Elder Aimilianos during his rime as superior

on I\ fount Arhos.
 'From this day, .from this hour,
.from this minute, let us strive to love (jod
above all, andfoifill His holy will
-St. Herman of Alaska

THe ORTHODOX WORD

For the Mission of True Orthodox Christianity
Established with the blessing of St. john Maximovitch,
Archbishop and Wonderworker of Shanghai and San Francisco.

Vol. so, No. 3 (296) May-June, 2014 ISSN oo3o-s839

105 Transfigured in the Night: The Life and Teachings of

Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra
by Monk Maximos (Constas) and the St. Herman ofAlaska
Brotherhood
Front Cover: Simonopetra Monastery on Mount Athos.

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 Transfigured in the Night
THE LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF
ELDER AIMILIANOS OF SIMONOPETRA

by Monk Maximos (Constas)

and the St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood

INTRODUCTION

I N THE mid-twentieth century, it was common for both secular and

Orthodox writers to lament the imminent loss of the millennium-
old monastic republic of Mount Athos in Greece. Indeed, the Holy
Mountain had suffered a great decline throughout the first half of the
century. From 7.432. monks in 1903, their number had been reduced
to 1,145 by 1971. Along with this loss in population came a spiritual
decline, resulting in a loss of community and noetic prayer, except in
small enclaves of ascetics.
To the amazement of even the most ardent supporters of the
Athonites, a spiritual renewal began in the early 1970s-the effects
of which can still be felt today. This revival was effected by a small
number of spiritual fathers who took up the governance of a majority
 THE ORTHODOX WORD

of the twenty reigning monasteries. 1 Prominent among these elders is

Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonopetra. His work was not simply
to renovate a decaying monastic foundation, but to transmit the living
experience of the light of Christ, which he had encountered years ear-
lier, during a dark night of abandonment.
His influence has travelled far beyond the borders of Mount
Athos, and his talks and writings speak to the heart of contemporary
man. He had a remarkable understanding of the modern-day mind
and the unique trials of our times. More importantly, he was able to
gently guide his listeners to take action to find a way forward, through
a relationship with Christ. Although some of his writings have been
available in English for the last fifteen years, he has not become as well
known as some of the other contemporary Athonite spiritual fathers.
Our hope is that this article will encourage readers to delve into the
treasury of the elder's writings: a compass and sextant for navigating
our troubled times.

I. BIRTH AND FAMILY ORIGINS

Archimandrite Aimilianos (Alexandros Vapheides), abbot of the

Holy Monastery of Simonopetra from 1973 to 2000, was born in Ni-
kaia, a suburb of Piraeus, on Octobers, 1934. His cultural and religious
roots, however, were in Asia Minor, from where his family was forced
to flee in 1924, along with more than 1,3oo,ooo Greeks, who narrowly
escaped a fiery descent into the inferno ofTurkish nationalism.
The elder's paternal grandfather, Alexander Vapheides, was born in
Selyvria (Eastern Thrace), in 1872. He later moved to Constantinople,
where he studied theology at the Patriarchal School of Chalki. Although

1
In addition to Elder Aimilianos, these spiritual fathers include the disciples of El-
der Joseph the Hesychast (who renewed six monasteries), Elder Vasileios (Gontikakis)
of Stavronikita and Iveron, Elder George (Kapsanis) of Grigoriou, and Elder Alexios of
Xenophontos.

ro6
 TRANSFIGURED IN THE NIGHT

he had prepared himself for ordination as a celibate clergyman, he was

not to become a priest. Instead, he completed his studies as a certified
teacher and found a position at a school in Cappadocia. There, he met
a local schoolteacher by the name of Eudoxia, who would soon become
his wife.
Eudoxia was well educated and was widely acknowledged as an
outstanding teacher. She had studied at the region's leading academic
institution, the Rodokanakis SchooP Despite her relatively provin-
cial origins (when judged, at least, by Constantinopolitan standards),
Eudoxia was hardly an unpolished rustic from the foothills of the
Taurus Mountains. Instead, she had been spiritually and intellectu-
ally formed in the regional center of Hellenism and the heartland of
Orthodox Cappadocia, where Basilian monasticism had been prac-
ticed, perfected, and transmitted to the entire world. Above all, she
was a woman of faith, devoted to the piety and liturgical practices of
the Orthodox Church, in forms that had been handed down in an
unbroken tradition from Christian antiquity up to the time of their

2
The Rodokanakis School had a long history and was located on the grounds of
the eighteenth-century Monastery of the Forerunner, in the town ofZintzidere, seven
miles southeast of Caesarea. The "School" was in fact one of three educational institu-
tions clustered in and around the Monastery of the Forerunner: a theological school; a
women's college (the "Rodokanakis School" proper); and an orphanage, although they
shared a number of courses and faculty. At its peak, the curriculum embraced an eight-
year program, supported by fourteen instructors, with more than 150 students (nearly
all from Asia Minor, but some from Cyprus, Chios, and Egypt). Because the Greek
community of Caesarea was primarily Turkish speaking, much of the institutional focus
was on the teaching and learning of Greek, although language instruction was also of-
fered in French, Latin, and, by law, Turkish.
Courses in religion and theology were also a major part of the curriculum; offered
at every level of instruction were: Biblical Studies and Exegesis, Church History, Chris-
tian Ethics, Liturgics, and Sacred Chant. In addition, the institution boasted one of the
finest Greek libraries in Cappadocia, combining the monastic library with the personal
libraries that a large number of local bishops and scholars had willed to the School's
collection.

107
 THE ORTHODOX WORD

violent destruction at the hands of the Turks in the early twentieth

century. These, then, were among the gifts which she brought to her
marriage, and which, as we shall see, she conveyed to her beloved
grandson.
After Eudoxia and Alexander were married, for the better part
of the next two decades the couple worked as public-school teachers
(demodidaskaloi), initially in Aravani, and later in the neighboring
village of Semantra. By all accounts, they lived lives of rigorous
asceticism, including strict observance of the fasts; rising at night to
read the monastic office; and a strong devotion to the saints (especially
the Three Hierarchs, and the Five Holy Martyrs). 3 In attempting to
understand the religious life of Eudoxia and Alexander, we are fortunate
to have a series of remarks on this subject from the elder, who tells us
the following:
"My grandfather, although married, was a monk-in his own way,
and according to the customs of the time. My grandparents divided
up the day into different times for prayer, as we do in the monastery.
That's what everyone did then. At sunset, they all went home, and
those who didn't go directly to sleep stayed up and read religious ma-
terial, especially synaxaria, and the lives of the saints, which they all
knew by heart. Even though my grandfather was the only man in town
with a degree in theology, all the villagers-including the children-
were, in their own way, monks and theologians, in virtue of their faith
and religious experiences."4
As the elder states, strict religious observance was common
throughout the villages of Cappadocia, where life was organized
around the daily cycle of prayer and the great feasts of the liturgical
year. The interweaving of the sacred calendar with the cycle of the
3 The Three Hierarchs are Sts. Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and John

Chrysostom. The Five Martyrs are Sts. Eustratius, Auxentius, Eugene, Mardarius, and
Orestes, at Sebaste.-ED.
4 These remarks are cited from a tape-recorded synaxis given at Simonopetra on

February 17, 1990.

ro8
 TRANSFIGURED IN THE NIGHT
seasons is, of course, widely attested in pre-modern, agrarian societies.
In Cappadocia, however, the intensity of religious faith, expressed
and experienced through a repertoire of regular, recurring devotional
practices, was crucial in maintaining Orthodox Christian identity
in a region that had been predominantly Muslim since the battle of
Manzikert in 1071.
In 1902 Eudoxia and Alexander gave birth to their first child, the
elder's father, whom they named Chrestos. A daughter would soon
follow. In 1908, the Kemalist government passed a law drafting Greek
men (as Turkish citizens) into the Turkish army. As a result, many of
these men (most of them not much more than boys) began to emigrate
to Greece and America. Among them was eighteen-year old Chrestos
Vapheides, who made his way to Athens in 1920. He eventually settled
in Nikaia, a suburb of Piraeus, inhabited predominantly by refugees
from Caesarea and its environs.
Eudoxia and Alexander followed Chrestos to Greece in 1922, when
they were compelled to leave Cappadocia during the exchange of popu-
lations. Although they knew the inconsolable grief of a lost homeland,
their forced emigration to Greece took place in relatively good order:
relative, that is, to the genocide, forced conversion, rape, and murder of
tens of thousands of their brothers and sisters. Altogether, the journey
lasted about forty days. Along with other families from their village,
the elder's grandparents eventually settled in Chalkidiki, forty kilome-
ters southeast of Thessaloniki, in a refugee settlement they nostalgically
renamed Semantra. 5
The experience of exile, however, along with the difficulties of life in
what was, in many respects, a foreign land, exacted a terrible toll. This is
how Eudoxia told the story, as she recalled it in the spring of 1961:

My husband and I tried to get jobs in the school at Semantra. Nine

5 Semantra is the eastern district of the town of Kalamaria, formerly called

Karkara.
 THE ORTHODOX WORD
months went by before we were given approval. My husband was
worried sick. He went to the principal and offered to work for free,
to teach without pay. He was finally offered a proper position, but in
a few months he got sick. He began to waste away. 6

On October 14, 1925, about a year after his arrival in Semantra,

Alexander died of malaria, a disease that took the lives of many of the
refugees. He was fifty-three. Not long afterwards Eudoxia took monas-
tic vows and remained in her home, where she lived as a nun with the
new name of Eftaxia.

