On the Deluded Ultra-Zealots of Athos: “Christ is Risen, Pantelis”

Greek source: Sacred Memories, by Metropolitan Petros of Astoria, Athens, 1990, pp. 58-59.

 

 

Elder Thomas, a kindhearted, gaunt, and very tall monk, lived with his two disciples, Panteleimon and John, on a mountainside near the summit at the Skete of St. Anne. Below their cell ran the narrow, rugged path leading to Katounakia, St. Basil’s, and Karoulia—that is, the desert region of Mount Athos, where holy hermits and ascetics lived and continue to live to this day.

Elder Thomas had a passion for fishing. This was also the handicraft by which his kalyve supported itself. He spent the entire night fishing near Pina, a headland of Mount Athos, and at daybreak Panteleimon, whom the fathers called “Thomas’s Pantelis,” would come down from the cell, collect the fish, and sell them at the Skete.

And life flowed pleasantly in the monastic brotherhood, fragrant with the incense of daily prayers and the scent of the sea that rose from Elder Thomas’s freshly caught fish. Everything went well until the day Panteleimon fell into delusion. He became a Hexagonist. Now I must explain to you what a “Hexagonist” is. Indeed, I shall find this rather difficult, for the matter has “profound theological significance”! In 1935, a monk who was a hermit published a book entitled The Elements of Orthodox Symbolic Signs. Triangles, squares, circles, hexagons, and various other geometric shapes adorned his work. He had also acquired some twenty followers, whom the fathers of Mount Athos called “Hexagonists.”

The customary greeting on Mount Athos, in place of “Good morning,” “Good evening,” “Good night,” “To your health,” and so forth, is “Bless!” [Evlogeite]. The Hexagonists abolished this beautiful greeting. They applied the principle, “Do not even greet heretics.” And in their eyes, all the fathers of Mount Athos who were not Hexagonists were heretics. Among those who had fallen into this delusion was Fr. Panteleimon, also known as “Thomas’s Pantelis.”

It was Bright Week. We happened to meet at the Skete’s watermill.

“Christ is Risen, Father Panteleimon!”

Not a word from him. He pretended not to hear me.

“Father Panteleimon, Christ is Risen!” I said again. He looked at me, smiling beneath his blond mustache, but again gave me no answer.

“What is this, Fr. Panteleimon? Have you become a Jew? I said to you, ‘Christ is Risen!’ Only they deny His Resurrection.”

Then, narrowing his blue eyes, he said to me contemptuously:

“Christ is Risen for me, not for you.”

You see, he was a Hexagonist.

Later, I learned that Thomas’s Pantelis had lost his mind. He went insane, just like the other Panteleimon, the king, whom I told you about on another occasion. A few years later, he died insane.

What a terrible evil pride truly is! How dreadful it is for someone to think so highly of himself and to believe that he is a saint...