How I Discovered the Power of Forgiveness

By John Sanidopoulos

When I was ten years old, my temperament was somewhat nihilistic and angry. My mind was often occupied with death and the meaning of life. Though I was born and raised a Greek Orthodox Christian, theologically what made most sense to me was that life was but a dream within a dream, and my real self was some cosmic entity who imagined my present reality; it was nothing but a figment of my imagination. Trouble often found me, and if my parents punished me for it, then all I could feel was hatred for them. They were even ready to send me to military school, since to them my future was bleak. If left unchecked for long, no doubt I would have grown up to be a model rebellious teenager.

At the time I was forced to attend Greek school twice a week after regular school. The previous year I had a horrible Greek school teacher, who was very verbally abusive to me. This eventually got her fired after it was exposed, but my experience with Greek school was not that great before this, and it just made a bad situation worse. Now I was in the fifth grade, and my teacher was a young seminarian named Yianni (he never gave us his last name) from Greece that was studying at Holy Cross School of Theology. He was actually very kind, patient and had a particular fondness for me. This was because every week for one of the two days he never taught us the Greek language, but instead talked about our Greek Orthodox faith and heritage. To me this was refreshing, and I always listened attentively, while everyone else was practically snoring. This I think is why he liked me so much.

My Day With a Holocaust Survivor

By John Sanidopoulos

In our days words like "Nazi" and "Concentration Camp" are used in a very ignorant fashion, especially by those in America who stand on the political left, which leaves me with the understanding that they have no clue what a Nazi or Concentration Camp was. On the other end you have holocaust deniers, who I would consider to possess the same ignorance. This has prompted me to write this brief article on a day I once spent with a holocaust survivor, and what he told me about his ordeal.

The Man Responsible for the Canonization of Saint Nicholas Planas

By John Sanidopoulos

In August of 1991, while visiting my grandmother Anastasia who lived in Patras, which is located in the Peloponnese of Greece, I heard on the radio that the Metropolitan of Patras was going to be celebrating the Paraklesis Service at the Convent of the Prophet Elias, which is famous for the miraculous cross that appeared in a tree planted there by Elder Gervasios Paraskevopoulos. We therefore got in a cab and went to the Convent. The Service took place in the courtyard and was filled with people, though there were two empty seats up front, so we took them. But this was no ordinary service for me; there was something special about it. It all had to do with the Metropolitan. I didn't know at the time who he was, but my impression was that he was man with an angelic voice and piercing eyes as if he could see right through you. I knew there was something special about him that I wanted to learn, but it would take me some years to find out exactly what that was. All I had at the time was my awe of him, which was a rare feeling for me to have about a person I didn't know. When the service concluded and he had said a few words, I felt especially blessed when he pointed at me to come forward and be the first in the crowd to receive his blessing by kissing the cross he had in his hand. The next day I had the chance to see him again at the Cathedral of Saint Andrew the Apostle when Patriarch Alexy of Moscow and All Russia was visiting Patras.

My Grandfather Vasili (+ July 28, 2016)

By John Sanidopoulos

At around 10:00 AM this morning, 28 July 2016, my maternal grandfather Vasilios Boustris passed away at the age of 86 from complications with lung cancer.

He was born in 1929 in the Peloponnesian village of Krestana, near Olympia. Orphaned of both his parents at the young age of 8, he and his older brother and two sisters lived in extreme poverty during the German occupation in Kalamata. After the German occupation came the Greek Civil War from 1946 to 1949, and he managed to survive by living in the mountains with members of the Greek Communist Party, and with other boys his age would search for and clear out land mines.

The Honor Due to the Cross in the Canons of the Church

Synod in Trullo, known as Penthekti or Quinisext (A.D. 692)

Canon 73

Seeing that the life-giving Cross has shown us the way to salvation, we ought to make every endeavor to render the honor deserved to that which has been the means whereby we have been saved from the old fall. Hence both in mind and in word and in sentiment paying it veneration, we by all means command that imprints of the Cross on the ground made by some persons be erased, lest the symbol signifying the trophy of victory to us be desecrated by being trodden upon by people walking over the ground. We therefore decree that henceforth those who make the sign or imprint of the Cross upon the ground shall be excommunicated.

True Orthodox Ghost Story #2: The Exorcism of the Haunted Cabin

By John Sanidopoulos

"...around their graves shadowy phantoms of the departed are often seen."

- St. Gregory of Nyssa ("On the Soul and the Resurrection")

According to my own many experiences, ghosts are real and hauntings are real. As for what the nature of these ghosts and hauntings are, it is uncertain and I believe each must be examined on a case by case basis. It may be possible, and it would seem most likely, that a demonic entity is behind it. However some arguments also offer up the possibility that it could be the soul of a person who has passed, whether in tragedy or not. Yet, one must not forget to allow for some healthy skepticism, since such matters usually end up being the figment of ones imagination, or an unexplained natural occurrence. Keeping this in mind, I offer the following true personal experience, that can be corroborated outside of my own personal testimony.

True Orthodox Ghost Story #1: A Demonic Attack

By John Sanidopoulos

"There is also a very general rumor. Many have verified it by their own experience and trustworthy persons have corroborated the experience others told, that sylvans and fauns, commonly called incubi, have often made wicked assaults upon women."

- St. Augustine of Hippo ("The City of God")

One summer day in 1991 I was in Athens sitting in my cousin Dimitra's house watching television with my pious grandmother, as she was cleaning the kitchen. Specifically we were watching a documentary on the miracle of the Holy Light of Jerusalem, with actual footage of the ceremony (rarely seen on tape before the days of the internet). When the Holy Light was seen to emerge from the Holy Sepulcher, it caught Dimitra's attention and she stopped cleaning. I could see her visibly moved by the event, and even a bit troubled, as if she had something to say but didn't know how to say it. Dimitra, though she believed in God, was not necessarily a very devout Christian. Troubled by her conscience, she asked me if she could tell me something that she had never revealed before to anyone else. Though I was only fifteen and she was in her early twenties, she felt like our grandmother and I were probably the only ones that would not think she was crazy for speaking about an event in her life that she could not explain and was truly a terrifying experience for her.

Dimitra proceeded to tell me about her experience that happened not too long before. Her daughter Vivian, who was no more than five at the time, loved icons. Her grandmother, my aunt, would buy her icons, and Vivian would take them and hang them on her bedroom wall. For some reason, this bothered Dimitra, so she took the icons down. Vivian however would put them back up, though again her mother would take them down. It came to the point that Dimitra did this enough times for her to yell at her daughter for hanging the icons in her room, and she took them and put them under Vivian's bed. This saddened Vivian, as the icons remained under her bed.

