Saint John the New Almsgiver of Amfiali on the New Calendarists

Source: Το ιστορικό και τα θαύματα της Παναγίας Ευαγγελιστρίας Ακρωτηριανής Σερίφου [The History and the Miracles of the Panagia Evangelistria of Akrotiriani in Serifos] Vol. 1, by Abbess Anthousa (Anneta, before becoming a nun), Athens, 2006.

One day, Anneta’s sister from Amfiali, Eugenia Triantafyllidi, came to Koropi and said to Anneta: “In my neighborhood, at Saint Demetrios, we have the clairvoyant elder John. You should come and receive a blessing.” The very next day, Anneta went to Amfiali and knocked on the door of the monastery of Saint Demetrios. Before they opened, she heard the elder commanding his nun: “Open, it’s the policewoman from Koropi, let her in.” Anneta was deeply moved.

They brought Anneta inside and led her to the back, beside the church of Saint Demetrios. As she entered, the elder—seated—said to her: “Come near me, handmaiden of God, Anneta, so I may read your sins on your forehead.” As soon as she approached him, deeply moved, she knelt before him and, weeping, kissed his hands with reverence. He lifted her head and looked at her forehead. He said to her: “I see on your forehead many cassocks written.” And immediately he told her: “Tell your priest at Saint Phanourios, the one on the Old Calendar, Hieromonk Eugenios, to stop driving away the New Calendarist sheep of God, because I used to do the same as my elder had advised me. Until one night, during the time of my rule of prayer, our Lord Jesus Christ appeared to me, showing me in a vision that on His right and left there were sheep—but with a difference: the sheep on His left were burnt, completely blackened. I was frightened and said: ‘Lord, on the left are [to be] the goats; how can there be burnt sheep?’ Then the Lord said to me, with indignation: ‘These burnt sheep are My New Calendarist children whom I send to you to enlighten, and you drive them away. I will demand them of you on the Day of Judgment, for it is not your prerogative to restore My New Calendarist sheep back to genuine Orthodoxy. That is directed by Me alone. You must accept them all, and those whom I allow shall return to the right path of My Glory. For the sins of the people, I permitted this division of the Church. You—accept them near you, for I am the One sending them. Protect them, for I will demand them of you on the Day of Judgment!’ And immediately the Lord disappeared, leaving me terrified by His severity.

“The very next day, I immediately opened my church for both New Calendarists and Old Calendarists. Now I have three thousand spiritual children who have me as their spiritual father. So tell your priest to stop driving away our New Calendarist brethren, and the rest is God's work.”

As soon as Anneta returned to Koropi, she told her priest the command. The Hieromonk said: “I will obey his command, for I have heard of his holiness.” And he began to love everyone and to serve them, without checking whether they belonged to the Old or the New Calendar. Within a year, fifteen families returned on their own to the Old Calendar because of the love he showed them, without coercion. When Saint John passed away, his New Calendarist spiritual children were as numerous as the sea.

Greek text: https://krufo-sxoleio.blogspot.com/2012/05/blog-post_4952.html