2.. CHILDHOOD AND PRIMARY EDUCATION

The elder's father, Chrestos, had in the meantime opened a

confectionary in Piraeus. In 1931, he met and married Demetra
Krommydas, a young woman from Langada, Chios. Demetra prayed
to St. John Chrysostom for a child: response came in the person of her
first and only son, Alexandros-the future Elder Aimilianos-whom
she first felt stirring within her womb while she was praying. She gave
birth to Alexandros in 1934. In 1937 she had her second child, Basiliki;
and in 1945 her third, Anastasia.
Chrestos was a gentle and loving man, who taught his son much
practical wisdom, which the elder applied in his work as a spiritual fa-
ther. The following example survives in the collective memory of the
elder's disciples: An act of childhood mischief had provoked the anger
of the household, and the boy Alexandros, confined to his room, was
told that his father would give him a beating as soon as he came home
from work. Upon his arrival, however, the father refused to make good
the promised threats, and instead chose to comfort the child, who was
frightened and upset. This was a lesson the elder never forgot:

6 The quotation is from testimony given by Eudoxia in the spring of 1961, tran-
scribed in 'E~ooo~, vol. 2., p. 2.42. •.

no
 TRANSFIGURED IN THE NIGHT
Abba Isaias says that "when you are chanting in the choir and some-
one makes a mistake, do not immediately point it out to him or
otherwise trouble him with it." In other words, don't say to him,
"Stop singing, you're making mistakes!" because you'll upset him,
and when he wants to chant or sing, he'll get it wrong all the time.
That is how problems are created in the souls of men ... [but] when
someone shows you the love of God, and kindness, and sensitivity,
you experience communion with God Himsel£"7

But if it was his father and, undoubtedly, his mother, who gave
the elder his first experience of love, it was from another source that
the elder learned how to understand that experience theologically, to
comprehend that such love was "communion with God Himself' This
source was his grandparents, who were the primary bearers of the fam-
ily's religious tradition, which had been partially denied to his mother
and father by the disruptions of war and the dislocations of exile.
Our parents give us physical life: the stuff of biological existence.
But our sense of sel£ the person who we are, or who we become, or
who we believe ourselves to be, is not always directly derived from, or
entirely reducible to, the same root. There is thus a very real sense in
which the elder was, and strongly believed himself to be, more closely
descended from his grandparents than from his actual parents, as if the
genetic trait for devotion to God had skipped a generation and was
transmitted directly to him.
On this subject, we are fortunate to possess a recording of the elder
responding to a question about the nature of heredity. 8 His response is
fascinating, not only from the perspective of theological anthropology,
but also in terms of the light it sheds on his family background and on

7 Archimandrite Aimilianos, The Church at Prayer (Alhambra, Ca.: Sebastian

Press, 2012) p. 84 (translation slightly altered). The monks ofSimonopetra shared with
the author several episodes in which the elder declined to punish an offense if the of-
fender was in a state of spiritual turmoil or agitation.
8 See note 4 above.

III
 THE ORTHODOX WORD

his own sense of self-identity. A full account, however, would carry us

down twisting side roads and astray of our proper objective. Suffice it to
say that, according to the elder, heredity is an aspect of divine providence,
the means by which God is implanted and takes root within human lives.
Religious faith and the experience of God can be transmitted to children
in the womb. Like a dominant character trait, the entire wealth of a spiri-
tual tradition, in some pre-logical, unconscious form, can literally be in-
herited from one's ancestors. (Thus the Church knows many saints, who,
as children, refused milk on fast days.) But what ultimately matters is not
what we inherit, but what we do with it; how we respond to it; whether
we accept what has been given to us, or reject it. Freedom is key, not least
because some of us receive bad traits in addition to the good. Regardless
of whether we are deprived or privileged, God balances all things in love
and righteousness.
What, then, were the family traits transmitted to the elder? From
his grandfather, the elder received his physical appearance, and, more
importantly, his intellectual gifi:s-his keen intelligence, acute powers
of observation, and deeply intuitive judgement-along with a certain
gravitas that could be severe and exacting. His feeling for God and
his Orthodox faith he received from his grandmother, who taught
him how to pray, and opened up to him the lives of the saints. A
precocious child, he exhibited a great love for the Church, and was
a voracious reader of Scripture, saints' lives, and classical works of
patristic and asceticalliterature. The elder may have had his childhood
days in mind when, in 1972, he wondered aloud "if the times are gone
when vigils and services were read in houses, when families read the
lives of saints, when children learned them.... In those days, many,
though still young, embarked upon the struggle of virginity and the
monastic life." 9

9 Archimandrite Aimilianos, The Authentic Seal: Spiritual Instructions and Dis-

courses, vol. r ( Ormylia: Holy Cenobium of the Annunciation of the Mother of God,
1999 ), p. 6o.

II2
 TRANSFIGURED IN THE NIGHT
It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that the elder's
childhood was nothing more than a kind of pious idyll. On the
contrary, the first decade of his life unfolded against a background
convulsed by the horrors of a world at war. On April 6, 1941, Ger-
man troops attacked Greece from the north, and, by the end of the
month, the king and the government had fled Athens. Still reeling
from the catastrophe in Asia Minor, and struggling under economic
depression and high unemployment, Greece soon found itself in the
harsh grip of German occupation. Refugees began pouring in from
Thrace and Macedonia; food became scarce, and, in the winter of
1941-1942, famine took the lives of thousands of civilians across the
country. According to German records, approximately 45,000 peo-
ple-nearly all of them Jews-were taken from Thessaloniki to Aus-
chwitz, where most were killed within a few hours of their arrival.
When the conflict ended in 1944, and her European neighbors had
begun the task of rebuilding their towns and cities, Greece plunged
precipitously into a bloody civil war, which dragged on until 1947.
It has been estimated that 8o,ooo Greeks were killed during this
conflict; 2o,ooo were convicted of crimes against the state; more
than 5,ooo were sentenced either to death or life imprisonment; and
more than 7o,ooo people (i.e., ten percent of the population) had
been forced to flee their homes.
Throughout this troubled decade, the elder lived primarily with
his grandmother in the relative safety of Semantra. His parents (his
mother in particular) also spent extended periods of time in the town,
although when circumstances permitted they returned at intervals to
their home in Athens. It was thus in Semantra that the elder attended
primary and secondary school, before returning to Piraeus in 1949,
where he graduated from the Nikaia high school in 1953. His plans at
that time were to prepare for the qualifying exams and continue his
studies at the University of Athens.

Il3
 THE ORTHODOX WORD

3· POSTWAR INTERLUDE:
CHRISTIAN BROTHERHOODS AND UNIVERSITY STUDIES

Around the same time [i.e., in high school in Athens], the elder
began to participate in a number of programs sponsored by the "Zoe"
movement. 10 He became especially active in the movement's catecheti-
cal work as an homadarches (group leader), in addition to working in
one of its publishing houses. For anyone with religious interests in post-
war Greece, it was of course virtually impossible to avoid the influence
of "Zoe;' which was then at the height of its power. This is not surpris-
ing given the organization's tremendous commitment to addressing the
social and ultimately spiritual problems that emerged in the wake of
foreign occupation and civil war. War is a tremendous force for social
change; and, in response to the violence and suffering that touched vir-
tually everyone in the country, there appeared an extraordinary burst
of civic solidarity: a period of patriotism, social activism, and religious
faith, which was almost entirely organized and maintained by the
Christian Brotherhoods. Volunteers, especially young people, came in
throngs, and among them was Alexandros Vapheides.
Although only in his late teens, the elder proved to be an energetic and
dynamic teacher of the faith. The recollections of those who knew him
at that time allow us to catch a glimpse of him, and to take the measure
of the man at an exciting and energetic moment in his life. The following
account is cited from a volume published in honor of the elder, and, as we
might expect, is rather laudatory. However, in virtue of its source-Arch-
bishop Demetrios, the current primate of the Greek Orthodox Archdio-
cese of America-we have no doubts whatsoever regarding its accuracy
and integrity:
10 Also known as the Brotherhood of Theologians, it was a semi-monastic associa-

tion founded in 1907 by Eusebius Matthopoulos. Members engaged in various religious

activities throughout Greece, including teaching, preaching, administration of schools
and youth organizations, and publishing.-ED.

