July 8, 2010

Elder Ambrose of Dadiou: Prophecies and Charismatic Gifts

Elder Ambrose is pictured hugging the blessed Metropolitan of Sisaniou, Anthony

1. Towards the end of August 2001, someone asked him to pray to Saint Nektarios to help him and the Elder said:

“Let the Saint be, my child. He is now in America running to save lives”.

On September 11th, the disaster at the Twin Towers took place. Some months earlier he had seen what was going to happen and had warned that it was going to change history.

"A great evil will begin in America, and not just in September. Alas!"

He had given this warning to the Metropolitan of Sisaniou, Anthony, in one of the latter’s visits, in the presence of other people. However, he did not give any explanation.

"Your Eminence, wait and see what calamity will befall the Americans in two months."


2) In 1990, he had said that the Lord will soon start revealing his Saints in front of people, because He wishes to strengthen mankind. Since temptations will be great and the trials unbearable, the Lord will instruct his Saints to show up, especially great Saints like Saint Demetrios or Saint George. People will hear that this Saint appeared in Crete this week, next week in Macedonia, the other one there, etc.


3) “What shall I do with my children, Geronda? They are very difficult. They shout at me, they watch all the filthy films on TV and they are affected.”

“Only the Lord will save the children. You must pray: 'Lord, save me and correct me, and enlighten my children to be near to You'. The Lord will hear you and will grant that which is necessary."

“Does the Lord hear us? Does our voice reach Him?"

“I do not know. Last month He had an earache. There are difficult times ahead, but do not be scared. The Lord will not abandon His children, He will save them miraculously."

“What do you mean Geronda?”

“What do I mean? For example, if you do not have anything to eat, you will wake up in the morning and you will find a loaf of bread on the table and you will wonder where it came from. But you must have faith. Without faith nothing happens."


4) One day in the summer of 2005 he said: “From now on, you will never be able to believe what you will hear and see. Such will be the events which have never happened before."

“Will they also take place in Greece?”

“Yes, they will take place in the whole world and in Greece as well. Why us? Because, we are the lighthouse of Orthodoxy and sin has made us worse than the atheists."


5) The Elder was speaking about the end of the world and was saying that it will only last as long as it takes to sing the Exapsalmos [the six Psalms at the beginning of Orthros]: a few minutes.

"At the time of our judgment, the angels will sing the Exapsalmos in the heavens. All the people, who will be alive at the time, will die simultaneously and immediately afterwards they will rise again. Everyone will possess their bodies, but without matter, they will take no room, each one of us will see the others’ bodies and we will all be 33 years old.

"The Lord will hold the Book of Life, the Gospel, and immediately we will move to the right or the left by ourselves, because we will know if we are destined to go to Paradise or not. That’s the reason why inside the church, the icon depicting Christ at the Throne of the Lord, is showing Him holding an open book without an oil candle. This means that there will be no mercy during His Second Coming. Whereas on the iconostasi, where all the icons are, His icon depicts Him holding a closed book and on top there is an oil candle burning. This means that we are still living in the hour of mercy."


6) "The Lord took some people and made them ‘militia’, because difficult times are ahead for humanity."


7) "Things will develop very fast. The devil will prevail. He will destroy and beat on all those who approach him. He does not have friends."


8) "You must be careful because the Evil One is setting traps. Do not laugh! He is next to us and you cannot see him. Listen to what I am saying to you. Do not stop praying!

"The Devil pushes people to commit a sin and then he scares them off and they are embarrassed to confess it.

"I went to Hell for 15 minutes and I thought I was there for three hours."


9) "Those who will accept Devil’s mark on them will never rest. You, by yourselves, must acquire deep faith, kindness, patience and justice. Beware! We must not lose our faith! We must have unwavering faith and the Lord will help us. If we do not pray, we will be lost. Do not think about the future. Everything is in God’s hands. You must read Patristic books, a little everyday and God will enlighten you. Then your mind will get stronger."


10) "The prayer “Lord, have mercy” is like a sword which cuts the Devil in half."

Poor people! Both monks and laymen! We are living during the difficult times, but the struggle is a struggle. You must not stop struggling, not even for a second. You must fight until the end. Then at the last minute, the Lord, who awards people the wreath, will give you not the futile possessions of this life, but will make you worthy of reigning in His Kingdom! Forever! Not just for a thousand or a hundred thousand years.‘Forever’ means it has no end."