Soon after, Dimitra went back to Vivian's room to check up on her. When she entered the room, she noticed the lights flicker on and off. This happened a few times when she would go to check up on her daughter, giving her an uneasy feeling. As she went into her own bedroom, suddenly she heard a frightful noise, and then an invisible hand forced her to her bed. Terrified, she struggled to free herself, but couldn't. She tried to yell for help, but couldn't. Understanding this was some evil spirit, she began to anxiously pray the Lord's Prayer and to recite the Creed. When she prayed thus, the invisible force released itself, but if she stopped, the spirit would once again take hold. With anguish she continued to pray and recite the Creed, until finally the malignant spirit departed.

When she asked what we thought of this, we simply told her that this seemed to be a demonic attack for hiding Vivian's icons under her bed. When I asked her if she once again hung the icons, she responded that she did not. My advice then was for her to hang the icons and go to Confession, to make sure something like this would not happen again. Relieved that she was able to take the heavy load off her conscience, she accepted my advice.

As far as I know, she was never attacked again.

The Day I Became A Psychic, and Renounced It

By John Sanidopoulos

When I was in high school I would often spend my lunch and free time in the library reading. My goal was to acquire the knowledge one could not receive in the classroom. Among the books that caught my eye was a twelve-volume encyclopedia of the occult and strange practices throughout the world. Fascinated, I ended up reading all twelve volumes.

One evening around this time, when I was about 17 years old, I was sitting alone on my couch watching television. Specifically, I was watching one of my favorite shows at the time, the game show Jeopardy. For those who don't know, Jeopardy features trivia on a wide variety of topics, and for every answer one of the three contestants get correctly, they win a certain amount of money, and the one who has accumulated the most money by the end of the game, wins what they have earned. My knowledge of the topics was nowhere near where it is now, but the quiz show was a fun way to test the level of your knowledge on a wide variety of subjects.

The show at the time would air every weekday evening at 7:30 PM, and on this particular evening I was doing rather horrible. As I recall, by the time it came to the final Jeopardy question, I believe I had only answered three of the questions correctly. This was a disappointment to me.

Now the hardest question in Jeopardy and the one that could be worth the most money is the last one, and I was hoping to get it correct after my poor performance. But before this final question, my local channel at the time would air the daily lottery drawing at 7:55 PM. One of the things I liked to do was try and guess the four numbers of the lottery drawing, and I never guessed correctly. Upset by my Jeopardy performance, I was really hoping to guess the right numbers to make me feel better. My usual method was to simply call out four random numbers, and that's it. This time however, I closed my eyes, concentrated real hard, and pictured four numbers. This was a technique of trusting one's intuition to harness one's psychic abilities that I learned in the occult encyclopedia. I wasn't very serious about it. In fact, I was only joking around. I can't remember the numbers I called out that day, but in the order I pictured those numbers in my mind, in the same order were they drawn. I was speechless, yet amazed and excited at the same time. "If only I had played the lottery!" I thought.

Reinvigorated, I sat up from my slumbered position on the couch, and awaited the final Jeopardy question. The topic was announced to be the name of a person. The host asked the question, and though I cannot remember the question except that it asked for the name of a very obscure person, one thing I knew was that I had no idea what the answer was nor could I even understand the question. I didn't even bother guessing, because how can you guess the name of an obscure person? But then I remembered my technique I used to guess correctly the numbers of the lottery. So I closed my eyes and concentrated on a very obscure foreign name that I had never heard of nor even knew existed. As I did this a name came out of me, that sounded more like a made up name than anything else. I knew it was wrong, but I said it anyway. This name was so obscure, long and hard to spell, that I cannot even recall what it sounded like.

The host asked the three contestants for their answer. As they showed the answer they had written, one by one got the answer wrong, causing two contestants to lose all their money, and the winner had only one dollar left. Then the host told them the answer. Till this day I shudder when I say this, but my random "fake" name was in fact the correct answer.

Whereas before when I guessed the lottery numbers I was amazed and excited, this time my jaw dropped and I became a bit troubled after a few seconds of astonishment. Over the next minute or two I wondered what to do with this strange ability to predict things correctly. If I harnessed this power, maybe I could become rich and powerful.

But things did not feel right.

Opposite my couch were a few holy icons. When I looked at them I knew deep down inside that something was wrong, so I decided to make the sign of the cross, kiss the holy icon of the Virgin Mary, and I vowed I would never play around with predictions like that again. All it did was bring about temptations, and it felt like those predictions didn't even come from me. When I said this, I felt a great burden come off of me.

Over the years I have studied many psychics and mediums, and though a great majority of them are charlatans, I have also come to believe there is an authenticity to some of them. Many of the legitimate ones start out with experiences similar to mine, and they go on to read books on the subject and practice techniques to harness their ability. For the most part, the authentic psychics are not bad people, but whether or not they say they use their powers for good, they are deluded by evil spirits. As St. John Climacus similarly writes about people who believe their dreams can predict the future:

"The demons of vainglory prophesy in dreams. Being unscrupulous, they guess the future and foretell it to us. When these visions come true, we are amazed; and we are indeed elated with the thought that we are already near to the gift of foreknowledge. A demon is often a prophet to those who believe him, but he is always a liar to those who despise him. Being a spirit he sees what is happening in the lower air, and noticing that someone is dying, he foretells it to the more credulous types of people through dreams. But the demons know nothing about the future from foreknowledge. For if they did, then the sorcerers would also have been able to foretell our death."

A Miracle of the Holy Light of Jerusalem in Athens

By John Sanidopoulos

Though I have never attended the miraculous ceremony of the Holy Light in Jerusalem which takes place annually on Holy Saturday afternoon, I once did have the blessing of seeing the Holy Light when I was in Athens in 1991, and was told of a miracle performed by the Holy Light not in Jerusalem, but in a tiny chapel in Athens.

After two months of pilgrimages to various holy shrines throughout Greece, my final day arrived and I was staying with my Uncle and Aunt in Glyfada, Athens. My Aunt Sia decided to buy me a gift before I returned to America, so she took me across the street to the home of an iconographer, whom she knew, in order to buy me two original hand-painted icons. We arrived at the home of this older couple and when I walked in the entire house was filled with icons, which was obviously also their studio. My aunt told me to choose two icons, so I picked one of Christ at Jacob's Well with St. Photini and another of All New Martyrs Under the Ottomans, both of which were very beautiful.

