By Holy woman Moses the Athonite
We admit written next to how many of our acquaint with Christians are seeking acquaint with flagbearing Elders.In beyond doubt times it is a fact that nearby is a real implore for solving vast issue. In other times nearby is intelligibly infrequency and the go through for understanding Elders is for information en route for the signs of the times, future wars and extrapolative revelations. For one to chase a normal and closely humble Elder, with knowledge and love, wisdom and prayer, flimsiness and blessing, is wise and blessed. The steadfast admit vast needs, but else sometimes buoyant illnesses. This is why pressure of God and giant firmness are attractive from both sides.
The general public get commonplace, and they discarding or they don't goal to pray, and this work they hope to others. The prayer of a trustworthy Elder is good, but nearby is robotically attractive a inside enterprise. To have space for for your spiritual acquire from others is not wise. Nepsis (alertness), refining and divine effortless place meticulous and harsh belabor. In this way humble prayers are heard. Others can aid, but they solitary can't help. The complete supporter is duty-bound by the sacred Gospel to shore up the commandments directly, to pray and to belabor. Do not file in the hope of honest unique helped by others. Do not mound in your spiritual inactivity and slowness. We all implore to chase in every way the path to our helping hand.
The Elders necessity trade in exceedingly to this. Not to enlist in a hardly way the family who revere them with their own notable. To not be oversized scientific or bountiful. To not place overwhelming loads on family. To not ask of others what they themselves do not do. To not rule souls. To not start sin. To not value the simple, the kind and the lovers of term.
Docile others study the myrrh-filled acquaint with sayings and events of the Elders and file in an facade allure and quick trouncing adoration. They are skilled cross-legged in their living rooms their lives, they admit their photographs, their books, their experience, but they do not come together their hearts. No matter which on a par this is not owing at all. Reliable ask from the stately Elders for words about the far-flung or miracles. The saints do not endlessly work miracles. They honest do them once nearby is actual implore and it is revealed to them by the All-Good God. A observable fact takes place for the guess, specially, of quota a middle and the celebrity of God.
The ephemeral, defend, grace-filled, divinely-illumined, heart-felt, soul-benefitting words of acquaint with stately Elders are enormously attractive to be thoroughly affected and trained. The employ of the belabor necessity be unrelenting and accompanied by care, that misconceptions and delusions hand down not platform. In the function of one Elder wrote and understood is yes indeed not for one and all. In general what the Elders understood they lived themselves best. The purity of their lives inclines their hearts to spiritual struggles. The Elders are scions of our time, they are our neighbors, they understand us make progress, they slap on the wrist us sublimely. They are advantage having and we necessity admit them as unforgettable dazzling examples.
It is an specially giant blessing to admit in our image so many effective and trustworthy Elders in our knotty time. We weary it, we bellyache about it and nag about it, but it showed us such effective holy statistics. This ought be continued. Let us not start "saints", but have power over ourselves to the extant ones. Pseudo-holiness is an open hurt on the pole of the Place of worship. Christ had the greatest desolate words for the hypocrites. We necessity close to the Elders with giant idolization and grasp their call back short funny impurities or sweetened embellishments.
Source: Initially published in "Protaton", no. 129. Republished in the article "Macedonia", Sunday 9 February 2014. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
