Some Last Words and More on Frank Atwood Before He Faces the Death Penalty

In September 1984, Frank Atwood, the son of a prominent military man who got involved in gangs and fell into drugs, was arrested for the murder of 8-year-old Vicky Lynn Hoskinson. The evidence for his innocence are many. However, a pink scratch on his vehicle, which matched the color of the little girl's bike, sent him to jail. He was sentenced to death and has been held in Arizona prisons for 34 years. However, he never stopped pleading innocent.

"I tell you from the bottom of my heart, I am innocent of this crime."

Inside the cell for years, Frank studied law and theology, until he accidentally discovered the existence of the Metropolitan of Limassol Athanasios, who was then abbot of the Machairas Monastery in Cyprus.

According to Metropolitan Athanasios:

"A book had been written by a Cypriot University professor, Kyriacos Markides, called The Mountain of Silence. My name and Frank were mentioned in this book. He discovered the Monastery of Panagia Machairas and of course he sent me a letter. And from there began the correspondence between us, which ended in his baptism as an Orthodox Christian."

What Does It Mean That Christ Ascended and Sat at the Right Hand of the Father? (Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol)

 

By Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol

 

On the Fortieth day after the Resurrection the Lord physically left the world and went up to and ascended to heaven and sat at the right hand of the Father. Of course, this is not a place. That is, He does not have a chair next to the Father and sat down, nor is heaven a geographical space.
 

It is a place where God is located and these things are said so that we can understand that Christ left and took human nature with Him and was taken up as the God-man, not as God. As God He was always with His Father and was not separated for a moment. And when He was on earth and when He was in Hades He was with God His Father. That He took with Him human nature is exactly the result of all the previous events - the Cross, the Tomb, the Passion and the Resurrection. The human nature of Christ was ascended and with it the whole deified human nature was ascended.
 

Therefore this event of the Ascension, of our deification, is an event that now concerns all mankind. It is the glory of the human body. It is what reveals how much God has honored humanity.

The theory that in the Church and in her teaching the human body is despised and only constantly speaks of spiritual life and virtues, is not correct.

 

On the contrary, the Church and Orthodoxy are the ones who speak first and foremost about the deification of the human body. Nowhere else do we even theoretically have a deification of the human body, such as we have the deification of the human body in Orthodox theology.
 

This is what the Ascension of Christ means. None of what Christ did was for Himself. The Ascension of Christ does not mean that Christ simply returned "to His house" after His presence on earth.

This is not the reason for the Ascension.

 

The reason for it is precisely to show us what is our path and where do we end up, where Christ has raised us.

 

Remember how before He suffered that night in Gethsemane, when He prayed to His Father, He prayed for us. Then He said: "Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me." That is, Christ asked His Father, that in all ages, in His endless kingdom, where He is, there we may be.

And where is Christ? In the glory of God the Father, He is equal to His Father. And to Him belongs this nature, while it is given to us by grace. Thus we know that since Christ is at the right hand of the Father, therefore we too are at the right hand of God the Father, seeing and participating in this glory and deification of our human nature.

 

Source: Περιοδικό Παράκληση, Αρ. Τεύχους 89, Έκδοσις Ιεράς Μητροπόλεως Λεμεσού. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.

 

 

The Gift of Tongues is Repeated in the Lives of the Saints Till This Day (Metr. Athanasios of Limassol)

Metropolitan Athanasios of Limmasol made the following comments in a talk he gave:

 

We are talking about the gift of tongues, about this gift that the Holy Apostles had on the day of Pentecost. When the Apostle Peter spoke in Hebrew and the people each heard their own language beneath it. To be precise, the Apostle did not speak Arabic, Greek, Hebrew and so on but spoke in his own language and the others heard the language they knew.

It had an automatic translation, that is, from the Holy Spirit!

When Metropolitans Neophytos of Morphou and Athanasios of Limassol Visited Eldress Galaktia

In a 2017 sermon, Metropolitan Neophytos of Morphou spoke the following words about Eldress Galaktia, without naming her, recalling a visit he made to see her in Crete together with Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol.

I know a holy woman in Crete, an old woman, a nun, a great saint. When she reposes it will be understood. Even the people of Crete have not come to recognize her value.

I was with the Metropolitan of Limassol, and I told him: "I know this holy woman, let's go see her." We went.

She described our character, our health issues, our problems, our Metropolises, and even said something about each of our futures. It was amazingly accurate.

