The Monk Who Pictured Every Woman as an Icon of the Virgin Mary

By Hieromonk Anastasios,

Cell of the Honorable Forerunner and Dionysios of Fourna 

Karyes, Mount Athos

We passed a cell outside Karyes, the cell of Papa-Gregory. He came to Mount Athos when he was very young, about ten or twelve years old, and became a monk.

When we visited he was about eighty-five to ninety, and he had never been outside of Mount Athos.

"Elder, do you remember women?"

"Yes, I remember them."

This beautiful "yes" was not enough for us, which was disarming, so we again asked:

"How are women, Elder?"

We waited for him to describe to us what a woman is like. He closed his eyes, got serious at that time, and said:

"When I look at the Panagia, I remember my mother."

It seems all the women of the world for Papa-Gregory were like the Panagia and like his mother.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.