October 21, 2015

Saint Porphyrios and the Flying Car


Being Back to the Future Day, I thought this would be an interesting story to share that includes a true flying car.

Saint Porphyrios had a spiritual daughter named Eleni, who was a seamstress that lived near the Church of Saint Dionysios the Areopagite in the Kolonaki area of Athens. A certain woman brought her a coat to fix the sleeve on that was especially difficult. Failing to fix it, she told Saint Porphyrios about it, who told her to bring him a scissors with a newspaper. Cutting the newspaper in the way that would fix the coat, he repaired the coat without handling it.

Another time Eleni was visiting Saint Porphyrios in his monastery and he asked her to drive him to Evia for a certain meeting. She gladly accepted. Now this trip required them to board a ferry. As soon as they started to drive the car flew up in the air. Eleni began to panic, her hands shaking and her heart beating. When she was able to speak, she yelled to Saint Porphyrios, who was sitting next to her: "Elder, do you see what's happening!" The car landed back on the ground, and when her heart calmed down Saint Porphyrios said to her: "Oh my child, I was next to you and you became afraid? Let's go then." So they drove on, since she was too afraid to fly.

I roughly transcribed and translated these stories from this interview below with Mr. Manolis Kapetanakis, who with his wife Maria were devout Orthodox Christians who knew many holy elders of our time.