The couple whom we bought the icons from were a very devout and welcoming couple and were most impressed by the extensive pilgrimage I took, being only 15 years old at the time. They decided therefore to take me to a chapel nearby of which they were caretakers and is little known in Glyfada, dedicated to Saint Barbara but belonging to the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, specifically called the Sacred Monastery of Saint Barbara, a Dependency of the All-Holy Sepulchre. After venerating the icons they showed me a spot which contained a glass bowl of oil in which was lit a small fire from a floating wick. This fire they told me came from Jerusalem a few years prior when monks brought the Holy Light to Athens. Since then this fire burned perpetually.

When I asked how they kept the fire burning perpetually for so long, they told me the following miracle. They said that since they were the only caretakers of the chapel, they always took care of the Holy Light to make sure it never extinguished. One year however they went to go visit family abroad for more than a few weeks, and when they returned the Holy Light had extinguished due to lack of oil. With sorrow they decided to reignite the oil lamp anyway, so they grabbed some oil and refilled the bowl. As they refilled the bowl the Holy Light spontaneously lit again without having to be reignited. Since then they always made sure to keep the fire going.

See more photos of the chapel here.

My Experience of the Feast of the Dormition in 1991

On August 14th of 1991 I was in Patras, Greece staying in my grandmothers home preparing for an all-night adventure to experience as much as possible the feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos for the first time in Greece. Growing up in America, the feast of the Dormition was only fairly important to me mainly for two reasons: first, my home parish was one of only two parishes in the Boston area that celebrated the feast with a decorated Epitaphios and the singing of the Lamentations, and second, because it was the nameday of both my parents - Panagiotis and Panagiota - and we usually had a celebration in my home on that day with family and friends. But in Greece the feast offered a new experience for me and brought it to life for the first time in a very special way. It also helped that this was the first time I ever kept the fast for the whole fifteen days, and it was the first time I went to Confession.

Throughout the first fifteen days of August I was traveling to many shrines throughout mainland Greece and the islands, and it seemed everywhere I went there was some place with a story associated with the feast and the Virgin Mary that was highly honored by the local people. Even the most remote villages, I was learning, had their own particular story that played a major role in the life of that village. And there were so many places that had special celebrations on August 15th itself, that I felt hard-pressed deciding which place I wanted to celebrate on that particular day. Seeing that I was only 15-years old at the time and by myself in Greece with family living in Patras, my choice was limited to attend the famous all-night vigil at Girokomeio Monastery with my grandmother. My Uncle Niko also offered to take me to a remote village about two hours away in the mountains of Kalavryta following the vigil to attend a morning Divine Liturgy high up a mountain in a chapel that only had a Divine Liturgy once a year. It would be a long night, but I took him up on the offer trying to take in as much as I could that summer.

Girokomeio Monastery is one of the oldest functioning monasteries in Greece, dating back to around the tenth century. It is called "Girokomeio" because the Monastery used to run an old age home in Byzantine times. The Monastery itself was built over an ancient pagan temple dedicated to Artemis, which is one reason why the Katholikon of the Monastery is dedicated to St. Artemios. The other reason is that St. Artemios, who was the general of St. Constantine the Great, is said to have come to Patras by order of Emperor Constantine in the fourth century in order to transfer the relics of the Apostle Andrew, who was martyred in Patras near this Monastery, and bring them to Constantinople.

My uncle dropped off my grandmother and I at Girokomeio Monastery in the high hills of Patras in the evening around 6:00pm and the vigil was scheduled to end around 3:00am. This was to be my first all-night vigil and I didn't know what to expect as far as my stamina was concerned, but I was determined to pull through. I had attended this vigil once before when I was 7-years old, but it was only to drop off my grandmother and venerate the miraculous icon of Panagia Girokomeitissa, but then I left with the rest of my family except my grandmother. This was the first year my grandmother would attend the whole vigil with someone else.

The Monastery was full, literally thousands of people. My grandmother settled with a spread blanket somewhere in the courtyard, where people could listen to the Service through a sound system connected throughout the Monastery grounds. Most of the time I spent walking around the Monastery people-watching and observing what was going on, but I did spend about four hours within the packed church for prayer. I could only sit for so long with my grandmother before I just wanted to walk around and take in all the excitement, such as when a Jehovah's Witness came around and began yelling at the top of his lungs for all the Orthodox who were waiting in line to light a candle and venerate the icon to repent of this "abomination".

My Uncle and I had planned to meet at 3:00am at the entrance of the Monastery so we could drive to our next destination. After dropping off my grandmother at her home we set off for about a two-hour drive in the early morning hours through the mountainous roads with many twists and turns in order to attend the once a year Divine Liturgy at 7:00am.

It should be noted that my Uncle Niko is notorious for two things - his loud snoring and his habit of falling asleep while driving. After dropping off my grandmother he told me he was wide awake, but brought along a gallon of water just in case he did get tired. And the water was not for him to drink, but for me to pour on him every time he felt the need to fall sleep while driving along the mountainous roads with many twists and turns - and no guard rails! I was pretty tired after the vigil and hoped to grab a nap in the car, but everyone warned me that it was out of the question and that I was to keep my Uncle awake at all costs.

Not a half hour passed before my Uncle started to doze off. I began to wonder if this whole thing was a good idea. I tried talking to him, but that only brought us so far. It came to the point where I had to start pouring water over his head to keep him awake, and he would yell at me to "Keep pouring!" I didn't realize his problem was so serious and that our lives depended on me staying awake in order to keep him awake. Up in the mountains we had to even stop at a fresh water spring to fill up the gallon of water, because we had run out.

I forget the name of the village we were going to, but we arrived safely around 6:00am, and I was tired. This village was about two villages away from where my Uncle had a second home, so he had heard about this church from the locals. The history of this church goes back to World War 2 when German soldiers marched through the area. For some reason they went on a rampage and burnt one of the remote villages mid-way up this mountain. In this village was a church which they destroyed, and there was in particular an icon of the Virgin Mary which they took with them a little higher up the mountain to a cliff. When they came to the cliff they decided to fool around and profane the icon, cutting out the eyes with their knives, and it is believed their intention was to throw the icon off the cliff of the mountain as a final desecration. The villagers meanwhile noticed that a long time had passed and had seen no German soldiers return from the mountain. No one had seen them walk back the only path that leads there. They went up to the cliff where they were last seen and they saw the eyeless icon of the Panagia on the ground, but no soldiers. When they looked over the cliff, they saw the soldiers dead at the bottom of the mountain. It seems that their plans had reversed on them. A chapel was eventually built there by the locals to house this icon and commemorate this miracle and it celebrates every year on August 15th.