11) "Even if the earth was double in population, the Lord can feed everyone. Do not have any doubt that our bodies will rise again. Look! I am 90 years old. This body must disintegrate in the grave in order to rise again imperishable, eternal, without feeling any sickness, pain, thirst, heat; but it will resemble the bodies of the angels. So long as we do not commit any sin. The Lord wants us to tell Him that we will only live for Him. If we remain in sin, then Hell will also be eternal. Then from there, the situation will not change, neither will the pain, the grief, the fires.

"At the Theological School, they tell you these things in a subtle way. Neither Iakovos [Tsalikes] nor Porphyrios [Kavsokalivitis] talked about these things straightforward. This is how they should have talked about them, so that people would hear and repent. The Devil comes and beats me up without mercy. He tells me: 'Do not talk so clearly. Let them sleep. Do not wake them up.'"


12) "Sin enters our minds from the senses. We must stop it from entering through prayer and the ‘efhe’ ['Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me’).

Malice is the worst sin and we cannot have any excuses. It must be expelled from inside us.

The Saints also committed sins, but they were sanctified. As human beings, they have also committed trespasses, but they were sanctified.


13) This is what he said of someone who was suffering from depression: “He has not yet perfected his faith. When we truly believe, we talk to our Lord, as we talk to a friend, to a father. Then, He will talk to us. Christ will talk to us for each and every thing we ask of Him, either through someone else, or we will hear Him inside us. He will speak to us and we will understand Him."

"The Lord does not have boundaries. The Lord repairs everything with a caress. If we make a mistake, our guardian angel leaves us and sits nearby miserable. But if we say: 'I am sorry', he returns, my child."

"Those who die during Holy Week go straight to Heaven. Blessed is he who dies on a Saturday and is buried on a Sunday. The road to Paradise is wide open to him.”


14) Demons sometimes showed up in front of him and several times he confronted them in order to protect someone. Sometimes they even beat him up. For example, once a huge demon appeared in front of him and punched him in the face. The elder, who was strong and agile those days, did not hesitate and punched him back. Sometimes the signs of the beatings were noticeable on him. Once they bit him on his right hand between the pointer finger and the thumb. The blessed bishop of Sisaniou, Anthony, who saw it, turned and told one of his spiritual children accompanying him: “See what the devil did to him?”

Another time, when he was bedridden and could not even offer the Mystery of Confession, he permitted doctor Th. Douros to confess to him, but during the night he had been suffering from the beatings by the demons, because he took upon himself the doctor’s sins. However, when one of his spiritual children apologized once for making him suffer after confessing to him, he comforted him saying: ”This is my job, my child”.


15) The elder went once to a monastery to worship, accompanied by a young priest, who was his spiritual child. When they sat at the archontariki, they saw an old photo with the monastery’s monks. When they were drinking their coffee, he took the photo in his hands and whispered in the priest’s ear, pointing at one of the 20 or so monks who appeared on the picture: “Do you see them? Only this one has been saved.”


16) Two years before his passing, one of his spiritual children, whom he loved, asked the elder to give him a quick ride to rest a little after he had been discharged from ‘Attikon’ hospital.

“From where I am, George, I go everywhere and I see everything”.

These well-known events are very illuminating about the charisma that God gave him, especially during the last three years of his life. For instance, once he told us that he had attended the Holy Liturgy in a cave among the first Christians.

His spiritual trips did not take place, however, only in the past. He could spiritually transfer himself and be alerted about events which were taking place in the present or the future. For instance, once he let it be revealed that he had been attending the Holy Liturgy in Crete together with a priest, a cherished spiritual child of his, and that he had been very pleased with what he had experienced.


17) On the morning of the 11 September 2004, as everybody knows, a helicopter of the Sinouk type, carrying the Patriarch of Alexandria and 16 other priests and laymen, crashed in the sea of Siginitikos, 8 miles away from Holy Mount Athos. On the same evening, the elder was deep in prayer. He could see them where they were and was suffering from what he was seeing, because his face was crumbled and was making faces. He only revealed that the people had died as martyrs because they had realized that they were about to die and had suffered a lot.

Someone asked him:” Why did so many people die, in this place and in this way?”

“The Lord took all of them together, my child, because this was His wish."

A few days later, when the issue came up again, he added the following: ”All of them went to Heaven, because of the way they have died.”


See also: Elder Ambrose Lazaris of Dadiou Monastery

Source

Translated by: Olga Konnaris Kokkinos
Edited by: John Sanidopoulos