Source: Hieromonk Chrysanthus (1894-1981), Сыны Света: воспоминания о старцах Афона [Sons of Light: Reminiscences of the Elders of Athos], Moscow: Sibirskaya Blagozvonnitsa, 2009.
Confessor Father, Elder
Ieronymos (1866–1943)*
The first confessor who lived in
the little guardhouse in the garden and heard the confessions of the zealots of
the old calendar who were then being persecuted was the hieromonk Father Ieronymos.
He was born on the island of Crete, but at the age of thirteen he left his
parents and homeland and came to the Holy Mountain, entering the brotherhood of
the monastery of Saint Paul. With great zeal and eagerness, he began to fulfill
all the holy rules of monastic life and very soon became a virtuous monk. When
he reached the canonical age, he was ordained a hierodeacon, and afterwards a
priest, and was appointed a confessor.
Having accustomed himself to
obedience, Father Ieronymos ate very little and served the Liturgy every day.
The abbot, seeing the height of his virtue, gave him a blessing to settle in
the skete of hesychia, consecrated in the name of the Most Holy Trinity.
In this abode of ascetic struggle
Father Ieronymos lived a life far removed from every vanity. He served
all-night vigils, prayed unceasingly, kept a strict fast, and endured every
hardship. He ate whatever he had. If a priest in the monastery fell ill, Father
Ieronymos would go and serve the Liturgy. His entire life consisted of ascetic
labors.
Europeans, reading the Lives
of the Saints, did not believe that everything written about the exploits
of the holy fathers was true. One of them came to the monastery of Saint Paul
and began to speak mockingly about the readings from the Synaxarion.
The abbot (it seems this was
Father Synesius) was not disturbed, but took the European guest by the hand and
led him to the skete of hesychia. At that time, it was very difficult to
reach the skete of the Holy Trinity: the path was precipitous, and if one did
not measure his step carefully, he could fall into the sea.
According to custom, the abbot
knocked on the door of the dwelling. Father Ieronymos opened it for them and
kissed the abbot’s hand. The abbot entered and brought the guest inside. They
saw how small the rooms in the skete were and that there was nothing in them:
neither a plate, nor a fork, nor a blanket. Only on the washstand lay a dried
tomato.
The abbot said to Father Ieronymos:
“Do you perhaps have some bread for us to eat, Father?”
Father Ieronymos, as a monastic
obedient, answered humbly: “Elder, I have nothing, except perhaps one tomato
which the gardener brought last Sunday. I only just remembered it when you
asked for something to eat.”
The European guest asked Father Ieronymos:
“So, how often do you eat, Father?” Father Ieronymos replied: “I am a novice;
my abbot knows when I must eat.”
On the way back the moved
European said to the abbot: “Truly, the Orthodox Eastern Church even now knows
workers of the highest Christian virtues. Such people are an example for the
glorious Greek people who have passed through centuries of martyrdom.”
At the request of the abbot of
the monastery of Simonopetra, Father Ieronymos moved there and was soon
received into the monastic brotherhood. There he became acquainted with Father
Panteleimon, at that time the best chanter on the Holy Mountain.
They decided to live together in
the eremitic way of life. For the ascetic struggle of hesychia they were
given a kalyva in the skete of the monastery of Koutloumousiou. When the
fathers learned of this, they all began to come to Father Ieronymos in order to
hear advice from him about noetic prayer and dispassion.
Once the postman brought a letter
for the elder Panteleimon. But he was not there: he had gone to work. The
postman nevertheless met him on the road and handed him the letter, which had
been sent by Father Arsenios from Salamis.
When Father Panteleimon returned
to the kalyva, his elder, Father Ieronymos, asked: “Did the postman find
you and hand you the letter?”
Father Panteleimon replied in the
negative.
But the clairvoyant Father Ieronymos
said: “Search in your chest and never hide anything.”
When in the summer the fathers
came to confession to Father Ieronymos, he could offer them only a glass of
cold water and a few figs which could be picked from the neighboring tree.
