Orthodox Parables and Stories: A Bishop on Mt. Athos

 

I will tell you a story how I became a monk on Mount Athos in the Ilinsky monastery. Not far from this monastery there is a place where the deserters live, it is called Kapsala. There, probably, about forty cells, which are located in the forest, in each of them lives about four or five monks. Once I served the vespers under the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord. When I went to church, I saw a handsome, very simple, but neatly dressed old monk. Everyone who was in the temple approached and took his blessing from him. I thought it was a priest. During the canon, he went to the altar and asked me to listen to his confession. I agreed. And when he began to confess, it turned out that he was a bishop. A little later I suggested that we serve together, but he refused and said that he no longer serves, because on his arrival to Holy Mountain he accepted a great schema and now he is just a monk, although he is in the episcopal rank.

The day after the Divine Liturgy and the meal, he asked permission to remain in the monastery for a couple of days. We started talking, and I asked him to tell me about himself. The bishop replied:

"My life is the same as that of everyone else. I'm a sinner, I continue to sin and try to stop."

Then I asked him:

"How did it happen that you, the bishop, are on Mt. Athos?"

And he told the following:

I studied at the Theological Faculty in Athens and was the best student on the course. During the Graduation Ceremonies, the Patriarch of Alexandria, who on that day addressed the graduates with a welcome speech, then issued diplomas for education, asked the Greek archbishop: "I want this young priest to teach at my seminary. The Church of Alexandria is dying, we need educated people to help the Church. " They negotiated, and for three years I went to Alexandria. However, instead of three, I spent ten years in Alexandria, and I was ordained a bishop. Years passed, and one rainy and foggy winter evening, after I read another lecture at the University of Aristotle, on the way home in my car, I got into an accident. The ambulance took me to the intensive care unit. When I came to, the doctors told me: "You were in a serious accident. We need to check if your brain is damaged. " Then I asked to call a priest to me. It turned out that in the same hospital some monk-saint, who came to visit me, was treated. He was short and very dirty. I began to confess to him, and he suddenly began to say that I should stop being such a pompous person, go to the Holy Mountain and become a real monk. I had to, he claimed, stop traveling around the world and pretend that I was a very important figure. I was very angry with him and drove him out of the ward. But this case stuck in my memory for a long time. On one hand, I was so angry that I even got a heartache. On the other hand, I realized that what this monk was talking about is the truth I did not want to hear.

After a while I was discharged, and the Ecumenical Patriarch was already interested in me. He invited me to one event, where I had to address the audience with a welcome speech. But as soon as I started speaking, I had a heart attack.

I fell, turned the table over, and I was again taken to the intensive care unit. In the hospital, I periodically fainted, and the doctors had to deal with me thoroughly. And, being between life and death, I prayed: "Mother of God, if You will save me now, I promise You that I will go to Mount Athos and spend the rest of my life repenting." The Mother of God saved me, but I did not go to the Holy Mountain. I came to the patriarch and said:

"Vladyka is a saint, I promised the Mother of God to go to the Holy Mountain." Let me go. The Patriarch says:

"Yes, you are just raving. You never know what you promise! You're alive, so do not worry."

I began to implore the patriarch, but he replied:

"You must be obedient to the church. The church made you a bishop, obey and labor." Every year I brought my petitions to the patriarch, but he did not let me go. And one day, when I, apparently, already thoroughly tired of him, he said:

"I give you three more years, work them out, and then you will go to the Holy Mountain."

Three years later I went. I knew nothing about monasticism. I was a fat bishop with soft, gentle hands. I wore beautiful Italian shoes with a thin sole and silk cassock. And in this form one day I stepped on the land of Athos. In Daphni I was greeted by monks and asked:

"Vladyka, to whom did you come?"

I answered them:

"I'm looking for a monk," and I described to them the little dirty black man who visited me once in the hospital.

The monks began to question me:

"What is his name? Where does he live?"

But I did not know anything about him and only once again told them what he looks like. And they say to me:

"Everyone looks like that on the Holy Mountain."

I was upset, I needed to find a monk who sent me here.

Then one of the brothers told me:

"If such an elder exists, he probably lives in the farthest corner of the Holy Mountain, in Karulia. Go up the mountain, it is possible that there you will find your old man."

I went. While I was climbing the mountain, I was sweating all over, the stones pierced my Italian shoes, and I was so tired that I thought I would die on the way.

However, the monks all told me:

"Go on, old man, go on." And then at last someone told me that I had almost reached it. In front of me stood a small cell with one shuttered window. She was surrounded by a stone wall, and the view from the mountain was such that she wanted to be able to fly.

There was a line of several monks at the cell. I wanted to get ahead, but I was pulled back and forced to be behind everyone.

And I was a bishop and I was not used to waiting in line. I got angry, but decided to stand and wait. And so the cell-attendant of the old man comes out and says to me:

"And what do you need?"

"I came to see the old man."

"The old man was tired, he was talking with a brother all day today, but now he went to bed. Today he can not meet with you."

"But I've come this long way, I climbed the mountain! What should I do?"

"Come tomorrow."

"I have no place to go."

"Everyone on the ground is asleep, and you go to bed and sleep."

That night I spent the night on the ground. I did not sleep all night. The morning comes, the monk comes out and announces:

"The Elder today does not accept anyone, he will pray."

I could not believe what I heard. Another day wasted. It took me so long to get here, I had nowhere to go, and I decided to wait. This day I spent under a tree, tried to pray, but all I could think about was how I was pissed at the old man.

The next morning the monk comes up to me and says:

"Are you still here? Okay, you patiently waited, come in, the elder will talk to you."

I came in. The old man met me and asked:

"What do you want? "

"I want to be a monk," I say.

"Why did you come here if you wanted to be a monk?"

I told him my story, how a certain saint visited me at the hospital. The old man asked:

"How long ago was it?"

"Thirty-two years ago."

"Are you out of your mind? He has long since died! You yourself said thirty-two years already passed! And you can not survive here."

I ask:

"Why?"

"Because you will never be able to do what I tell you. What did you do before you came here?" the old man asked me.

"I'm the bishop."

The old man clutched his head:

"My God! In life, only from women there are more temptations! Get out of here."

I prayed:

"I'm asking you, help me become a monk."

He tells me:

"I'll let you stay in the cell, but only with one condition."

"I will try."

"No. You must say, 'I will do it, elder,' because if you say 'I will try,'you have already given up."

"I'll do it, elder."

"Good. Then this is what you do. I do not allow you to talk to anyone, not with me, nor with those who come to me. With no one! Only when I ask you to say something, then you can speak."

And he gave me obedience to do all the household chores.

The elder always received guests. I made tea, washed dishes and listened. And always I wanted to say something when the elder spoke to the guests. Some monk came and told about something: "Here Gregory Palamas said ..." - but I knew for sure that it was not Palamas who said it! I wanted to say to him: "Idiot! This is not Palamas, it was said by another saint. " Everything was boiling inside me, and it lasted for years. After some time I calmed down, I did not hear anything, I just washed the dishes, made my prayer, served tea. One morning I came to the elder to begin my usual day, my obedience, and the elder said to me:

"Now you can talk." I thought and answered:

"I have nothing to say. "The elder says to me:

"My dear, when you came here, you already had nothing to say, but you did not know it. When you left the world, you thought that the whole world needed you. Now look, does it still need you? And it did not need you before. The only thing we need in life is God.