When we arrived that morning we could only drive about half way up the mountain and the rest we had to walk up along a dirt road. On the way up we came across the village destroyed by the Germans, and to my surprise it was still destroyed with no effort made at its restoration. Even the church was still in a state of destruction. When I walked inside it was bare of its icons, except one which I found on the ground and placed near the altar area. We continued along and finally reached the church, which was a lot higher than I thought and literally built on a cliff. We venerated the holy icon with no eyes and stayed for the Divine Liturgy. We then left for my Uncles village home and after a long adventurous night took a long nap the rest of the day.

My Niece Singing Her Favorite Hymn

My seven year old niece Christiana has a new favorite hymn she wanted to share with me today that she learned during her first summer at the Metropolis of Boston Orthodox Camp. It's called "Lord of the Powers".

Hear Ye, Hear Ye!

Well, the time has come for me to take a short vacation from this blog. Actually its not really a vacation, since I will not really be leaving my home or enjoying myself. I guess I should call it an isolation, though I would much rather be on a vacation. In fact, I haven't been on a vacation in almost three years, but that was merely the result of being laid off from my job in New York as the economic crisis launched and having nowhere to go but explore New York for a month until my lease ran out. Afterwards I drove down to Orlando, Florida to attend Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios as well as visited every place associated with Edgar Allen Poe along the east coast as I waited for a place to open up for me in Boston to stay at. As much as I enjoyed my exploration then, it was not really a vacation, but a depletion of every last penny in my bank account.

Though I've managed to stay afloat since then venturing along unforeseeable paths and exploring new career choices, things have fallen beyond flat once again and its time I establish myself in a new career that I have experience in from prior to my lay off. It is thus a personal urgent matter that I must attend to, and I only prolonged it because I wanted to complete the Pentecostarion period with regular posts. After all, posting here has always been the most relaxing and enjoyable period of my day for the past two years. And its probably been the best learning experience I have ever had, and this comes from a guy with a few graduate degrees.

Hopefully daily postings will resume sooner than later when things are resolved and settled in my personal life. I'm aiming for a week, but it may take longer. Changes and updates to the site will continue, and will be announced on Facebook and Twitter only until my return to regular postings.

If you are looking for new reading materials, you can always visit my bookstore to financially support the future of this ministry. For those who have made orders, though most have already been mailed out, a few are still in the process of preparation and will be mailed out by the end of the month.

Thank you for your generous prayers and support.

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Over the past two years I have received a lot of encouraging email from my readers. Though I have kept this private until now, I think my average reader would be surprised to learn how many changed lives have resulted through my humble ministry. This has fueled me to want to do more, and will do in the near future, God willing. Yet along with these encouraging emails I get personal questions that I promise to answer at some point, but rarely take the time to do so. Therefore, I will now answer the last five questions I received, as I continue with my ramble. Because they can be answered in a chronological way, this is the way I will arrange them.

Question 1: How did your journey to Orthodoxy begin?

I liked the way this question was phrased, since the person who asked it knew I was born into an Orthodox Christian family. For me Orthodoxy was indeed a journey of many years which I trace to my early childhood. My story is a long and complicated one that I hope to one day write down in full, so I will only hit on a few things here that basically overviews my pre-teen years without giving too much away. Since "cradle" stories are rarely told, I'll begin from the beginning.

In fact my earliest memory comes from when I was just an infant of less than a year old when something that seemed paranormal happened to me. I was sitting in my high chair next to a table as my mother was doing something behind me in the kitchen. Over the table was a hanging light that lit the room. As I looked up suddenly I saw a man in what looked like 18th century attire with a humorous smile staring at me upside down as he walked around the light on the ceiling. I believe he even put his finger in front of his mouth and told me "shhhh" so as not to make a fuss about it. I just stared at the man on the ceiling in awe, and it was ingrained into my memory ever since. Whether it was in fact a paranormal experience I don't know, but it was certainly not the last paranormal experience I would have in my life.

In many ways I had a normal first generation Greek-American childhood, with a father who never went to church and a mother who took her children to church maybe once or twice a month. The only truly pious person in my entire family was my grandmother on my father's side, but she lived in Greece and I only saw her a few times in my early childhood. She would tell me fascinating stories of Saints like that of St. George and St. Demetrios, and of ancient Greek hero's like Hercules, and whenever she finished one I would beg her for more. Later in my teenage years she would continue to play a significant role in my Orthodox formation.

When I would go to church in those days, especially before the age of seven, I would just drift off staring into the stained-glass windows imagining other worlds and dimensions. My bedroom was the only room in my house that had an icon corner with a perpetual red electrical light bulb in front of an icon of the Virgin Mary. I would lie down in bed at night and wonder if they could see me, since they seemed to always be staring right back at me. At 5 or 6 years old I was sent to Sunday School, which really only meant no more church services, and all we did was put together puzzles of icons and draw crosses, which was fun but mindless. I only received Holy Communion once a year on Holy Thursday morning, but always when the Divine Liturgy had already been over for about an hour. The most exciting thing about that was tasting the delicious wine, then afterwards going with the family to IHOP for a breakfast to break our one or two day fast, which we would then continue again of Good Friday. On Good Friday morning my mother always made sure we drank a spoonfull of vinager to taste a little bit of the suffering of Jesus. Easter was about the food, but we went every year to the midnight service, though always only stood outside with the crowd for about 10 or 15 minutes until "Christ is risen!" was chanted, then we would immediately book it for the car to get home and begin the feast. It took many years for me to realize that something was actually happening inside the church during that time.

Probably the wisest thing my mother did for me at that time was at the age of seven she took me out of Sunday School and asked my parish priest if I could stay behind the altar area as an altar boy, even though I was technically too young in those days. As an altar boy you're forced to learn something about the services and had to pay some attention, so at least my mind didn't wander as much. And in my parish the altar area was sort of an exclusive club where the older "cool" kids hung out, and even though most of them were punks and used the altar area as a hang out, my priest bore with them patiently to make sure to keep them coming to church and not turn them off forever. In those years I would be an altar boy maybe one or two Sunday's per month (when school vacation started in the summer so did vacation from going to church until school started again in the Fall), but the other two or three Sundays my dad would take me to a local soccer field to play soccer with his friends. When I was younger I would play somewhere by myself or with another kid a father dragged along, but as I got a little older they let me play in the game which only made me anxious since some of them were semi-pro's in Greece and their kicks were as fast as lightning. They would take the game so seriously however that every time I made a mistake I would literally get physically and mentally abused by men three times my age, including my dad. By the time I was a teenager I stopped going and decided I would be better off going to church more.

