he was 86 years old.
During the lifetime of obedience, prayer and inexhaustible joy and love for Christ, the holy elder was given many gifts, among them the gift of second sight and healing. He would address numerous visitors by their Christened name before they were introduced to him, he could see children in wombs, subterranean waters, souls of men, undiagnosed illnesses and the upcoming bloodshed. He would call his spiritual children and monastic brethren even during night urging them to pray for their Serbian brothers in Christ, seeing with his spiritual eye the great tragedy that was looming over Serbian nation, long before anyone could imagine the suffering that was to come.
Maria Condoyani Ioannidou wrote about the elder: "He had the smile of a child from the Heavenly Kingdom and the kind of innocence one can only find in little children. He also possessed the perfect purity which made him seem immaterial and translucent, like a clear glass; in him one would see his own reflection with all the consequences of the fallen state."
She remembers how she told her parents, upon return from the Elder who was in Athens at the time: "This man loves me much more then you do. I now understand how much Christ loves us all."
Although each of elder's countless spiritual children would always receive advice and guidance adjusted to their personalities and needs, Father Porphyrios was striving to impart on everyone the inner asceticism of ceaseless repetition of Prayer of the Heart ("Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner"). He taught that the single most important virtue everyone needs to obtain through prayer, Church attendance and holy sacraments is boundless, joyful, overwhelming love for Christ. The holy elder taught that all other virtues are derived and built upon this one, the love which punctures the heavy crust of sin that bounds us to death and opens the floodgates of Light, that is Christ.
Holy Father Porphyrios, pray for us!