II4
 TRANSFIGURED IN THE NIGHT
I first met Elder Aimilianos when he was still a student in his last
years at the Lyceum, and afterwards as a student in the Theologi-
cal School of the University of Athens. At that time, I could already
see the exceptional characteristics of his personality, the depth of his
faith, his ardent zeal for God, and his unshakable dedication to the
Lord Jesus Christ. For years we worked together teaching the Chris-
tian faith to the children and young people in and around Athens.
In this effort to build up the new generation, Elder Aimilianos, as a
young student and theologian, was creative, systematic, and tireless,
producing results that were remarkable and obviously incommensu-
rate with his young age. This was all the result of his truly great faith,
and his charismatic love for the new generation. 11

In the postwar religious revival empowered by "Zoe;' the elder had

clearly found a venue for his many gifts and talents. At the same time,
however, it seems he always had a certain dislike of the organization's non-
traditional character, and maintained a healthy disregard for many of its
stifling protocols (such as its prim dress code). Moreover, with his reli-
gious roots in Cappadocia and Constantinople, he was never completely
comfortable with those aspects of the movement that stemmed more or
less directly from Wittenberg and Geneva. As we shall see, such discom-
fort would ultimately lead the elder away from the lay brotherhoods, and
encourage him to embrace traditional Orthodox monasticism.
Entering the University of Athens in 1953, the elder initially en-
rolled in the Law School, where he remained for one year, before trans-
ferring to the School of Theology. On the face of it, the elder's decision
to study law seems somewhat inconsistent with what we have come to
know of him up until now. His subsequent decision to abandon such
studies is no less intriguing.
The elder's decision to pursue legal studies was undoubtedly moti-
vated by a number of different factors. In postwar Greece, for example,

II Archbishop Demetrios (Trakatellis) of America, in LUW.t~l~ euxaptcTTLct~­

XctptcrT~plct El~ Tlfl~V Tou y!lpovTo~
AtfLlAtctvou (Athens: Indiktos, 2003), p. II9.

Il5
 THE ORTHODOX WORD

the study of theology was not considered a serious academic discipline;

neither was it considered a viable foundation upon which to build a
successful career, especially for an only son who showed every sign of
intellectual promise. Moreover, many of the theology professors at the
University of Athens were rather condescending toward students of
faith, and openly discriminated against those associated with the "Zoe"
movement, which they openly ridiculed in their lectures. For their part,
the lay brotherhoods were equally scornful of the academic study of
theology, and encouraged the majority of their university-bound mem-
bers to pursue non-theological career paths, from where they would be
able to serve the church as committed lay men and women.

4· AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS

Of course, any discussion of jurisprudence and the "Zoe" movement

in postwar Greece must also take into account the towering figure of
Alexander Tsirintanis (1903-1977 ). A full professor at the Law School of
the University of Athens (1942.-1968), and an internationally recognized
Christian intellectual, Tsirintanis was something of a celebrity within
the "Zoe" movement, to whose unadorned, grassroots piety he was
pleased to lend his academic sophistication, along with his extensive
network of scholars, sociologists, scientists, government allies, and other
academic professionals. From his youth, Tsirintanis had been involved
with the Piraeus branch of the "Zoe" movement, over which he assumed
increasing leadership, beginning around 1930. Working closely with
the movement's leader, Archimandrite Seraphim Papacostas (1892.-
1954), Tsirintanis advocated a politically active, conservative form of
Christianity in response to the rising threat of both Communism and
secular modernity. In support of this grand scheme, he established the
"Christian Professional Alliance" ("XptCTTLt:tVLK~ 'E:vwaL~ EmCTTY]f.!.OVwv")
which, in 1946, issued its famous "Proclamation" ("~Lt:tK~pu~t() to the
Greek nation, calling for a Christian rebuilding of society in the aftermath
of the war and the occupation. To further this effort, Tsirintanis produced

n6
 TRANSFIGURED IN THE NIGHT

a flurry of commentary (primarily through the Alliance's journal,Aktines ),

culminating in his 1949 work, Toward a Christian Civilization. He was
especially interested in the education of Greece's youth, and had a large
following of dynamic young people who were variously engaged with the
social problems of postwar Greece.
Tsirintanis was thus at the height of his power and influence
precisely at the moment when the elder decided to pursue a career as a
lawyer. While it is not easy to establish the precise degree ofTsirintanis'
influence on the elder, the general atmosphere created by the high-
profile legal scholar may have contributed to the elder's decision to
enter law school.
In the following year, the elder entered the School ofTheology at the
University of Athens, where he successfully completed the program of
studies, and graduated in 1959. At this time, he was seriously considering
ordination to the priesthood, with the intention of becoming a foreign
missionary. Evangelization seemed a logical next step for a young man who
had already demonstrated a gift for preaching and catechetical work. In
order to explore these interests more carefully, he took the matter up with
Anastasios Yiannoulatos (b. 1929 ), an old friend from Piraeus, who in the
previous year had begun to develop innovative missionary programs and
was preparing for a trip to Africa. Although Yiannoulatos would eventu-
ally enter the priesthood and later become the Archbishop of Albania,
he was, at the time, a layman and a member of "Zoe." In his response
to the elder, the future hierarch was encouraging, and urged the theol-
ogy student to prepare for work in foreign missions by spending time in
a monastery. Before their conversation ended, Yiannoulatos advised the
elder to contact a certain hierarch who had recently been transferred to
mainland Greece from the island ofLemnos, and who, he believed, would
be able to initiate the young man into monastic life.

5· METROPOLITAN DIONYSIOS OF TRIKKIS AND STAGOI

It was thus that, toward the end of 1959, the elder met a truly

II7
 THE ORTHODOX WORD

remarkable individual, who was destined to play an important role in

his life: Dionysios, the Metropolitan of Trikkis and Stagoi. Born in
1907, on the northwestern coast of Asia Minor, Metropolitan Dionysios
endured great tribulations in his youth. By the time he was fifteen he
had twice experienced forced exile and had lost his parents and two sis-
ters in the bloody final chapters of the Greco-Turkish War. In the midst
of his experience of profound loss and dislocation, he turned to God
and discovered his true home-his "spiritual homeland;' as he would
later call it-on the Holy Mountain of Athos. He spent ten years in the
Great Lavra, where he was tonsured in 1925. He later studied theology
at the Patriarchal School of Chalki, in Constantinople. After his ordina-
tion to the priesthood in 1934 and the completion of his studies in 1940,
he was appointed diocesan preacher and abbot of the Monastery of St.
Ignatius on Mytilene. By the autumn of 1941, Greece was in the grip of
the Nazi occupation, and in the following year, Dionysios was arrested
for harboring a British soldier. He was brutally beaten, tortured, and
sent to a detention center in Thessaloniki. On his way there, the prison-
ship passed under the shadow of the Holy Mountain, and upon seeing
it he remarked, "Even the condemned have their memories!" 12 He was
later relocated to Nazi labor camps at Stein (outside of Nuremburg)
and Bernau (outside of Berlin) Y After the liberation of the camps, he
was appointed by the Greek government to help locate and assist Greek
citizens who had been held prisoner in Germany.