My first of many existential crisis' hit me at about the age of seven when I was confronted with the reality of death. I had two older sisters who had their own friends, so often I was left alone conjuring up imaginary friends to play with. One day my mom mentioned that she had had a miscarriage with her first child, who would have been a boy. From that time on for many months all I did was think about the reality of death and my imaginary friend that I played with was the older brother that had died in the womb of my mother. I would lie down in bed every night wanting to die in order to understand the mystery. Eventually I came to the conclusion at that time that life was nothing but a dream within a dream and all that I saw was nothing but an illusion I was conjuring up in my brain as the real me floated somewhere in outer space. One night I even asked my mother about this as I sat in between my two sisters in the back of our car and my dad was driving and she sat in the passenger seat. I leaned forward and desperately asked her: "Ma, doesn't life seem like a dream? Is it a dream?" She thought my question was cute and that I was smart to ask it, but left it at that and this only left me frustrated. So I concluded that life was indeed a dream and an illusion...somehow...though not "really".

It would not be until about a decade later when I was in high school that I came across the famous line of Edgar Allen Poe somewhere in the 1,000 page biography of Fr. Seraphim Rose I was reading at the time, which said: "Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?" This quote from the poem "Dream Within A Dream" forever formed a bond between me and the Master of the Macabre, let alone the fact that we were both born and suffered in Boston.

It was during these days that I first became fascinated with Bible stories. I never read them, but every morning the highlight of my day was to wake up at 7:00AM before school and watch a cartoon series called "Superbook". This was an excellent series of two modern day children traveling back in time to live out different stories of the Bible while meeting the characters of the Bible. I was absolutely fascinated and in love with this show, and years later when I first started reading the Bible, the stories were familiar to me from watching the "Superbook" series every weekday for a couple of years.

Things slowly began to change for me by the fifth grade at the age of ten. By this time in many ways I was an angry kid and somewhat of a punk. If my parents punished me, I would hate them. If anyone bothered me, I'd hate them. It came to the point that my parents decided to move us to the richer town next to the one we lived in with a better school system. It was either this, or I would be sent to boarding school. This made me even more angry. But there was one light in my life at this time, and that was my fifth grade Greek school teacher named John. I had gone to Greek school since the first grade and absolutely hated it and everything about it. In the fourth grade I even orchestrated to have my teacher fired because she was the closest thing to the devil I had ever met, so going into the fifth grade did not give me high expectations. But if my fourth grade teacher was a devil, my fifth grade teacher was a saint. He was a seminarian from Holy Cross School of Theology who came from Greece to study theology in Boston. In class, which was twice a week, one day he would fully devote to teaching Greek, the other day he fully devoted to teaching us about Christianity. With my background in being fascinated with "Superbook", I actually would always look forward to going to class on the day he would teach about Christianity; and by this time I hated school.

My teacher John was a great man, and to this day I am moved every time I think about him. First of all, he was the first teacher I had and ever did have that not only was kind, loving and possessed a gentle smile, but I never even knew his last name as he would insist that we called him by the name "Yianni" (Greek for "John"). Till this day, he may be the closest image I have in my mind of a Christ-like figure that I have ever met. At a time I felt despised and agitated by everyone, he was just so full of love that you sensed absolutely no judgment from him. And when he taught about Christianity, he did it with a gentle passion that was infectious. Nothing over the top, but certainly heartfelt. The other students hated the days he would teach about Christianity thinking them a waste of time, but I was absolutely glued to every word. I was always too shy to tell him, but I always knew he sensed my fascination because I would listen to what he said and look right at him while everyone else was falling asleep. At the end of the school year he even took us for a field trip to visit Holy Cross School of Theology where he lived and studied, which was my first visit (my second was a few years later when my father took me to see Ecumenical Patriarch Demetrios). He took us for a tour around campus, showed us his apartment, and ended the day in the chapel where he gave a final little talk. For some reason, as he was talking, he mentioned me by name in front of everyone to emphasize a point he was making about the importance of keeping our faith alive. If only he knew that less than a decade later I would be entering that same school as a student.

One particular day in Greek school I most remember that forever changed my life. And who would have thought it would happen to me in Greek school, the one thing in my life I had most hated. Here was this seminarian in his early twenties talking to a bunch of ten year olds about love and forgiveness, a topic he always tried to drive home with us. And he always did this in the context of imitating the love and forgiveness of Christ. After confessing to us how when he came to America from Greece and settled for a few years in the Dakotas he became very racist against black people, he said that as a Christian he came to realize the evils of hate and prejudice. Then he explained to us how Christ on the cross forgave his murderers and the thief crucified next to him, and if Christ could do something like that, then what prevents us from not forgiving our friends or family or anyone. With raised arms in a crucified position he repeated the words of Christ on the cross: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do". Then he explained to us the victory of Christ over death through his resurrection. These were things I never heard before. I had always assumed Jesus died on the cross and that was it. This was the first I heard of a resurrection from the dead, or at least took it to heart. Up to this time, death was very hopeless to me and made me view everything as vanity.

At that moment, like the Grinch who stole Christmas, my small heart grew three sizes. The love of Jesus melted any hate I ever had in my heart. It was a tremendous load off my back to no longer be burdened with hate and resentment. It was literally a taste of freedom.

He then had all the students sit in a circle and asked each of us one by one if there was anyone in the world we hated. Everyone thought this exercise was stupid, and everyone said one by one that of course there were people they hated. Almost everyone said they hated murderers and rapists and bullies, etc. As I listened to them, I only thought how stupid they were being for saying such a thing, even though I felt the same way not too long before. Then my turn came and John asked me if there was anyone I hated, and the only thing that could come out of my mouth was "no". It was the only logical answer to my ten year old mind.

A few months later I was put to the test. I did something bad and my mom punished me by sending me to my room. I became angry and inside myself I said "I hate her". Now this was something I had said before without remorse, but this time guilt ran throughout my being. I immediately thought of Jesus on the cross and the lesson I had learned about forgiveness. I vowed on that day that I would never hate anyone ever again for any reason whatsoever as long as I lived, nor even say the word in anger, even if I were a victim of hate. So far, at the age of 35, I have kept that promise after many trials.

The next stage in my journey didn't come for a few years, when the movie "The Seventh Seal" came out in 1988, starring Demi Moore. I had gone to the theater with my aunt and sisters to watch a movie, but my aunt didn't want to see a kid movie, so she decided to take us all to an R-rated movie she wanted to see. I was twelve years old, so of course I said yes. The movie was sort of freaky, but biblical prophecies about the end of the world were a central theme. It made me curious to the point that when I got home I stole my sisters KJV Bible which she received as a gift from someone, and began to search for the verses cited in the movie, since this was the first I heard of an end of the world and biblical prophecies. I found the verse and was blown away.

