A Miracle of Saint Thomas of Maleon in Casablanca in 1991

 

By Archimandrite Daniel Gouvalis

July 1991. A coach from Athens visited Velanidia (a village built on the southernmost edge of the Parnon mountain range). Fifty Christians wished to worship at the Church of Saint Thomas of Maleon and receive the sanctifying grace from its spring. Out of bad judgment, a large coach was used, while they should have taken a small one. How it managed to take the turns, as it approached the village, is inexplicable. It can only be explained as a miracle of Saint Thomas.

The devout pilgrims, after making a supplication to the Saint and after prostrating before his holy relic – some felt that it gave off a divine aroma – reverently drank from the holy water. Moreover they took some with them in bottles. One of these bottles of Saint Thomas's holy water traveled a long, long way. It reached Morocco, to the great city of Casablanca.

René-Nicolas Ehni, Well-Known and Controversial French Author and Playright Who Converted to Greek Orthodoxy, Has Reposed

René-Nicolas Ehni was born on 29 April 1935, in Rixheim of the Alsace region of France, into a Jewish working class family. He lived as a child and teenager in Eschentzwiller, his schooling taking him to Colmar (in Saint-André) and Mulhouse (at the Lycée Lambert). The languages he spoke were Alsatian and he later learned French, German, and Greek.

His first vocation was to become an actor. He went to Paris, passed the entrance examination for the conservatory on rue Blanche in 1953, and started a small career acting in Paris theater before spending nearly three years in war in Algeria for his military service.

Prayer for an Orthodox Christian Convert on Death Row Soon to be Executed

Frank Atwood, who is convicted of kidnapping and killing an 8-year-old girl named Vicki Lynn Hoskinson in September 1984, has always claimed to have been innocent of the crime. While in maximum security prison, he converted to Orthodoxy and was baptized with the name Anthony through Saint Anthony's Monastery in Arizona. He has studied and prayed and been in correspondence with well-known Orthodox figures in Greece, such as Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol, who visited him in prison a few years ago but was not allowed to see him, as well as Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos, who wrote the piece below. Frank has recently issued the following statement prior to his upcoming execution by lethal injection. Let us all pray for him, at his request, and the request of the Metropolitans.

Saint Iakovos Tsalikes and the Catholic Pharmacist

In 1990 or 1991 there was a Catholic Pharmacist from Volos, who was catechized and wanted to be baptized Orthodox, at the Monastery of the Venerable David, by Elder Iakovos Tsalikes, on Pentecost.

Everything was ready and from Saturday the sponsor and the candidate arrived for the baptism. On Sunday during the Divine Liturgy, the sponsor entered the sanctuary while Elder Iakovos was liturgizing and told him that the candidate for baptism, who for a long time was begging to be baptized, decided to not be baptized and left, on his way back to Volos.

"Don't worry, my child," said the Elder, "he will be here within twenty minutes."

The Austrian Who Saved a Greek City from the Nazi's and Became an Orthodox Christian Iconographer

 

 

Josef H. Blechinger was a German soldier who turned out to be one of the greatest heroes of the Greek resistance, who literally saved a town from destruction.

Blechinger came to Greece as a conqueror with the German army. A few years later, after the war, he became Greek, changed his name to Elias Kokkinos, started a family and died in Greece.

Elias Kokkinos was born as Josef H. Blechinger in Dresden. His mother was Czechoslovakian and his father Austrian, but officially he was a German citizen. When World War II broke out, he had to enlist in the German army. First he served in occupied Poland. Then he was transferred to Greece.

The Story of How Saint George Led a Turkish Woman to be Baptized an Orthodox Christian

Recently a 26 year old Turkish woman named Gamze and her 34 year old Greek friend Stylianos visited Elder Nektarios Moulatsiotis, the founder and abbot of the Monastery of Saint Augustine of Hippo and Saint Seraphim of Sarov in Phokida, Greece. Gamze and her family were from Ankara, Turkey but moved to Berlin, Germany ten years ago. She grew up with no religion, though her family does have an Alevite background. Stylianos is from Kavala, Greece and due to financial hardships moved to Berlin, Germany about seven years ago. There he works as a public servant, and daily would visit the bakery across the street where Gamze worked. Over some time, a friendship formed between the two.

Eldress Mary Magdalene (Marie Madeleine Le Beller), Hermitess of Sinai (+ 2013)

The most-venerable Eldress Mary Magdalene, known in the world as Marie Madeleine Le Beller, was from Paris and went to the Holy Land on a pilgrimage and was baptized an Orthodox Christian when she was forty years old at the Jordan River in 1986. There she prayed to St. John Climacus, to show her the way of her salvation and the place for her solitary life of total dedication to God. She went to the Sinai desert, and lived near the cave of St. John Climacus in the Valley of Tholas (Wadi Et-Tlah) approximately 8km from Saint Katherine's Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai (about a 100-minute hike from the monastery).

