By Elder Gabriel of Dionysiou
In October of 1913, the Chief of Staff of our National Army Victor Dousmanis, sent with an escort of two soldiers his nephew, who was a psychopath and possessed by a spirit of the python, just as the fortune-teller of Philippi, along with a letter for the Monastery, which said: "Here fathers in my homeland (Kerkyra), is the best mental hospital in Greece, where my nephew John was, but we saw no improvement. We were told by doctors that we exhausted all means of science, and therefore we decided to send him to your holy places, and we ask that you please accept him and make him become strong spiritually, so that by your prayers God may pity us and him and will make him well." We accepted him at the Monastery.
The soldiers brought him slightly tied up, but we were told to be careful, because he had episodes of fleeing and was not aware of the risk. He was shut in a room of the hostel with barred windows. The priests would go there and read prayers and exorcisms. He behaved quietly, but when he was attacked he would shout and blaspheme and strangely would become loosed of his bonds. That's why one day they brought the boatman of the Monastery, who bound him with indissoluble nautical knots, but again in a few minutes he was loosed.
Driven by a demonic spirit, as soon as he saw a brother going to see him, he would tell them their future, especially their unconfessed sins.
He especially revealed the sins of the archontaris (host) of the Monastery, who as soon as he confessed he heard the possessed boy say: "Now I will start again from the cover of the ledger and I will chant them to you as needed." But after a little while he shouted angrily: "I can't see anything! Who erased them? Who advised you? What should I do now? I don't see anything in the ledger!"
During the vigil for the feast of the Archangels, after receiving instructions from the Elder, they brought him to the church and everyone prayed that God would pity him as well as the holy Archangels that he may be freed from the bonds of Satan. When during the Litany the priest specifically commemorated him, a voice came out of him like an incoherent roar. During the Praises we took him to venerate the icon of the holy Archangels, and when we brought him back to the stall he began to worry and get up and leave. When the Doxastikon of the Archangel Michael was being chanted: "Wherever your grace overshadows, the devil is banished by your power," then lightning departed from the church and went to the balcony towards the sea, about 100 meters away.
We ran, fearing that it was going to be torn down. But - O your grace Archangels worthy of praise! - a short distance from the Liti, at the arch where there are hagiographic depictions of the holy Archangels, there in the middle we caught up to him standing and motionless. We asked him: "What happened to you, John?" "Nothing happened to me," he said to us, "I've become well; the holy Archangels made me well." And after he made his cross he kissed their icons.
We joyfully brought him into the church, then to the dining table, and he was quiet, of sound mind, and there was nothing wild or inaccessible about him as before.
He stayed another 3 or 4 days, then boarded the steamer requesting of the captain to call his uncle the General at Piraeus to receive him. After a few days we received a letter of thanks from the General.
Source: ΑΠΟ ΤΟΝ ΚΗΠΟ ΤΟΥ ΠΑΠΠΟΥ, ΑΓΙΟΡΕΙΤΙΚΕΣ ΔΙΗΓΗΣΕΙΣ, εκδ. «ΤΟ ΠΕΡΙΒΟΛΙ ΤΗΣ ΠΑΝΑΓΙΑΣ», Thessaloniki 1994, p. 111. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
