Orthodox Parables and Stories: "Miracle on Mt. Athos"

The miracle happened to one of the well-known contemporary Greek elders, Father Ambrosios Lazaris (1912-2006), in 1937, when with the name of Hariton he asceticized in the monastery of Kutlumush on Athos. On a hot August day, monk Chariton decided to go to the monastery garden to pick figs, and without the abbot's blessing. Climbing one fruitful fig tree, Fr. Hariton began to gather fruit, but a branch of the tree broke, and the monk fell to the ground and hit him so hard that his leg was broken in two. Fr. Hariton began to cry out in terrible pain. The monks ran to the garden and carried his brother in arms to the monastery hospital, which had a small church in the name of St. Cosmas and Damian. But since Athos was occupied by the Nazis in those years, there was devastation everywhere, even in the monastery hospital, there were no doctors, so Fr. Hariton's situation was hopeless. But where there is no hope for people, help from heaven rushes in. The elder, recalling that terrible night when he lay in unbearable pain, told us:

"We have come to help you, don't be afraid, everything will pass," St. Cosmas said.

"What happened at 12 o'clock at night? I saw St. Cosmas and Damian descending from the dome alive and coming toward me. The chamber was flooded with light.

"Poor guy, how did he break his leg like that?" asked St. Damian.

St. Cosmas went to my head and said to St. Damian:

"Go to the leg, take it and pull it out!"

St. Damian went to my leg and pulled it out. Such pain, you can't imagine!

"We have come to help you, don't be afraid, it will pass," said St. Cosmas.

So what happened? When he pulled my leg it grew back! The bones, the muscles, everything else: they were no longer separated! After that, the pain disappeared. I immediately jumped up, started dancing and singing, not knowing what I was doing. The monks woke up.

"Monk Hariton must have gone crazy from the pain, singing at such a late hour."

The monks ran to the hospital.

"Why did you get up, sit down, lest you break your other leg too!"

"Look!"  I said.

In front of us was the Church of the Saints.

"The two who sit on their thrones had come here an hour ago, one stood at my head, the other at my feet. They pulled my leg out, put it back in place, and now I have no problem!"

The monks stayed up that night, and the next morning they served a Divine Liturgy. I also went to it. For three days in a row they served the Divine Liturgy."