Miraculous events of Elder Iakovos (Jacob) Tsalikis

Elder Iakovos Tsalikis (passionately loved the ascetic saints and said: "We have our coffee, our sugar, our hot food, our cell, what did they have? A dry nut and two branches blocking the snow at the entrance of their cave ". And this was what the Elder said, which shook his body from the exercise as few practitioners.

The Elder loved David's psalms very much. For many years the Monastery had no electricity. He was reading the Psalter in front of the fireplace at night, lighting one lamp behind each other to see. 

It took five hours each night to read it all. This has been done for many years. It was a part of his vigil (because the Elder for many years, when he was a young monk, did not sleep at night). When he got older, I don't know if he was sleeping.

At trapeza, the Elder was filling his plate up, so that if anyone saw it, he would say, "What a glutton he is!"  As soon as he ate his first bite, he began distributing it to others' plates and for himself ate little enough to live. His skinny body testified to this.

What shocked me personally in Elder James is that the circumstances allowed the Lord to know that he was without a spiritual guide for most of his solitary life. But that did not deprive him of holiness. He wanted to apply the Gospel to his life and he did.

Something similar to that of Paisios Velitskovsky. These two cases are unique. Nothing comparable (ie not having a faithful,  priest or layman, spiritual guide). These situations are gifted. That is, God's grace immediately intervenes and overshadows his humble servant.

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Elder James told me: “I was 10 or 11 years old. I had no shoes and from the cold and the mud my heels were filled with cracks; When we lit the lampada in front of the icon of the Virgin Mary in my village, I begged her to heal me from the pain. 

Then the Virgin's eyes came alive from the icon, turned on me, looked at me with great love, smiled at me and then looked at my feet. 

I unconsciously put saliva on my finger (the Elder showed me his right index finger), wiped the mud from my heels, and I immediately noticed that they were not aching and the cracks had closed. The marks of the cracks have remained to this day, my child, to remember Her miracle. "

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One characteristic of the Elder was that he suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

It happened, as Fr. Seraphim (the monk's monk) told me, at one point being on the first floor in the corridor outside his cell and in a fraction of a second down on the ground floor, next to the belfry. As soon as Fr. Seraphim looked up, he was outside the cell. As soon as he turned his head to the belfry, the Elder was down at the belfry and headed for the temple.

Another gift of the Elder, which I have found many times, was that he was great. It is common to walk or rather fly outside in the yard or in the hallways, without traces of foot movement and ripples. (His clothes stayed still).

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He saw the devil as an old woman in the courtyard of the monastery full of bottles on it. Before he understood what was happening, Elder asked:

- How did you get here, Grandma? We haven't seen you so far. What are these bottles you carry? And the old lady replies:

- I came here to stir you up, but he's blocking me in there (he showed the temple and apparently St. David). I'm leaving now and I'm going to another convent that doesn't live well. In the bottles, I have my own medicine for everyone. And vanished like lightning from the eyes of the elder, leaving a stench...

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A couple of Greeks staying in London visited Elder. The man had a rare form of esophageal cancer. The Elder read it, made the sign of the cross on him and annointed him with holy oil. 

In the evening, as they went to the hotel and lay down to sleep, the man catches a strong cough and pulls out of his mouth a yellow , large egg-shaped gel. That was it; the cancer had healed!