12
"Kctl Ol ICCI.TctOLJCOl exovv CI.VCI.fiV~<TEl~." From the Metropolitan's own account:
Map-rvpe~-~twyfiol 1942.-1945 (Athens, 1949 ), p. so.
13 On which, see the above-cited work by Metropolitan Dionysios: Maprupe~­

~LW)'fiOl, extensive extracts from which have been translated by Margaret Lisney, "The
Shepherd and the Wolves: Extracts from the Wartime Diary of Bishop Dionysios
Charalambos, Metropolitan of Trikka'' in Thessaly, 'Faithful Witnesses; 1942.-1945
(Oxford, n.d. ). See also his Dtcr-rol fiEXPL eava-rov (Map-rvpoA.6yLOv lEpewv fiCI.p-rup'I]<TctVTWV
JCctTa T'I]V Ka-rox~v JCCI.L -rov LVfifiOpt-ro7r6AEfiOV) (Athens, 1959 ), which chronicles the
murder of Greek clergy by Nazis and Communists; for this book Metropolitan
Dionysios received the prize of rbe Academy of Athens.

n8
 lNTHENlGHT

Il9
 THE ORTHODOX WORD

it anthologizes hundreds of (often lengthy) extracts from primary pa-

tristic sources arranged in a kind of logical-chronological format, be-
ginning with one's entrance into the monastery and concluding with
the vision of God. Along the way, it covers topics such as the nature
and purpose of monastic life; the organization of the cenobium (and
of other forms of monastic life); monastic virtues, struggles, and expe-
riences; and the path of purification and perfection. In short, it is an
encyclopedic compendium of the monastic life, and was included in
the seven-volume "monastic library" that Elder Aimilianos gave to all
his novices. 14 Throughout its pages, moreover, one finds themes and
images that figure prominently in the elder's teaching, including signa-
ture theological concepts drawn from the writings of St. Symeon the
New Theologian. However, and as we shall see below, this is not to
suggest that the elder was simply reproducing proof-texts culled from
an authoritative work of reference.
The Metropolitan's interest in monastic life is further evidenced
in his 1967 essay, "On the Repopulation of the Sacred Monasteries of
Mount Athas;' which appeared in the official review of the Athonias
School. Published just before Eastern Orthodox Monasticism, one sees
in this essay some of the fruits of the labor associated with that ma-
jor project, since passages from patristic sources serve to frame a series
of recommendations for the revival of monastic life on Mount Athas.
These include: (1) an immediate return to the cenobitic model; (2)
commitment to an intensive sacramental life, especially Confession and
Holy Communion; (3) the revival of a learned monasticism, largely in
the interest of missionary work, teaching, philanthropic activity, and
social work; and ( 4) restrictions on the numbers of lay workers, lay vis-
itors, and tourists. This was, in many ways, a progressive and prophetic
document, since virtually all of the Metropolitan's recommendations

14 I.e., the Old and New Testaments; the Psalter; the Ladder of Divine Ascent;
the Evergetinos; the Homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian; the works of St. Symeon the New
Theologian; and Eastern Orthodox Monasticism.

120
 TRANSFIGURED IN THE NIGHT
have since come to fruition (with the notable exception of the final
recommendation concerning lay visitors and tourism). 15

6. ToNSURE AND ORDINATION:

THE MoNASTERY OF ST. BESSARION (DousrKo)

It was, then, at the capable hands of Metropolitan Dionysios that

Alexandros Vapheides was tonsured a monk on December 9, 1960,
given the name Aimilianos, and registered at the Monastery of St.
Bessarion (Dousiko). Two days later, he was ordained to the diaconate
in the Church of St. Paraskevi, Trikala. On August IS of the following
year, he was ordained to the priesthood at the Monastery of Vitouma.
After his ordination to the priesthood, Fr. Aimilianos explored some
of the local monasteries, in search of a spiritual home. He spent two
months at Stagiades, and was eventually sent to the Monastery of St.
Bessarion, where he remained for the next four months.
Though not generally well known, the Monastery of St. Bessa-
rion (Dousiko) is arguably the most important and the most im-
pressive sixteenth-century ecclesiastical structure in central Greece. It
was built ca. 1530 by the sainted Metropolitan of Larissa, Bessarion,
who was also instrumental in the revival of monastic life at Meteo-
ra.16 Like so many Orthodox monasteries, it is situated in a place of

15 The Metropolitan's emphasis on social work reflects, not simply the influence
of the socially active lay brotherhoods, but the official stance of the Church of Greece.
In its 1932 report on the Organization of Monastic Life, the Greek Synod defined
monasticism as having a central role in the "education of the laity; in preaching; working
in catechetical schools; in hearing confessions; in teaching various [ecclesiastical]
arts; and in social and philanthropic work." Full text in At :Lvvooncal Eyx:Vx:A.tot, T6fL.
A' (1901-1933) (Athens, I9Ss), p. 590; cited in Alexandros Gousides, Ot XptO'Ttctvtd~
opyctVWO'El~ - H nepl7rTWO'l'] Tl']~ aoeA.¢6Tl']TO~ SeoA.6ywv 1'] "Zw~" - KotvwvtoA.oytx:~
npoO'E'}'YtO'l'] (Thessaloniki: Pournaras, 1996), p. 25.
16 The sixteenth century saw a great revival of monastic life, evidenced by
significant building activity. Moreover, the new monasteries, together with the older
ones which were rebuilt or repopulated, were all linked together by various spiritual

121
 THE ORTHODOX WORD
outstanding natural beauty, in this case among the northeast foothills
of the Pindos Mountains. Its central church (modeled on the style of
the classic Athonite cloister) is dedicated to the Transfiguration of
Christ, and is a spiritual focal point of the region. Like the monaster-
ies of Mount Athos, Dousiko is not open to female visitors.
Despite the monastery's illustrious history, its collection of trea-
sures and manuscripts, and the grandeur of its post-Byzantine architec-
ture and iconography, it had fallen into general disrepair long before
the elder's arrival there in the fall of 1961. During the last quarter of the
eighteenth century, for example, it had been repeatedly plundered, and
it was badly damaged during the Greek Revolution. The structure sus-
tained further damage during the German occupation, when the entire
south wing was burnt down (1944).
It was thus a lonely and isolated place, rendered somewhat bleak
by the ruin and the rubble. Adding to the general gloom was the fact
that the energetic new monk's sole companions were a few aged, and
not especially friendly local monks, who looked with suspicion on
the young, educated Athenian. To make matters worse, he was cut off
from all contact with his mentor Metropolitan Dionysios (there was
no phone), and was struggling with the kinds of questions that natural-
ly attend one's induction into a monastery. Life at St. Bessarion, then,
does not seem to have been fully coincident with the young monk's
expectations, and was certainly not commensurate with his energy and
talents. It was perhaps here where he first realized that, "in the spiritual
life, more ofi:en than not, the conditions we encounter are the opposite
of what we expect." 17

and material ties. Athos led the way with the refounding of formerly abandoned
monasteries; Meteora and the monasteries of central Greece, situated in the Thessalian
plain, followed suit.
17 Archimandrite Aimilianos, Ep!lYJVelc:t cnov A~~a Hcrcitc:t (Athens: lndik:tos,

2005), pp. 160-61 (originally delivered at Simonopetra between 1978 and 1979 ).

122
 !NTHE HT

The Sr.
 THE ORTHODOX WORD

life, forever confirm him in his monastic vocation, and leave its mark
on all his subsequent work. There is perhaps no better assessment of
this extraordinary, life-transforming moment than that provided by the
elder's disciple and successor, Archimandrite Elisaios:

At that monastery (i.e., St. Bessarion), Fr. Aimilianos was granted a

revelation of the monastic life, or rather, a profound mystical experi-
ence of the light of God, which inundated him at the hour of the Lit-
urgy. Henceforth his every Divine Liturgy, prepared for by a long vigil,
was a sublime experience of God's glory, a mystagogy, reminiscent of
the decisive revelatory events that sealed the history of the people of
Israel. (He describes this in a nebulous fashion in one of his addresses.)
As a result, he resolutely made up his mind to partake of the ascetic
tradition rather than to assume ecclesiastical duties in the world. 19

A more detailed description of what happened is provided by the

elder himself, in a story he told before a large public audience in 1983.
The story is allegedly about a "certain monk he once knew;' although
it is in fact an account of the mystical experience that forms the cen-
tral chapter in the elder's spiritual biography. As we shall see, it was
an event that transformed a twenty-seven-year-old priest-monk into a
charismatic elder, and that would dramatically alter the structure and
organization of life at Simonopetra.

Permit me to tell you about a certain monk I once knew. Just as all
of us have moments of difficulty, he too was passing through a very
critical period of his life. The devil had cast fire into his brain, and
wanted to strip him of his monastic dignity, and make him a mis-
erable seeker of alleged truth. His soul roared like breaking waves,
and he sought deliverance from his distress. From time to time, he

19 Archimandrite Elisaios, "The Spiritual Tradition of Simonopetra;' in Mount

Athos the Sacred Bridge: The Spirituality ofthe Holy Mountain, ed. Dimitri Co nomos
and Graham Speake (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2005), p. r89.