Soon thereafter I was watching TV on a Sunday morning and saw some show put out by a cult group on biblical prophecies, and they were describing how the Bible prophecied things like helicopters in the Book of Revelation. This also fascinated me and made me curious enough to search out those Bible passages.

That same year I also decided to watch the six-hour mini-series "Jesus of Nazareth" on TV, since it was a year Catholics and Orthodox celebrated Easter together and I always loved getting as much into the spirit of various holidays as I could. One of the great things about this movie, besides the fact that it depicted the best "Jesus" in film history who took the role seriously, was its unashamed use of quoting various Old Testament prophecies which foretold the coming of Jesus. I had never known or heard before this that even the coming of Jesus was foretold hundreds of years before his birth. I was blown away once again and realized that Christianity is a religion of many great and pleasant surprises. It was the first great Holy Week I had in church that year and made everything very real to me. Around this time my grandmother also visited us in America and brought me a Greek children's Bible as a gift. One day at a store I found the same book in English and begged my mom to buy it for me, since the KJV Bible was a little difficult for me. This is when I really started to take Christianity seriously, as I entered my teenage years, reading almost every day my children's Bible full of interesting illustrations.

But this is only where my journey and the trials begin.

Question 2: Who is your primary theological influence?

Besides the Prophets, Apostles and Fathers, my primary modern day theological influence is the person who most opened up to me the Prophets, Apostles and Fathers, and that person is Fr. John Romanides. Here is a brief history of how this came to be.

Interestingly I first came across Fr. John Romanides working with my father as an electrician. I was a freshman in Hellenic College at the time and my dad called me telling me he was working in the house of a Catholic old woman, and in her basement there were a bunch of old Christian books she was willing to give me. So I went to work with him and took the books, which were mainly old Catholic missals and catechisms and spiritual works published in the early 20th century. As I went through one of these books I came across a cut-out from the Boston Globe in the 1950's by a Greek Orthodox professor at Holy Cross named Fr. John Romanides on the topic of an Orthodox perspective on UFO's and alien life. Shortly thereafter I was discussing the topic with an Orthodox priest at the seminary and told him about the article, but also mentioned I was a little troubled by it because it said that man does not have an immortal soul. I was suspicious also that his picture in the article showed him as shaven and wearing a collar, which at the time made me think twice about how Orthodox this really could be. The priest explained to me that in Orthodoxy we do not believe we possess an eternal soul by nature, but by grace. Then he also said something that resonated within me: "You can't go wrong with Romanides." Struck by the concept of having an immortal soul by grace and not nature, I decided to one day look further into the writings of Fr. Romanides.

After I graduated college in 1998 I immediately got married and decided to move to North Carolina, where I would attend an Evangelical Seminary and get a Philosophy of Religion degree, being taught by some of the biggest names in the Evangelical world at the time with a specialty in apologetics. I was there for three years and fully immersed in the life of the school, but in the end not allowed to get my degree because it was required I sign a Statement of Faith which was a bit too Calvinistic for my tastes.

It was about a year into my education in North Carolina that I really got deep into studying writers like Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, and every major Western thinker and philospher into the 20th century up to Derrida. I was also taking classes on Christian doctrine that was taught from a scholastic perspective, as my teacher was big fan and follower of Aquinas, and I wondered how strange it all sounded compared to what I had read in Orthodox Patristic texts. As much as I tried to reconcile the two, I just couldn't, and I was left dazed and confused, on the border of possibly abandoning certain key Orthodox doctrines because the arguments of Aquinas just sounded clearer and better to me in some ways. We spent a lot of time talking about the nature of God, and found it strange how little I was taught about this in my classes at Hellenic College. But deep down I always knew there was something wrong, especially with the doctrine of God as Actus Purus and the concept of Divine Simplicity and the vision of the Divine Essence.

I looked everywhere in my library and on the internet for an Orthodox response to Aquinas, but could not find anything anywhere that was convincing and rational enough. Then I looked into a book by Andrew Sopko titled "Prophet of Roman Orthodoxy: The Theology of Fr. John Romanides" which had just been published and I purchased hoping to begin my studies of Fr. Romanides. When I read the first chapter which contained a summary of the debate he had with his professor Panagiotis Trembelas, I was once again blown away. All the things that troubled me about Aquinas, represented by Trembelas in the debate, was clearly answered by Fr. Romanides in such a convincing way that I could not have imagined. I had come to the point of losing hope in having my questions answered, and every one of them was answered in that first chapter. When I completed that book I truly felt that I had only just then become an Orthodox Christian. A new world opened up to me. And since then I have acquired every writing of Fr. John in both Greek and English, published and unpublished, and read them all over and over again. Without Fr. Romanides, I feel almost as if today I would not be Orthodox nor even alive.

3. Question: What inspired you to begin your weblog?

Many things inspired me. It would be difficult to list them all, so I won't. I will say that my initial inspiration was my bitter separation from my wife after nearly seven years of marriage and the eventual divorce a few years later. It was one of the darker periods of my life, and I saw more evil being put out into the world after my separation than I cared to witness. For three years I fought a battle of whether or not to return evil for evil, or return good for all the evil unwillingly heaped on me continuously during that period. I could easily write a book about all the lessons I learned in those days, and probably will. After over three years of this I felt like I had wasted a lot of time fighting this battle, and any attempt I would make to return good for evil fell on unfertile ground. In a moment of isolation I decided to start something which eventually became this blog, though at first I didn't know the direction I wanted to go with it. Essentially it still has that spirit, pretty much covering a wide range of topics, not all of which are purely of an Orthodox theological nature.

I never thought I would have any readers. I simply did it to see what it would be like and where it would lead me organically. I've had to erase some of my initial posts because a lot of them covered subjects that would probably scandalize my easily scandalized readers. My range of interests carry wide expanses and vast depths for most people in the world to handle. In fact, many of my posts right now scandalize a lot of people, but I had to draw a line somewhere. After all, this is purposefully titled "the weblog of John Sanidopoulos" and I purposefully made sure the address for my page was my name to state that everything here is an expression of my interests and do not aim to please anyone but myself.

