Ascetics in the World: The End of the Righteous

Unknown author

 

 

Panagiotis Vasileiadis was born in Trebizond in 1880. He was a copper merchant, quite well-to-do. His wife Despoina was from a poor family but rich in virtues of the soul. They had seven children.

They were a loving married couple and made all their decisions jointly. They also agreed that, in addition to their parents, other close relatives with financial problems—widows, orphans, and others—should be added to their household.

Since he had a large house [1] and because he had relations with people of the Church, he hosted Metropolitans and priests from various places who came to Trebizond, the poor, the homeless, and passers-by. Panagiotis, like the Patriarch Abraham, drove no one away from his house. He gave rest to all of them, hosted them, and satisfied them with material goods, and especially with his noble love.

One of the many gifts that his guests offered him survives until today. It is a prayer book with psalms printed in Venice in the year 1780, in the Turkish language. This and the Gospel were his favorite books, which he read often.

Throughout his whole life, in his comforts and in his difficulties, he always resorted to God. His faith in God was strong and living. Five times each day he prayed, always saying at the beginning the 50th Psalm: “Have mercy on me, O God…”.

When he was alone in his house, he liked to chant. He advised his children to be humble and not to forget that “he who exalts himself shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted.” [2]

He was a peaceful and calm man. He helped many who were in need, and especially widows who had small orphaned children, because he had a particular affection for little children.

Once his young daughter asked him to buy her shoes for Pascha. He bought them, but he saw an orphaned girl of the same age barefoot and put them on her. When his daughter protested, he answered her without excuses: “You, my child, have a father. You can have them tomorrow as well.” He also protected his employees. He helped them to have homes of their own. He also benefacted many Turks who were in need.

In the year 1920 they came to Greece extremely poor, because they left everything behind. For safety, he left with a Turkish friend a miraculous icon, an inheritance from his parents, which dates from the year 1520. However, from the day the Turk took it into his house, every night it made a characteristic noise, so that they were unable to sleep. Therefore, the Turk notified Panagiotis, and with great emotion and reverence he took it and brought it with him to Greece. The icon depicts Christ in the middle, on the right the Panagia, and on the left the Honorable Forerunner. [3]

Their life in Greece was very difficult. They lost everything, and yet he would say to them: “Glorify God; He will not abandon us.”

And again, even in deprivation, the compassionate Panagiotis did not forget his poor relatives. Until he grew old, he kept his pockets full of candies, coins, and other things that he offered to the little children whom he met playing in the street. This was his great joy.

The last years of his life he spent in the house of his youngest daughter, Sophia. He suffered greatly from bronchial asthma. In the year 1955, Pascha fell on April 17. A few days earlier God informed him to prepare for the other life. “They notified me that I am leaving and I want to prepare,” he said to his children. On Palm Sunday, he went alone to the Church, which was quite far away, even though he was so exhausted. He received Communion kneeling. During those days he was very calm. But on Great Friday at noon, he suddenly rose from his bed and was speaking intensely to himself. His daughter asked him: “Father, do you want something?” “No, my child,” he said to her. “Look, they came to take me and I was grieved. I told them, ‘Do not spoil the Pascha of my children.’”

On the second day of Pascha his health worsened considerably. His children, his daughters-in-law, and his sons-in-law gathered in the house.

In the afternoon he was breathing with greater difficulty. He turned his head, looked at them all, and to the son-in-law of his eldest daughter, who was very peculiar, he said, shaking his head sadly: “Savva, Savva,” and tears rolled from his eyes. Then he inclined his head, and in the afternoon at seven o’clock he fell asleep peacefully. He departed poor and modest, but all his children were around him.

At his fortieth-day memorial Turks came from Trebizond, whom the merciful Panagiotis had benefacted when he lived there.

Shortly before six months after his death, he appeared to his wife in her sleep. He told her that he would take her with him, therefore she should prepare herself. Thus, without any doubt, his wife went to the Church and received Communion with great reverence.

On the eve when they were preparing the kollyva for the six-month memorial, at noon, at the hour when they were eating, she also fell asleep from cardiac arrest.

When at three years they performed the exhumation, his bones were clean and yellow like a lemon.

After years he appeared in the sleep of his daughter Sophia. When she asked him, “What are you doing, father? How are you passing your time?”, he said to her: “I am very well. We are together with your mother. Here it is very beautiful. One neither hungers, nor thirsts, nor grows cold; do not grieve for us.”

Eternal be his memory. Amen.

 

1. Until a few years ago, in his house, which survives until today, a certain state service of Trebizond was housed.

2. Luke 18:14.

3. The icon and the prayer book are preserved today in the house of his daughter Sophia, who cared for her parents in their old age.

 

Greek source: https://agiazoni.gr/askites-mesa-ston-kosmo-ta-teli-ton/