124
 TRANSFIGURED IN THE NIGHT
remembered the Prayer of the Heart, but it resounded only weakly
within him, because he had no faith in it. His immediate surround-
ings were of no help. Everything was negative. His heart was about
to break. How wretched man becomes when he is beset by prob-
lems! And who among us has not known such terrible days, such
dark nights, and agonizing trials?
Our monk didn't know what to do. Walks did nothing for him.
The night stifled him. And one night, gasping for air, he threw open the
window of his cell in order to take a deep breath. It was dark-about
three o'clock in the morning. In his great weariness, he was about to
close the window, hoping to get at least a few moments of rest. At that
very moment, however, it was as if everything around him-even the
darkness outside-had become light! He looked to see where such light
might be coming from, but it was coming from nowhere. The darkness,
which has no existence of its own, had become light, although his heart
remained in the dark. And when he turned around, he saw that his cell
had also become light! He examined the lamp to see if the light was
coming from there, but that one small oil lamp could not become light
itsel£ neither could it make all things light!
Although his heart was not yet illumined, he did have a certain
hope. Overcome with surprise and moved by this hope, but without
being fully aware of what he was doing, he went out into the black
courtyard of the monastery, which had often seemed to him like hell.
He went out into the silence, into the night. Everything was clear
as day. Nothing was hidden in the darkness. Everything was in the
light: the wooden beams and the windows, the church, the ground
he walked on, the sky, the spring of water which flowed continuous-
ly, the crickets, the fireflies, the birds of the night-everything was
visible, everything! And the stars came down and the sky lowered
itsel£ and it seemed to him that everything-earth and sky-had be-
come like heaven! And everything together was chanting the prayer
[i.e., of the heart], everything was saying the prayer. And his heart
strangely opened and began to dance; it began to beat and take part
involuntarily in the same prayer; his feet barely touched the ground.

125
 THE ORTHODOX WORD
He did not know how he opened the door and entered the church,
or when he vested; he did not know when the other monks arrived,
or when the Liturgy began. What exactly happened he didn't know.
Gone was the ordinary connection of things, and he knew only that
he was standing before the altar, before the invisibly present God,
celebrating the Liturgy. And striking, as it were, the keys of both his
heart and the altar, his voice resounded above, to the altar beyond the
heavens. The Liturgy continued. The Gospel was read. The light was
no longer all around him, but had built its nest within his heart. The
Liturgy ended, but the song that had begun in his heart was endless.
In his ecstasy, he saw that heaven and earth sing this prayer without
ceasing, and that the monk truly lives only when he is animated by it.
For this to happen, he needs only to cease living for himsel£2°

8. THE MONASTERY OF GREAT METEORA

Energized by his experience at Dousiko, the elder devoted himself to

the Prayer of the Heart, vigils, fasting, and other ascetic labors. At the same
time, he immersed himself in the study of theological and ascetic works,
undertaking a special study of Byzantine monastic typika (i.e., charters
and sets of regulations prescribing the administrative organization and
rules ofbehavior of a monastery, as well as its liturgical observances). And
because many of his spiritual children were young women with monas-
tic vocations, he also studied the typika of Byzantine convents. This was
a massive and masterful appropriation of the monastic tradition, and it
made the elder a rare and remarkable authority on a body of literature
that was, and to a great extent remains, little known. To this task, he was
undoubtedly helped by some of the skills and methodologies acquired
during his legal studies. Some years later, he would be called upon by the
Church of Greece to submit a series of reports and recommendations

2° Cited in Monk Maximos Simonopetrites, "Charisma and Institution at an

Athonite Cloister: Historical Developments and Future Prospects;' in Friends ofMount
Athos Annual Report 2007, pp. 21-23.

126
IN NICHT
 TRANSFIGURED IN THE NIGHT
perfected by the great orators of the patristic and Byzantine period, and
he had a brilliant sense of drama and timing. He also possessed a voice of
incredible power and range, capable of extraordinary modulation-from
a soft, intimate, captivating whisper, to a booming, Vesuvian roar. He soon
took the region captive, especially its young people, who flocked to hear
him in great numbers. His period of isolation was now over, and, despite
his relative youth, he became a spiritual father with a rapidly growing
number of disciples. Many of these latter were drawn to the monastic life,
and came to constitute the core members of the communities at Meteora/
Simonopetra and Ormylia; others married and/ or became priests in the
world, but all were part of a larger spiritual family which had its center at
the Monastery of Great Meteora. Fr. Aimilianos would later relate:

As a spiritual father in Meteora, I saw that God was gradually send-

ing me a number of young men. However, I could not comprehend
what purpose a life might serve if it was not dedicated or in service
to something absolutely absolute, to something which, as a desidera-
tum, a heart's delight, was as perfect as possible, something which
would lead directly to heaven, which would stop just short of the
clouds. Since, then, I was unable to comprehend the mediocre-and
life outside is, by and large, mediocrity and convention-and since I
was seeking this absolute, I also tried to transmit it to the young men
whom God had assembled around me.
They understood at once, they felt it and decided to live their
lives on somewhat the same lines. You would see them-no more than
boys-coming at twelve, one, two o'clock at night, having walked half
an hour, an hour, two hours to get there. They did this in order to
dodge their parents, the police, even, at a later stage, the governor of
the prefecture himself, who sometimes hounded them, as did, particu-
larly, some of those who held administrative positions in the Church.
And so they would come up at twelve, one or two at night to experi-
ence something warm, something from beyond this world.
The first thing they did on arrival was to take up their

129
 THE ORTHODOX WORD
21
komboskini and one of the small books of the Church and go out
onto the mountain where our monastery was located, in order to
"tell their beads" and pray, living a mystical experience of God. We
were watching real miracles within the souls of these young men and
a regeneration which was certainly, without a shadow of a doubt, a
change wrought by the right hand of the Most High." 22

In 1963 the first two monks of the brotherhood that came to

Simonopetra in 1973 were established in the monastery, and by 1965 a
large number of high-school students and others were living as novices
under the elder's direction. Many young women also flocked to the
elder for spiritual guidance, and he was compelled to restore a local
abandoned monastery as a suitable place for them to live.
These individuals are, of course, vital sources of information for the
period under discussion, and many of them have extraordinary, indeed
miraculous, stories regarding their first encounter with the elder. One
of the fathers, who was fourteen years old at the time, and a student in
a Diocesan boarding school, tells the following story, which took place
in the""spring of 1963. The teacher had announced that a confessor was
coming, and all the students were strongly encouraged to go. The four-
teen-year-old had never been to confession before, and when he asked
one of his schoolmates what it involved, he was handed a sheet of pa-
per with a list of sins. "Here;' his friend said, "take this with you and
read off a few lines." As it happened, no such prompting was necessary,
for the moment the boy laid eyes on the elder he was transfixed: the
elder's face was shining, and the boy had the sense that the elder could
see directly into his soul, as if it were a book, opened before him, that
he could read. And not only this, but the moment their eyes met, the
boy knew that he was going to be a monk, even though he had never
given any thought to becoming a priest or pursuing any kind of career

21 Prayer rope.- ED.

22
1he Authentic Seal pp. 9~-99.

130
 TRANSFIGURED IN THE NIGHT
in the church. And the boy, now a man of fifi:y-seven, added that, in
the forty-three years that have passed since that encounter, his commit-
ment to being a monk has never changed or faltered.

9· THE MovE TO MouNT ATHos

As the brotherhood increased, external temptations came to bear

on the monastery. Particularly disruptive was the constant arrival of
tour buses with their accompanying sightseers, taking the monks away
from their central task of prayer.

But, whereas in the beginning we would be talking continuously

about the mystical life, it gradually happened that, as the community
grew and the waves of tourists increased, I was forced to break off
almost any discussion, to cut short any answer to a question they
might put to me concerning the inner life. I stopped talking to them
about Prayer of the Heart, I stopped talking to them about anything
deep at all. My only concern was how to hold fast to these people
in the face of the buffeting waves of tourism, which threatened to
shatter our souls entirely. It became impossible for anyone to live up
there on Meteora. The young men felt this, too, and desired a tran-
quil place, because the mystical life is assuredly linked to a tranquil
location and an inner world which is also tranquiF 3

In 1970 the elder's spiritual father, Bishop Dionysios, reposed, and

there now seemed little lefi: to tie them to Meteora. Their dilemma as to
where to move was solved in 1973, when the few remaining elderly monks
ofSimonopetra on Mount Athos invited Abbot Aimilianos and his broth-
erhood to revitalize the monastery.
Simonopetra had been founded in the thirteenth century by St. Simon
the Outpourer of Myrrh (Dec. 28), who dedicated the monastery and its

23 Ibid., p. 99·

131
THE ORTHODOX \\'ORD

132
 TRANSFIGURED IN THE NIGHT
the Athonite foundations, Simonopetra's numbers, along with the level
of spiritual life, declined during the twentieth century. Such was its state
when Elder Aimilianos arrived.
In November 1973 twenty-five brothers moved from Meteora to
their new home on Mount Athas, where they were warmly received by
the older fathers:

When we arrived and settled in this sacred, soaring and holy mon-
astery, we were accorded such a reception on the part of the older
fathers living here that we were amazed. We were lefi: speechless and
filled with emotion. How ofi:en have we seen tears in the eyes of
the elders of our monastery, how ofi:en have we seen them express-
ing their love in a thousand ways, their confidence, their respect and
their esteem! We came as humble servants and we found more than
we had anticipated. We came humbly to venerate them, but instead,
they wanted to venerate us.24