Eventually I had to narrow it down to more important topics mainly of an Orthodox Christian nature. Till this day I'm still trying to narrow it down. I was always frustrated how truly little there was on the internet that contained a spirit of authentic Orthodoxy that I have come to learn over the years, in all its simplicity, beauty and purity. I couldn't think of one website that represented this the way I wanted to see it. I was also frustrated that there was so much on the internet by schismatic Old Calendarists and their propaganda which was taken for truth by the gullible and unread, by the vast amount of opinionated bloggers with nothing but vitriol being produced, and by the lack of a Pan-Orthodox unity and spirit on news sites. Very few if any a few years ago represented Greek traditions and the Ecumenical Patriarchate in a positive light. But I also wanted to include things in the Russian tradition, the Serbian, the Romanian, the Bulgarian, the Georgian, etc etc. I believe I have created a more positive spirit here where people don't have to feel guilty for belonging to the canonical Church, as many websites at that time by so-called "Orthodox" made you feel, and which put all critics of the Church on the defensive rather than the offensive. I havn't really even begun to tackle the heavy subjects and present the Orthodoxy that I have come to love over the years, but eventually, God willing, I'll get to it. Much work needs to be done, but first a lot of misinformation on the internet needs to be addressed.

This was basically what inpired me to begin this blog, but this is only the beginning of a long journey.

4. Question: Which of the hundreds of posts you have made would you consider the most important?

That is really difficult to answer. But since I'm getting personal, I will go with one in which I provided a quote from a section of St. Peter of Damascus contained in The Philokalia titled "We Should Not Despair Even If We Sin Many Times". Very few people have read The Philokalia these days, so even fewer were aware of this powerful chapter of St. Peter. No passage from the fathers struck a chord for me as much as this one when I first came across it. This was during college when I came to a point that I fell into the sin of despair headlong, to the point where I lost touch in many ways with reality and my humanity. It was a terrible time, even darker than that of my divorce which really hit me hard, but St. Peter helped pull me through in those days. I was pleased after I posted it the positive responses it received, and in many ways I think I started my blog just to post this passage for the whole world to read. Another one I loved from back then was titled The Afflicted Should Be Guided Slowly To Repentance. These are the two that mean the most to me personally.

5. Question: Last year you listed your top ten favorite films for the first half of the year. What are they this year?

Finally an easy question. Since people get scandalized by my interests I decided to not do it this year, but hopefully I'm helping to lead people along a greater path of maturity and non-judgmentalism to list my top ten here. As anyone that knows me knows that I am a great lover of the arts and especially cinema, here are my top ten movies of the first half of 2011 that I have seen. In reverse order they are:

10. Insidious (my favorite horror movie of the year so far, though I also liked Paranormal Activity 2)

9. The Conspirator

8. Bridesmaids

7. X-Men: First Class

6. Thor

5. Submarine

4. Win Win

3. Jane Eyre

2. Super 8

1. Midnight In Paris

Sorry, but "Tree of Life" and "Of Gods and Men", while both very good movies in many ways, were overrated in my humble opinion. "Sanctum" was probably the most underrated. Also, there are three movies I have not seen that may enter my top ten list after I see them within the next few weeks - "Rubber", "13 Assassins" and "Incendies". Probably most of these will be forgotten come Oscars time, since the next six months have a list of very interesting titles that I am really looking forward to.

The Cathedral of the Holy Apostle Andrew in Patras

At the location of the Apostle Andrew's martyrdom in Patras, Greece are two churches. The older church is built over the actual spot of his martyrdom and was founded as seen today between 1836 and 1843. Inside is the marble tomb of the Apostle Andrew in which his relics were placed, though in the 4th century his relics were transferred to Constantinople by Emperor Constantius and eventually ended up in Rome. On 26 September 1964 the Vatican returned the skull of the Apostle Andrew together with a finger to the people of Patras as a gesture of ecumenical good will. The newer more majestic church was built in a more Roman/Byzantine style and was initially founded in 1908 by King George I and dedicated in 1974 by Metropolitan Nikodemos of Patras. The latter is the largest Orthodox church in the Balkans and one of the largest in all of Europe. The central dome is 46 meters in height on top of which is a Cross made of pure gold surrounded with 12 other Crosses in honor of the twelve disciples. The new church can hold 5,500 people.

Next to the older church is the well and cave of the Apostle Andrew. This well at first was dedicated to Demeter, but now contains Holy Water sanctified by the Apostle. It was here that Saint Andrew would preach and it was inside this cave in which the original X-shaped cross of the Apostle Andrew was later found.

The videos below were shot by my sister Vaso, and also feature my niece Christiana and parents Panagiotis and Panagiota. In the first video are inside shots of the newer church during a Divine Liturgy in the summer of 2009. It features shots of the skull and X-shaped cross being venerated by the faithful. The second video has my family walking from the new church, passed the old church (which was closed), to the well and cave of St. Andrew. My father narrates some of his memories, since he was born and raised in Patras and was present at the joyous parade of 26 September 1964 when the relics of St. Andrew were returned. The photos are mainly personal photos owned by me.

Read also: The Translation of the Honorable Skull of the First-Called Apostle Andrew

The Angel At My Bedroom Window

When I was 11 years old I started a journal for some odd reason. My first entry was January 1, 1988. Not too many months later, after I had turned 12, I wrote a peculiar entry that records a dream I still remember quite vividly. With today being the Feast of the Synaxis of the Archangel Michael and All the Bodiless Angelic Hosts, I thought it would be timely (or at least entertaining) to post it. Keep in mind two things when reading: first, I was just a 12-year-old punk kid when I wrote this, so it is not very eloquent; second, I never really payed attention to my dreams so this is not common of me.

October 27, 1988 Thursday (11:31 AM)

I woke up at 5:00 AM this morning because I had a suspicious dream. The dream was about an angel and I was a bad guy. The angel was outside my bedroom window and I was looking at him from behind with my sharp teeth. In the background was this music that went "hoooo"! It was scary. The angel's arm was half way up with his palm up looking in the sky and then the angel turned around. The angel had blonde hair and a white robe. It looked at me for a second and I woke up. I read my book report at 5:00 AM. Could it have been a sign from God? Don't know.

This was one of my first "spiritual" experiences that I'm grateful to have recorded, though in some parts I have no idea what I'm talking about. Basically, from what I remember, in the dream I was in my bed and saw a bright angel at my second-floor bedroom window almost as tall as my house looking at me, though I felt like a bad guy and had sharp teeth to show it. In the background was the most beautiful music I had ever heard and have still yet to hear, that sounded like an angelic choir. When the angel and I locked eyes, he swiftly backed away from the house, swiftly turned around, looked up into heaven, and ascended.

I hesitate to call this "spiritual", since it was just a dream to me and I tend to be very skeptical of my own experiences. It made a minor impression on me though at the time, and if I were ever to believe something divine about it, it would be that beautiful music which I have a hard time believing was created in my imagination. I didn't give it much thought until a few years later when I was speaking with my late pious grandmother in Greece, and she was lamenting the fact that she had have never been granted by God to hear in her lifetime the beautiful singing voices of angelic choirs. I don't think I ever told her about my experience due to my skepticism, but after she said that I began to wonder once again: "Could it have been a sign from God? Don't know."