The Funeral of Archimandrite Placide Deseille

Archbishop Job (Getcha) of Telmessos (Ecumenical Patriarchate), a spiritual child of Archimandrite Placide Deseille who was tonsured at one of the Simonopetra dependencies, reported that Father Placide reposed at the age of 91 on January 7 at 1:00 PM in the hospital. Father Placide went to the hospital on January 5 due to suffering from acute pneumonia. His burial took place on Thursday the 11th of January at the Monastery of Saint Anthony the Great in Saint-Laurent-en-Royans, France, one of the dependencies of Simonopetra Monastery. The aforementioned Archbishop Job with Metropolitan Emmanuel of France and other clergy presided over the funeral and burial services.

Saint Nektarios and the Protestant Who Became Orthodox

What follows is the testimony of a recent miracle of Saint Nektarios:

On June 20 [probably of 2009] we went with the Unborn Child Protection Society on a pilgrimage trip to Aegina. We venerated the grace-flowing relics of Saint Nektarios and went to his bedroom, his grave and his new majestic church, built by the late Metropolitan Hierotheos of Hydra.

Saint Elias Fondaminsky of Paris (+ 1942)

St. Elias Fondaminsky (Feast Day - November 6)

Elias (Ilya) Isidorovich Fondaminsky was born in Moscow on February 17, 1880. He was a Jewish Russian author (writing under the pseudonym Bunakov) and political activist. From 1900 he studied philosophy at Berlin and Heidelberg Universities and in the spring of 1902 was arrested for two months at the Russian border for transporting illegal literature into Russia. Elias wed his childhood friend, Emily Gavronskiy (1882-1935), in 1903, whose inclinations toward Orthodox Christianity almost certainly influenced him later in his life. In 1905 he became a member of the Moscow Committee of the S.R. (Socialist-Revolutionary Party). In 1906 he fled to Paris, where he became good friends with Z. Gippius, D. Merezhkovsky, and B. Savinkov. In the 1910s Elias was one of the leaders of the ultra left Esers party, and in 1917 a senior member of the Alexander Kerensky's Provisional Government.

Hank Hanegraaff (a.k.a. "the Bible Answer Man") Received Into the Orthodox Church

By John Sanidopoulos

Yesterday, 9 April 2017, Palm Sunday, I found out through a friend of mine in Charlotte, North Carolina that Hank Hanegraaff (a.k.a. "the Bible Answer Man") was received into the Orthodox Church through chrismation along with his wife Kathy and two of his twelve children, at Saint Nektarios Greek Orthodox Church, in Charlotte. I had heard Hank had been a catechumen for some time, which surprised me, but when his chrismation was confirmed for me yesterday, I was even more astounded. It was something I had always hoped for him, but never really expected. Hank had played a major role in my early Christian education, as he did for countless others, even though I was an Orthodox Christian. I will share just a few ways how this is true.

A Recent Miracle of St. Savvas of Kalymnos for a Couple from England

The radio producer of the ecclesiastical station Aletheia FM Kalymnos, Nikos Mamakas, on a Sunday morning when Saint Savvas the New of Kalymnos was celebrating, was on the radio program Peiraiki Ekklesia with Lykourgos Markoudis, where he spoke about an amazing miracle.

Every Friday he does a shift at the ecclesiastical bookstore of Kalymnos. Three years ago, an elderly couple who were tourists from England came into the bookstore, and after they bought something he gave them as a blessing a small icon of Saint Savvas.

The Soccer Player Who Became Paralyzed and Was Baptized Orthodox

Mihai Nesu was seriously injured on 10 May 2011 in a training session at the Dutch province of Utrecht. He collided with teammate Alje Schut and fractured a vertebrae in the cervical spine.

Nesu was left paralyzed from the neck down. At first he could move nothing but his eyelids. Then he started talking and slowly began to move his right arm. With this he can handle his wheelchair. From February 2012 he has been able to move his left hand.

A Monastery of Five Widows and a Buddhist Who Became Orthodox

Holy Monastery of Saints Marina and Raphael in Xylotymbou

By K. Triantaphylou

From my five-day stay in Cyprus I will record due to brevity only what lessons I learned at the Holy Monastery of Saint Marina and Saints Raphael, Nicholas and Irene in Xylotymbou of the Holy Metropolis of Kition. The spiritual father, serving priest and founder of this Monastery was Protopresbyter Kyriakos Panagiotou, who among other things has a sweet voice. Because of his sweet voice, the late Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus had him ordained as his deacon, but he refused, saying he preferred to serve as a priest in his village.