A spiritual revitalization commenced with the arrival of the elder and

his brotherhood. Fr. Aimilianos' experience, especially his spiritual and
intellectual labors, had prepared him for the arduous task of reviving an
age-old monastery. Over the previous five years, Fr. Aimilianos had been
a member of a special committee of the Church of Greece created to pro-
mote monastic life. During that period he had prepared three papers en-
tided "Means of Effecting the Renewal and Renaissance of the Monastic
Ideal;' "Study of the Way of Restoring the Old Canonical Administration
of the Holy Monasteries, and Especially the Principle of the Cenobium;'
and "On the Preparation of an Internal Regulation for the Holy Monas-
teries of the Church of Greece." 25 It would seem that God had provided
this opportunity as a preparation for the arduous task of revitalizing one
of the great monastic foundations of Athas.
In the first of these papers, Fr. Aimilianos defines six points for the

24 Ibid., p. 95·
25 All three papers can be found in The Authentic Seal

133
 THE ORTHODOX WORD
renewing of the monastic ideal, emphasizing (x) the preparation and
training of young people, ( 2) a grasp of the ascetic and hesychastic spirit,
(3) a relationship with the local bishop as the spiritual guardian of the
monastery, (4) the flexibility to adapt, (s) the regulation of proper ap-
proaches to missionary work by monastics, and ( 6) a search for the proper
people to run the monasteries. 26
The second study calls for the monasteries to return to the ceno-
bitic life:

Through everything, ever beholding God before him, the monk

hammers out his salvation in the forge of the cenobium and
contributes to the advent of the Kingdom of Heaven. The
immutability of monastic principles; the permanence of the canons
of the Church, which suffuse the life of the cenobium, where the
children of God are at ease, huddled together as one under its
wings; the freedom from external influences, bonds, alterations, and
modifications provide the monk with a feeling of security and the
ease for spiritual concerns and ascentsP

- The third paper, on the internal regulation of monasteries, demon-

strates the thoroughness and intellectual capacity of the elder. In it he cites
dozens of monastic rules or typika, all of which he studied in preparation
for writing the paper. Again emphasizing the importance of cenobitic
life, the elder goes on to state that "most of the [present-day] monastery
regulations resemble secular rule books comprising matters relating to the
practical life. Deification is the center around which the thought and the
heart of the monk should revolve. The Regulation should therefore be a
spiritual document-not a bill of law-which will awaken the hearts of
the monks and rouse them to spiritual combat." 28

26 The Authentic Seal p. 30.

27 Ibid., p. 48.
28
Ibid., pp. 76-77. At the end of this paper the elder cites seven elements that should
be present in a general regulation: (r) Aim and Service of the Cenobium, (2.) Administra-

134
 TRANSFIGURED IN THE NIGHT

On December 17, 1974, Fr. Aimilianos was enthroned as abbot

of Simonopetra. In a short time, approximately another twenty-five
brothers joined the monastery.
Based on his transformative experience of the Jesus Prayer, the
elder slowly began to introduce a series of modifications to the daily
program, focusing (r) on the monk's nightly rule of prayer, and (2)
on the daily, communal celebration of the Divine Liturgy. The monk's
rule of prayer was expanded into a lengthy vigil of four to six hours
in duration. This had always been the practice among solitaries and
small groups of hesychasts, but never in large, community monaster-
ies, where the rule of prayer was often limited to rising an hour or so
before the morning service and performing a limited number of pros-
trations and Jesus Prayers. In the elder's new program, the monks were
now to spend much of the night in prayer and devotional reading.
Special attention was given to the spiritual study of the Old and New
Testaments. To this could be added meditation on the hymns from the
coming day's services; the reading of saints' lives; and the writings of
the Church Fathers. The monks also had to perform a large number of
prostrations, but the main emphasis, of course, was on the Jesus Prayer.
Consistent with the elder's experience, the labor of the nightly vigil
was undertaken in preparation for the Divine Liturgy, understood to
be the locus of divine revelation. The elder consequently developed a
liturgical culture in which worship was a vibrant, dynamic, and joyful
experience. Among other things, he removed a number of secondary
elements from the services that had added to their length and obscured
their primary meaning. The Divine Liturgy itself became a real celebra-
tion, chanted every day in the main church by two full choirs, with the
entire community present.
In allowing his experience of the Jesus Prayer and the Divine

tion and Organization of the Community, (3) Financial Administration, (4) Novitiate
and Selection of Monks, (s) Internal Life of the Monks, (6) External Relations of the
Monks, and (7) Administrative Matters in Monastery Dependencies.

135
 THE ORTHODOX WORD
Liturgy to be the leaven that transformed life in the monastery, the el-
der always kept the same aim: to create conditions whereby his monks
could have their own experiences of God. And if mystical experience
had led the elder to the Liturgy, it was now the Liturgy that was lead-
ing others to mystical experience, understood as a sacramental encoun-
ter with Christ. The basic principle was, and remains, clear: "the time
of Liturgy is the time of revelation, in proportion to one's preparation
in the cell." At Simonopetra, the program established by Elder Aimil-
ianos enables one to learn by experience that the Prayer of the Heart
and the Divine Liturgy (along with the other services of the Church)
are located on a continuum. And this is because the elder's experience
pulled him into the center of established, public worship, in a manner
which took nothing away from contemplation and silent prayer, but
which rather showed how public and private worship are two aspects
of one and the same life in Christ.
While busily occupied with reorganizing life at the monastery, the
elder still found time to locate a new home for the nuns who were
his spiritual children. The Monastery of Vatopedi possessed a vacant
dependency not far from Mount Athas in the town of Ormylia. The
broJ::herhood of Simonopetra purchased the property and, after renova-
tion, the nuns moved into their new home, dedicated to the Annuncia-
tion of the Theotokos, in July 1974. The elder was deeply involved in all
aspects of the monastery, as seen from the typikon he prepared for the
sisters and delivered in May 1975. The typikon not merely establishes
a series of regulations, but sets the tone for the sisters' monastic life:

The aim of the foundation of the holy cenobitic community is for

the sisters to live together in one place and, with God's protection
and aid, by living in perfect imitation of the life of Our Lord in the
flesh, and with much labor, many struggles and the continuous study
of His commandments, to achieve the salvation of souls, that perfec-
tion which is elevating and pleasing to God, and blessed deification ....
It shall not be mere co-habitation on the part of cold individu-
 TRANSFIGURED IN THE NIGHT
als, but a drawing together of souls, a common course pursued by
persons united in affection in one body, "rejoicing in each other
lovingly in divine delectation" (St. Dionysius the Areopagite, PG 3,
536B), venerating with one mouth and one heart the Lord Who is
the head, from Whom the whole body, joined and knit together by ev-
ery joint with which it is supplied, when each part is in harmonious
operation, makes increase of the body for the edification of itself in love
(Eph. 4:rs-r6) ....
The touchstone for the sisters shall be the love they bear toward
the others, which is what the Lord requires above all else. The heart
of each shall be open, full of simplicity, sincerity and affection, admit-
ting all the others, with love that is deep, strong, manly and spiritual. 29

Since the arrival of the sisters in Ormylia, their number has in-
creased to over a hundred. Under the guidance of Elder Aimilianos
the sisterhood has grown in stature to be one of the leading women's
monasteries in Greece. Their tireless work has resulted not only in the
physical restoration and development of the foundation, but also in the
creation of a spiritual oasis for all of Orthodoxy. "Their organic farm-
ing methods are an example to local agriculturists; their community
center cares for both the physical and the spiritual needs of the local
population and specializes in the early diagnosis of cancer in women;
they also have a center for the treatment of distressed icons and other
works of art. They too provide hospitality for numerous pilgrims, and
are a living witness that Athos cares for women as well as men." 30

w. PREACHING THE WoRD OF TRUTH

The elder's guidance of monastic communities in no way limited

his love and concern for the many souls seeking a word of wisdom in

29 Ibid., pp. r6o, r6r, 176.

30 Graham Speake, Mount Athos: Renewal in Paradise (New Haven: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 2002), p. 265.