Haralambis the Fool For Christ and My Family

Haralambis Papadogiannis was born in 1896 in Dyrrachi, which is a village in the west-central part of the Arcadia prefecture in Greece. His father Haralambi died in his infancy, and thus took on his name. His mother remarried and moved to a nearby village, but left Haralambi behind with his paternal relatives. After a few grades in Elementary School he grew up working in the fields. In 1916 he evaded his military service, some say he received a theological education and became learned in foreign languages. Little if anything else can be verified of his early life until he appeared as an ascetic around 1924 following the Calendar reform.

In the world he lived as the ascetics and fools for Christ of old. He confessed that "God wants people to call me crazy and a fool." He also said: "God told me to wear old clothes, not costumes." His constant message was to "never leave the path of God." According to Saint Paul: "God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty" (1 Corinthians 1:27).

Everyone who remembers him remembers his appearance most of all. He would walk around barefoot everywhere, whether in winter or summer. Around his waist he wore a bag in which he kept oil to light the oil lamps in the surrounding chapels and food which he begged from those who were well-off which he would give to the needy (he himself lived on very simple foods such as rice and tomatoes). His hair was uncombed and unwashed and his clothes were old. Around his neck was a wooden Cross which he had made. Sometimes he would walk around with a lamp that contained the flame of the Holy Light from Jerusalem. At night he would sleep in chapels and caves, and during the day he would go from village to village in the area of Kalamata begging for money and food to give to the needy.

Besides all this, he would often dance in public to appear he was crazy. Once when he scandalized some by his dancing with girls, he would respond: "I am imitating Andrew the Fool". Whenever someone would beat him or make fun of him, terrible consequences resulted.

The Orthodoxy of Haralambi was very simple and his personal piety was one of exactitude. He believed the Calendar reform caused much confusion and was a hard-line enemy of the change to the New Calendar. When the so-called "Genuine" Orthodox Church created a schism with the Church of Greece, he joined the schismatics and was closely associated with Panagoulaki Monastery in Kalamata. However, his adherence to the Old Calendar was out of his great love for Orthodoxy and his simplistic way of life. His purity of heart allowed him to transcend the Calendar issue so that he became a vessel of grace to the people of Kalamata. This allowed him to work many miracles and emanate the uncreated light of the Holy Trinity. Without anyone to properly correct him, God overlooked his errors as He has done with other such examples in Church history and gave him a prophetic spirit and the clear eye of clairvoyance.

He fell asleep in the Lord on 10/23 October 1974. His grave is located at the Monastery of Panagoulaki, in Kalamata.


A Miracle Witnessed By My Grandfather and Other Experiences

My grandparents on my mother's side were both from villages in the northern areas of Peloponnesos, but when they were married they moved to Kalamata where my mother and her siblings were born. All of them have fond memories of Haralambi.

Among the most astonishing memories comes from my grandfather Vasili. According to him, one day during the German occupation of World War 2, the Germans gathered the men in the center of Kalamata. Among those present was my grandfather. Haralambi also came, but payed no attention to the orders of the German soldiers; he walked through the crowd and kept on walking. The Nazi soldiers began yelling at him to stop, but he kept walking courageously as if going about his daily business and would not even turn around. When the Germans saw his disobedience they opened fire on him with machine guns to make an example of him. All the Greeks of Kalamata who reverenced Haralambi, were amazed when they saw that not one bullet touched him, despite the Germans being experienced gunmen. The Germans were dumbfounded and went to capture him. When they saw he was an ascetic, they let him free.

Whenever my grandfather relates this story which he saw with his own eyes and which is recorded by others in Haralambis' biography, astonishment still comes over his face. Many years later, after I read the biography of Haralambi, I told him some extra details that he did not know. When Haralambi later went to the various houses on his daily route, people would ask him what happened. He would then reach into his pocket and show them a handful of bullets. He would say that the bullets bounced off him and ended up miraculously in his pocket. When I told my grandfather this he just about fell silent with awe.

My mother Panagiota, who was baptized with the Old Calendar in the Monastery of Panagoulaki in the mid-1950's, remembers Haralambi as a little girl walking through Kalamata. His appearance, described above, was most striking to her, but she says that she was never afraid of him but saw him as a holy man. Once he even blessed her. She told me that she would feel sorry for him when she would sometimes see young boys throw rocks at him and wondered where he was in the winter. She also remembers him preaching about the end of the world. Even today one of her fondest childhood memories growing up in Kalamata was seeing Haralambi.

Interestingly, in 1998 I was speaking with Fr. Panteleimon at the schismatic Old Calendar Monastery of the Holy Transfiguration in Brookline, MA, and he told me that he also knew Haralambi in his youth in Kalamata. According to him, he told me that his relics had been lost and were in a room with many other relics of monks at Panagoulaki Monastery. When visiting he was determined to find the relics. Entering the room he noticed a sweet fragrance. Following the fragrance he came to a box which said "Haralambi". He acquired the jaw of Haralambi and to my surprise it was at Holy Transfiguration. After requesting to venerate it, he brought it out for me. A few weeks later I brought my mother and grandmother to venerate his jaw as well, which they did with much joy.

See also the videos in my post "A Tour of Panagoulakis Hermitage in Kalamata" in which Haralambi is also discussed.

A Tour of Panagoulakis Hermitage in Kalamata

Many thanks to my sister Vaso and my mother for taking this rare video footage of the Hermitage of Panagoulakis in Kalamata, Greece. My mother is from Kalamata and was baptized in this Monastery in 1955. In these videos pilgrims tell the story of Elder Elias Panagoulakis (+ 1917) and how he founded this Monastery, and my sister is able to descend into the cave of Elder Elias, where he lived his life in strict asceticism, and they venerate his holy skull. Stories are also told of Haralambi the Fool for Christ, whom my mother knew and was a regular visitor to the Monastery. More will be said on these two holy personalities in future posts. It should be kept in mind, if anyone happens to visit, that this Monastery is currently Old Calendarist and not in communion with the Church of Greece.

A Tour of St. Irene Chrysovalantou Monastery in Lykovrisi

Many thanks to my sister Vaso, my mother, and my niece Christiana (you can see my nephews Pano and Demetri as well) for taking this rare video footage of the Holy Monastery of Saint Irene Chrysovalantou in Lykovrisi, Athens. This was filmed in the summer of 2009.

To read more about Saint Irene Chrysovalantou and her Monastery in Lykovrisi, see here, here and here.

If videos don't work, just click on them and they will take you to the originals on Youtube.