The Russian Monk Who Drank Tea and Vodka Daily with Saint Silouan the Athonite

In a recorded talk (see video below), Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol spoke about his first trip to Mount Athos with other young people, fellow students, when he went to visit with the great holy elders of the Holy Mountain at that time, especially Elder Ephraim of Katounakia and Elder Paisios. Those who were with him spoke about how they were miracle workers, shining with light, who had the ability to prophecy, read your thoughts and expose your sins. He thought he was going to see some larger than life figures, awesome to behold. But when he met them and saw they were simple people like himself, he was somewhat scandalized for a moment. He said: "This is the great Paisios? Who has only one blanket to sleep with? Who walks in a crooked manner, due to his asceticism? He jokes around, he gives us food to eat. We ask him one question and he responds with a different topic. This is the great saint that is spoken about. Strange indeed."

Homily for the Sunday of Orthodoxy (Metr. Athanasios of Limassol)

By Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol

On the first Sunday of Lent, we celebrate the Sunday of Orthodoxy, that is to say the feast of the restitution of the holy icons, as the Church once again, by the grace of God, vanquished the heresy of the iconoclasts and preserved with exactitude the faith and the tradition of the Holy Fathers of the Church, as it has been preserved throughout the ages.

This faith has as its result the healing of humankind, our salvation and deification. Reverencing the holy icons is proof that we confess that God became a describable person, that the Word of God was truly incarnated and became a person, but also that people truly become children of God and vessels of the Holy Spirit, temples of God and members of Christ. We reverence the holy icons of the Saints and their holy relics because God dwelt in them. So we celebrate the restitution of the holy icons and have the blessed custom of carrying them in procession, of honoring and embracing the icons of Christ and Our Lady and the Saints of the Church.

"On the Personalities of Contemporary Charismatic Elders" (Metr. Athanasios of Limassol)

Source

Saint Paisios the Athonite and the Airline Ticket of St. Maximos of Kavsokalyva

By Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol

One night when I stayed there close to the little hut [of Elder Paisios] I was sad, because our Elder Joseph was in Cyprus, in a Monastery they were trying to fix, and I had not heard from him. He was slow to write me a letter and I was worried.

The Elder told me: "What is it that is making you so thoughtful?"

I said: "I haven't heard from Elder Joseph and I have a worry within me."

"Well, poor man, why are you thinking? Let's purchase a ticket and go."

"Gladly, let's go."

"Religious People Are Dangerous ... God Protect Us From Them"

By His Eminence Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol

Love does not fit into the molds of logic. Love is more than logic. So is the love of God. The love of God is beyond the reason of people. For this reason we cannot judge with reasonable criteria people who love God. For this reason the saints moved according to a logic of their own. They had another logic, not the logic of people. Because their logic was the logic of love. And the Church does not teach us to be good people, no, since this is natural, but if we do not become good people what do we become? This is kindergarten stuff. The Church teaches us to love Christ, that is, to love the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Even Great Saints Have Human Needs

By Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol

Many years ago when I was at Katounakia [a rugged area in the southeast of the Athonite peninsula] I would often spend time with that great contemporary holy elder Father Ephraim [Katounakiotis], Papa Ephraim, as he was popularly called. I am not sure whether our century will give birth to another great elder like him, a man of continuous prayer who radiated the abundance of God's grace.

When a group of us visited him at his hermitage one day, he complained that he was tired of Katounakia and expressed a wish to go live at Monoxylites for awhile. That's an area near the borders of Mount Athos. It is a valley between two mountains filled with pine-tree forests, vineyards and olive groves. It is a very beautiful area with abundant running waters, an earthly paradise. He said, "I want to go there and rest. Here at Katounakia there is nothing except rocks and prayer, prayer and rocks, day in and day out. I am really tired. I need a change."

I was shocked when I heard him say that. I wondered how it was possible for a great saint like him to have a desire to change his environment, to go to Monoxylites? I could see young monks like ourselves having needs of this sort. But how is it possible that this great saint in whose life God is always present has such needs? It was then that I realized that even saints are human beings subject to the law of alterations.

I heard later that Joseph the Hesychast [d. 1959], the great elder of Papa Ephraim, expressed similar needs during his life. Elder Ephraim himself told us once that his elder underwent a period of deep sorrow and was subjected to many temptations. One day he asked his then disciple Ephraim, "Papa Ephraim, go and bring Pseudo Vasili here to amuse us." Pseudo Vasili was a layman who lived and worked near the Skete of Saint Anna. He was a simple man who was reputed for his outrageous lies. In his presence it was impossible not to roar with laughter. As in my case, Papa Ephraim was scandalized. "How is it possible," he reasoned, "that the elder has a need for a jester like Pseudo Vasili to amuse him? Why can't he do something else, like more prayer?" As you can see, even great saints occasionally have such needs by virtue of their being human.


Source: Kyriacos C. Markides, Gifts of the Desert: The Forgotten Path of Christian Spirituality, pp. 116-117.