137
 THE ORTHODOX WORD
the world. To say that the elder was a prolific preacher is perhaps an
understatement. Three thousand recordings were made of his various
talks between 1968 and 1996. Of these three thousand, about sixty per-
cent were given at the monastery (or convent), and the remaining forty
percent in parishes or at halls on various occasions. The extant material
indicates that the elder spoke at least one hundred days out of the year
for thirty years. In the world, he not infrequently gave two talks on a
Sunday in different churches. (Of course, this figure does not take into
account his informal talks and conversations, which were typically no
less weighty and lengthy than the formal talks.)
What are all these talks about? Many things: the material spans
a range of themes and topics from the mundane to the sublime: dis-
cussions of practical matters (diet, behavior, deportment); sermons,
instructions, and interpretations of ascetic texts (e.g., Sts. Isaiah the
Solitary, Hesychius the Presbyter, Gregory of Sinai, Maximus the Con-
fessor, Theognostus, etc.); commentaries on monastic rules (St. Antho-
ny, St. Augustine, St. Macarius, St. Pachomius); commentaries on texts
dealing with monastic institutions; commentaries on saints' lives; inter-
pretations of Biblical texts, prophecies, and hymns; talks on prayer, the
Liturgy, Sunday sermons, feast days, etc. The elder's subject matter was
seemingly endless.
Despite the variety, there is an underlying unity. Whereas the elder
may appear to speak about many things, a closer look reveals that his
main emphasis is almost always on one and the same thing, namely, the
importance of direct and living experience of Jesus Christ. The elder
returns to this theme time and again, and under this general heading
one may readily place the majority of his themes, such as spiritual exile,
the importance of personal "crisis;' the nature of suffering, freedom,
spiritual vision, and so on. It can hardly be doubted that these themes
hearken back to what he experienced at the Monastery of St. Bessarion.
Like a Renaissance painter, he seemed always to be painting, as it were,
the same face over and over; always returning to the moment of the
original, transformative epiphany, to the place where God was revealed.
 TRANSFIGURED IN THE NIGHT

The following excerpts from some of his published talks give a small
taste of the banquet of the elder's preaching.

Opening the Doors of Our Hearts

When someone interrupts our routine, it seems a terrible intru-
sion, and we get very ruffled by it. Isn't it odd? We desperately long
for someone else to approach us, to speak to us, to love us, to fill our
solitude, to unite with us, but as soon as someone does, we can't wait to
get rid of them. We reject them immediately, pass judgment on them,
speak to them with anger and contempt, presume to tell them what to
do, say "no" to them, and in general do whatever we can to let them
know that their presence bothers us. And we find hundreds of ways of
telling them: "Go away. Leave me alone. Don't intrude on my solitude."
And everything bothers you; everything annoys you. The way
people look, the sound of their voice, the way they walk, or because
they're too short or too tall, or because their nose is like this or that,
or because their eyebrows are too high or too low. Any little thing
is enough to ruin your day, and, after all that, all you want to do
is run away. And what is all this, if not hell for the damned? And
why have they gone to hell? Because they didn't want paradise. Hell
is exactly what they were looking for, and exactly what they found.
But whenever we want, our heart can open and at once the
great transformation will take place. And this is an opening to the
spiritual fire, to the Holy Spirit, to Christ, to God. Do we want
this? Will we unlock our heart? It all depends on whether we want
to love God, or continue loving our selves. And if we do decide to
stop living on our own, and throw open up the doors for the light
to enter, then we'll discover that, while we were looking for God, we
also found our fellow man, for now we realize that there are people
all around usY

31Archimandrite Aimilianos, The Wily of the Spirit, trans. Monk Maximos Si-
monopetrites (Athens: Indiktos, 2009), pp. 253-54.

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 THE ORTHODOX WORD

Spiritual Lethargy

Another problem we have is that we tire easily. When it comes

to worldly pursuits, our energy knows no bounds, but we grow weary
very quickly where God is concerned. Those who chase after wealth or
glory never tire of doing so. Others pursue sensual pleasures, tirelessly
chasing after sin. But even the thought of running after God leaves us
feeling fatigued. We get tired, and then we forget, and then we're led
astray by the world. But then something happens to make us think
of God, and so we make promises and resolutions, but, after a little
while, forget all about them, and so it goes round and round. But
think about the material things you're chasing after and accumulating
in great piles: they're all banal, fleeting, and utterly without meaning.
If you are able to see this, then sink the eyes of your soul deep
into your heart-be it ever so twisted or perverted-and ask God
to take over. Hovering over the chaos of your life, God will shine
His light (c£ Gen. 1:3), and the abyss of hell that was in you will be
transformed into heaven. God is humble, and will not shrink from
entering into your sinful heart in order to rescue you from sin. That's
God! And only God can do this. No one and nothing else in this
world can raise you from your state of death. There is no other cure
for your wound, no other remedy for what ails you.
In whatever you do, choose the path of humility, and God will
gl'Orify you.32

Preparation for the jesus Prayer

Now, if we wish to devote ourselves to the Jesus Prayer, we must

also recognize that we have a problem. We are imprisoned within
the confines of our worries and concerns. We are always in a hurry.
We get tired. We become disillusioned. We live with stress, we are

32 Ibid., pp. 314-15.

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 TRANSFIGURED IN THE NIGHT
troubled by disturbing thoughts, by our passions, by inner storms.
In order to sleep, we need to be on the point of exhaustion; and in
order to be happy, we have to listen to music, or find some other
amusement. This is no life at all! It tires us out, and doesn't allow us
to pray as much and in the way that we want.
This is why the Fathers assure us that the words of God "refresh
and strengthen the soul, as wine strengthens the body." 33 Know that
the word of God is to be found both in Scripture and in the Holy Fa-
thers. We must diligently study both; and among the latter, the ascetic
Fathers particularly. We must likewise always be attentive to our work,
not squandering our strength needlessly, but expending it responsibly
on the duties which are before us. In this way our life will become a
daily spiritual exercise, and, coupled with spiritual study, will smooth
the ground of the soul, rendering it capable of rising upward. 34

Love for God

The closer you are to God, the more you love Him. And our desire
for God knows no satiety; it is something that can never be completed
or exhausted. Love finds its perfection, not in this life, but in the next,
and this means that perfect love should always be a perfect dissatisfac-
tion. "To love" means to find no final satisfaction in the things of the
world, and thus it expresses both our movement toward God, and the
distance that still remains between us and God. The extent of our love,
then, can be measured by the duration of our weeping. It can be mea-
sured by the extent to which we've been reduced to nothing in the in-
finity of God, and by our attempts to make God our own and to com-
prehend Him. And this measure can be grasped, not by any intellectual
calculation, but only through the experience of suffering and love. 35

33 C£ Ephrem the Syrian, cited in Paul the Monk, Evergetinos, vol. 2 (Athens,
978), qu. 11.6, p. 121; and St.John of Damascus, Sacra Parallela (PG 96.217B).
34 Archimandrite Aimilianos, 1he Church at Prayer, pp. 4-4--4-5.
35 T#zy ofthe Spirit, pp. 132-33.

I4I
 THE ORTHODOX WORD

Marriage

When you see difficulties in your marriage, when you see that
you're making no progress in your spiritual life, don't despair. But
neither should you be content with whatever progress you may have
already made. Lift up your heart to God. Imitate those who have
given everything to God, and do what you can to be like them, even
if all you can do is to desire in your heart to be like them. Leave the
action to Christ. And when you advance in this way, you will truly
sense what is the purpose of marriage. Otherwise, as a blind person
wanders about, so too will you wander in life ....
It is an adulteration of marriage for us to think that it is a road
to happiness, as if it were a denial of the Cross. The joy of marriage is
for husband and wife to put their shoulders to the wheel and together
go forward on the uphill road of life. "You haven't suffered? Then you
haven't loved;' says a certain poet. Only those who suffer can really love.
And that's why sadness is a necessary feature of marriage. "Marriage;' in
the words of an ancient philosopher, "is a world made beautiful by hope,
and strengthened by misfortune." Just as steel is fashioned in a furnace,
just so is a person proved in marriage, in the fire of difficulties ....
Marriage, then, is a journey through sorrows and joys. When the
sorrows seem overwhelming, then you should remember that God
is with you. He will take up your cross. It was He who placed the
crown of marriage on your head. But when we ask God about some-
thing, He doesn't always supply the solution right away. He leads us
forward very slowly. Sometimes He takes years. We have to experi-
ence pain, otherwise life would have no meaning. But be of good
cheer, for Christ is suffering with you, and the Holy Spirit, "through
your groanings is pleading on your behalf" (cf. Rom. 8:26) ....
Marriage is a road: it starts out from the earth and ends in
heaven. It is a joining together, a bond with Christ, Who assures us
that He will lead us to heaven, to be with Him always. Marriage is
a bridge leading us from. earth to heaven. It is as if the sacrament

142
 TRANSFIGURED IN THE NIGHT
is saying: Above and beyond love, above and beyond your husband,
your wife, above the everyday events, remember that you are des-
tined for heaven, that you have set out on a road which will take you
there without fail. The bride and the bridegroom give their hands to
one another, and the priest takes hold of them both, and leads them
round the table dancing and singing. Marriage is a movement, a pro-
gression, a journey which will end in heaven, in eternity.
In marriage, it seems that two people come together. However,
it's not two but three. The man marries the woman, and the woman
marries the man, but the two together also marry Christ. So three
take part in the mystery, and three remain together in life.
In the dance around the table, the couple are led by the priest,
who is a type of Christ. This means that Christ has seized us, rescued
us, redeemed us, and made us His. And this is the "great mystery" of
marriage ( cf. Gal. 3=13). 36

