(edited by Stelios Koukos)

I’d also like to mention a miraculous appearance of the Elder, after his demise, during the divine liturgy.

We’d removed the roof of one wing of the monastery and I had the responsibility for the repair and placement of large iron structures for the new roof (because I’d worked in construction before I became a monk).

Since the job was so big and the technical equipment was so rudimentary here [at the Monastery of Saint David the Elder], and also because I didn’t have any trained assistants I was worried about how we were going to finish the job, especially since the rains had begun. So while I was in church and the divine liturgy was in progress, I couldn’t get my mind off this concern.

Suddenly, I saw the Elder [Saint Iakovos], wearing a cowl and bathed in bright light, coming out of the south door of the sanctuary.

His beard was like diamonds. The light surrounding the Elder was so bright that I couldn’t see anything else in the church, although I could hear the choir and the priest.

So he approached me with a face full of joy and said: ‘Let me tell you, son…’.

His words dispelled all the anxiety within me regarding the job. In fact, I thought that if the Elder was going to tell me, what more did I want?

At that moment I heard the celebrating priest exclaiming: ‘Your own of your own…’.

I then felt God’s response in my soul, as regards the job, that is, that everything is his and that we offer it back to him. Because of the sanctity of the moment, I knelt, and the Elder disappeared from before my eyes. Then I saw the church as it really was.

So it’s a fact that the Elder’s here and alive. He helps us with everything.

And that’s what happened. The job was finished before we knew it and we were amazed.

But we shouldn’t be amazed, but should rather glorify God who allowed us to know and have the blessing of living under the guidance of such a servant of God, who then and even more so now, supports us in all our spiritual and material needs.

Source: pemptousia.com


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Pemptousia Partnership

Pemptousia and OCN have entered a strategic partnership to bring Orthodoxy Worldwide. Greek philosophers from Ionia considered held that there were four elements or essences (ousies) in nature: earth, water, fire and air. Aristotle added ether to this foursome, which would make it the fifth (pempto) essence, pemptousia, or quintessence. The incarnation of God the Word found fertile ground in man’s proclivity to beauty, to goodness, to truth and to the eternal. Orthodoxy has not functioned as some religion or sect. It was not the movement of the human spirit towards God but the revelation of the true God, Jesus Christ, to man. A basic precept of Orthodoxy is that of the person ­– the personhood of God and of man. Orthodoxy is not a religious philosophy or way of thinking but revelation and life standing on the foundations of divine experience; it is the transcendence of the created and the intimacy of the Uncreated. Orthodox theology is drawn to genuine beauty; it is the theology of the One “fairer than the sons of men”. So in "Pemptousia", we just want to declare this "fifth essence", the divine beaut in our life. Please note, not all Pemptousia articles have bylines. If the author is known, he or she is listed in the article above.

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