Interview with a Former Catholic from Poland who Converted to Orthodoxy through Baptism

In this interview with Marina Madej, a former Catholic from Poland who converted to Orthodoxy through Holy Baptism, we find one of many unfortunate examples of not allowing a convert who desires Holy Baptism to be baptized, forcing upon them oikonomia unnecessarily to the point that it drives them to a distant land seeking Baptism as their conscience urges. Since the schism in the eleventh century, the Church has traditionally accepted converts from Catholicism either by Baptism or Chrismation, the latter being allowed by oikonomia, but both traditions equally valid. To be received by Confession alone is an unnecessarily extreme form of oikonomia to receive a Catholic, as they do in Poland, which is why Marina fled to Greece to be properly received into the Orthodox Church.

Holy New Martyr Anastasios of Paramythia in Epirus (+ 1750) and Saint Daniel the Former Muslim

St. Anastasios of Paramythia (Feast Day - November 18)

Anastasios and his sister Maria were Greek peasants living in Paramythia, Epirus under Ottoman rule, who were orphaned from a young age. One day two Albanian Muslim soldiers of the local judge Ahmed Pasha, one of which was his son named Musa, came through their village as they were out with others gathering crops. Musa was struck by the beauty of Maria and tried to seize her in his lust, but Anastasios and his friends threw himself at the Albanians and fought them off long enough for his sister to escape. In revenge for this, Anastasios and his friends were arrested and brought before the judge who, impressed by his courage, attempted to convert him to Islam by many means: threats, beatings, and offers of worldly honor; but Anastasios held firm in his Orthodox Christian faith and was cast into prison. Meanwhile his friends were beaten and made to pay a heavy fine and released.

Eleven Anonymous Turkish Muslims Baptized Orthodox Christians

Eleven Turkish citizens, among them being a famous Turkish actor, were baptized a few days ago [in May 2015] Orthodox Christians. The Mystery was celebrated by the Metropolitan of Attica.

The [original] thirteen Muslim men and women (between the ages of 30 and 40) were impressed by the beauty of the Orthodox monuments of the island [of Chios], and on their return to Turkey, they decided to read and generally learn about Orthodoxy.

This led to them asking a priest to undertake their catechism with the intention of converting to the Orthodox religion.

Byzantine History Professor of the University of Copenhagen Baptized Orthodox

On Pentecost Sunday, 31 May 2015, His Grace Bishop Makarios together with a group of priests and deacons celebrated the Divine Liturgy and the Service of Kneeling in a Romanian parish of Copenhagen. On this occasion, the Danish professor Jon Gissel, a Byzantine historian of the University of Copenhagen, was received into the Orthodox Church through Baptism, after nearly three years of spiritual catechism. His Grace gave as a gift a silver crucifix modeled after the Northern Cross, an icon of the Holy Prophet and Forerunner John, a towel, and several books on Romanian Orthodox spirituality in Danish.

Source

Saint Paisios and the Young Man With Protestant Leanings

The following conversation between Fr. Paisios with a pious young man, who had been deceived by the falsehoods of Protestantism, was published in the annual publication O Hosios Gregorios of the Holy Monastery of Gregoriou in Mount Athos in the year 1995.

The late elder with seemingly simplistic answers to the existential questions of the young man, saved that soul from being lost and restored him to the embrace of the Orthodox Church. The Abbot of the Sacred Monastery of Gregoriou, Archimandrite George, gave us permission to republish the text of this conversation.

A Severe Illness Requires a Big Hospital

Eventually I decided to go to the Orthodox Church. I confessed and began to receive communion regularly. Yet I had many serious questions to which I could not find answers. I sought the answers by meeting with theologians and clergy, but still to no avail.

Morality or Moralism?

By the Very Rev. John Breck

March 23, 2010

Today a great many people are entering the Orthodox Church from other, generally Western confessions. Their tendency, quite understandably, is to bring with them notions of sin and guilt, obedience and virtue (merits) that figure strongly in the way those confessions construe the means by which we attain salvation. Whether they remain in a lay state or become ordained, they often allow their "former delusion" to influence the way they conduct themselves and the way they expect others to behave within an Orthodox setting. They determine for themselves and for those around them just what degree of rigor is necessary in order to live a virtuous life. The upshot is that a quest for virtue and morality often results in legalism, moralism and self-righteousness.

Cradle Orthodox, laypersons and clergy, can also succumb to this temptation, of course. All of us, in fact, are susceptible of passing judgment on those whom we suspect of neglecting the rules or making choices that are not pleasing to God.