Soon Father Panteleimon went to
gather figs. When he was walking along the planks, one board came loose and he
fell onto the rocks, injuring his left arm. He cried out from the unbearable
pain. Father Ieronymos came out at the cries and saw what had happened. The
elder said to his spiritual child: “Servant of God, did I not tell you to
search in the chest and hide nothing? What am I to do with you now?”
Elder Panteleimon began to ask
forgiveness. He was forced to go to his parents in Piraeus, but no one was able
to cure him.
(…)
Father Joachim of
the Skete of Saint Anna (1895–1950)
When Father Joachim arrived from
America in Piraeus, my novice was ill, and I was treating him in every possible
way.
I learned that Father Joachim
would serve the Liturgy in the church of Saint Paul in Old Kokkinia, which had
not accepted the new calendar.
I went to listen to his sermon.
When he began to speak, all the sorrows fell away from my soul and my mind
opened to heavenly contemplations. From that time on I constantly consulted
Father Joachim about spiritual matters. Almost every day I went to the house
where he was staying, and we spoke about monastic activity in our days, above
all about hesychia and prayer. Father Joachim had much contact on Athos
with priests of the old-calendarist persuasion and persuaded them to sell their
dwellings and acquire a large two- or three-story house where apartments and an
office could be arranged. Then it would be possible to employ middle-aged men
who were striving for the monastic life. There would also be sufficient means
to purchase an automobile and install a telephone, which would be absolutely
necessary, and likewise to invite an experienced confessor who would resolve difficult
questions.
But unfortunately, the Athonite
Old Calendarist fathers did not accept his proposal. Only the non-possessing
Father Eugenios of Dionysiou [+1961**] supported him. Father Eugenios always
went barefoot; the bones in his feet had rotted, and worms often fell from
them. He would take these worms and put them back into his wounds so that his
body might endure even greater suffering.
When I learned that Father
Joachim in America had strictly demanded the fulfillment of the Church’s
obligations, I asked how it had been possible for him to accomplish all this in
a country striving after every kind of innovation: that women should go about
in modest dresses and wear a headscarf, that men should curl their moustaches,
that children should behave quietly during the service; and how he had promoted
regular confession and communion for everyone.
He answered me humbly: “When I
saw in church a young man or woman dressed according to modern fashion, I at
first remained silent. I patiently endured such an appearance for three
Liturgies, and afterwards I approached and asked questions. Having heard about
the God-given commandments, the young people replied that they would follow all
the customs of the Orthodox Church. My parishioners reached such a degree of
spiritual life that they received the gift of unceasing prayer and read the
holy fathers, finding in their books the answers to their questions. The
Orthodox Church,” Father Joachim added, “imitates the humility of the Lord
Christ. Many of the heretics there, seeing our strictness, were astonished,
left their heretical communities, and became Orthodox Christians.”
Father Joachim, striving for an
even greater height of spiritual labor, decided to go to the Holy Mountain to
live in obedience to Father Gregory of Kostamonitou. Father Gregory, who was
practicing the ascetic struggle of hesychia in Kavsokalyvia, retyped
patristic teachings on a typewriter and sent them to laypeople. Through these
letters, which even reached America, Father Joachim learned about the elder.
I began to persuade Father
Joachim to settle in the kalyva of the Holy Trinity together with the
other brothers who had arrived with him from America. But he told me that he
had already given a vow to Father Gregory, and for him a vow was irrevocable.
Father Joachim went to
Kavsokalyvia, where he became a novice of Father Gregory. Since there was no
church in the kalyva, Father Gregory decided to purchase the kalyva
of the Nativity of the Mother of God in the Skete of Righteous Anna.
In this kalyva Father
Joachim was tonsured into the Great Schema and continued his ascetic labors.
On the author, Elder Chrysanthos:
https://orthodoxmiscellany.blogspot.com/2025/01/elder-chrysanthos-of-skete-of-st-anna.html
* On Elder Ieronymos:
https://www.imoph.org/Theology_en/E3d6003GeronIeronymowKresAK299.pdf
** On Elder Eugenios:
https://orthodoxmiscellany.blogspot.com/2025/01/archimandrite-eugenios-limonis-18751961.html
Russian source online:
https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Zhitija_svjatykh/syny-sveta-vospominanija-o-startsah-afona/
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