Suffering

At the beginning, after the Fall, man himself sensed and realized
that what had appeared as a curse-namely, God's decision that he
should live by the sweat of his brow, bear children with pain, and re-
discover paradise through many tribulations (Acts 14:22)-hid what
was in fact God's love, that it comprised a way and means for man's
second creation, for His renewal [of man] who had fallen away and
was dying. On maturing, man recognized in his sufferings, in his labor
and sweat, and even in his death, that his pain encompassed a means of
expression, a living possibility for his presenting and revealing himself
to God, of confessing to Him his longing for the deification now lost.
This is to say that he, man, found no better way of expressing his yearn-
ing for deification than by suffering pain for the sake of God.
Man, indeed, longs to become a god. But the one language capable
of asking for his restoration to fellowship with God is the language of

36 The Church at Prayer, pp. 94, 95-96, roo.

143
 THE ORTHODOX WORD

sacrifice, the fully vivid and living language of suffering for Christ, for
the sake of God's Kingdom. Suffering thus becomes a necessary element
of the human soul, innate, instinctive in it, the very stuff out of which
we construct our relationship with God. It is out of sufferings, trials,
and ordeals that the soul approaches God. The soul thus loves God the
more, becomes more fully dependent on Him .... God does not heal
the soul by any other method so much as by pain, by labor and travail,
in order that He may give us life in exchange for our voluntary death. 37

Spiritual Study

Don't try to find in Holy Scripture prescriptions and rules for

your life. At the same time, rid yourself of the desire to insert your
own thought into the text. You should be reading to learn what God
says, and God will inspire you. And you should accept whatever God
tells you. But perhaps now you're thinking to yourself that all of this
is a bit naive; that such things don't have a place in the modern
world. What you say might be fine for people living in monasteries,
you'll tell me, but we've got things to do, jobs to go to, problems to
deal with. I see. So the Christian life is only for monks and nuns? ...
The notion that it's no longer possible to apply the truths of Chris-
tianity to our lives is like nitric acid. I've heard that if you throw a
little of it onto a flower, it will shrivel up and die. That's how such a
notion affects our life. The Holy Scriptures are for us, the writings of
the Fathers are for us, not simply for monks. They have their peace
and quiet, they have their safe harbor, they have everything taken
care of for them. We're the ones in the middle of the fight, in the
middle of the storm, we're the ones pursued by the devil. And it is
to us that Christ comes, in the midst of all our difficulties, to provide
us with these spiritual weapons, which are called spiritual books. 38

37 Archimandrite Aimilianos, "Martyrdom: Foundation of Orthodox Monas-

ticism;' in The Living TVitness of the Holy Mountain, trans. Hieromonk Alexander
(Golitzin) (South Canaan, Penn.: St. Tikhon's Seminary Press, 1994), pp. 169-70.
38 The Church at Prayer, p. 1?8.
 THE ORTHODOX WORD

Detachment
When some urgent business compels you to drive somewhere
quickly, you don't inspect the car to see if it's new, or what sort of
incidental feature it has, but what concerns you is getting to your
destination. So it is with the saints, who never deviate from their pur-
pose. They are attached to nothing in the world. They love nothing in
the world. They await only Christ. And He purifies them: He purifies
their heart. Then, as St. Symeon told us, he illumines their souls and
grants them the vision of God. God appears before their very eyes. 39

II. BRINGING THE FAITH TO THE NATIONS

Throughout Elder Aimilianos' many years as abbot of Simonopetra,

the brotherhood has made many invaluable contributions to the life of
the Orthodox Church. Particularly impressive is their role in the reviv-
al of Byzantine chant. Their recordings of the hymnography of many
of the services of the Church (e.g., Vespers, Matins, the Divine Liturgy,
and hymns from Great Lent, to mention only a few) have helped to
disseminate a traditional approach to the music of the Church.
Likewise, in the realm of letters, the brotherhood has produced an
outstanding collection of the Lives of the Saints, published in seven
volumes, first in French and more recently in English translation. Entitled
The Synaxarion, it is an amazing labor oflove in honoring the saints, which
combines extensive research with true devotion, written in a style that
engages the modern reader. According to Elder Aimilianos, the project
came about through the requests of foreign pilgrims, who "with a sense
of something missing or lacking, have spoken from the depths of their
souls of the need, as of their daily bread, for an Orthodox Synaxarion in
their own language." In the preface to the Synaxarion, the elder goes on
to explain why he was so eager to embark on such a challenging project:

39 Ibid. p. 12.0.
 TRANSFIGURED IN THE NIGHT

The Lives of the Saints are not an historical excursion into the
origins of the Church, and studying them is not a mere gathering of
information; it is our participation in the way of life of each friend of
God, made present to us according as divine Grace has transfigured
him. The Synaxarion is a visit paid to the Saints, mystical knowledge,
experience gained of living in a new way-a way of holiness. For us,
finally, it is a mystagogy, a passage towards the prototype, to which
our love, our veneration, and our worship are directed. So our whole
life is transfigured into another state. 40

The elder's understanding of the ecumenicity of the Church and of

the need to feed the faithful outside of traditional Orthodox countries
is also reflected in his warm hospitality toward foreign pilgrims. Doug-
las Lyttle, an American photographer who recorded his visits to Mount
Athos over a twenty-five-year period, wrote about his first encounter
with the elder in 1975, when he was still a Protestant:

As we faced each other and shook hands ... we looked into each
other's eyes, a clear, direct gaze, and there seemed to be some kind
of relationship which we both felt. His eyes were unlike any I had
looked into during my fifty-five years. They were large and clear, and
seemed to be looking into my soul, reading what was there in a kind-
ly, non-judgmental way. This moment was the beginning of a warm
and marvelous friendship. 41

Although the majority of the brothers at Simonopetra are Greek

nationals, the elder's welcoming spirit helped to bring brothers from
other countries-including Australia, France, Germany, Canada,
England, and the United States-to join the monastery. In 1977, four

40 Preface to Hieromonk Makarios ofSimonos Petra, The Synaxarion: The Lives of

the Saints ofthe Orthodox Church, vol. I (Ormylia, 1999), p. v.
41 Douglas Lyttle, Miracle on the Monastery Mountain (Pittsford, N.Y.: Greenleaf

Book Group, 2.002.), p. 93·

147
 THE ORTHODOX WORD
Roman Catholic monks from France were received into the Orthodox
Church by Elder Aimilianos. A few months later they became monks
of the monastery. Under the elder's direction they returned to France
to establish a metochion (dependency) of Simonopetra. In all, eight
metochia would spring from Simonopetra: five in Greece (including
Ormylia) and three in France. Of these the elder said, "These, too,
are a place of initiation, and how many are those who are 'harvested'
there, finding the Church so close to them." 42
Starting during Fr. Aimilianos' abbacy, the brotherhood undertook
the enormous task of restoring the physical structure of the monastery.
At times during the renovations, the interior of the monastery looked
like an empty shell filled with scaffolding. Today much of the work has
been completed, including new guest quarters and monastic cells.
Even though the monks have engaged in many works for the
Church over the years, Abbot Aimilianos always kept the brothers' fo-
cus on their life of prayer:

The encounter of the monk with God in his cell in the middle of
the night is the heart of his life. It is this which regulates the whole
of his daily round: work, rest, diet, and so on. The faithful monk
emerges as from a fiery furnace which is in flames bur does not burn.
Such personal development forms the structure and training of the
"body;' of the whole brotherhood.43

Graham Speake, a celebrated Orthodox author and founder of

the Friends of Mount Athos, has called Simonopetra "spiritually and
intellectually ... the most dynamic community on the Mountain today." 44
Perhaps the primary source of this dynamism is Elder Aimilianos'
balanced approach to monasticism, combined with his penetrating
understanding of the modern mind. As early as 1970 he wrote:

42 Authentic Seal p. 126.

43 Ibid., p. 121.
44 Speake, Mount Athos: Renewal in Paradise, p. 179.
 TRANSFIGURED IN THE NIGHT
The renaissance of monasticism would also be served by an at-
tempt to adapt the monastic life to some extent, in accordance with
changes in the psychological mindset of modern man and the needs
of the educated. The daily program should not be a steamroller, ex-
punging people's characters and quashing their personality.
The monk should not be a spineless creature, without opin-
ions. Labor and the system of study should help the monks, in ac-
cordance with the potential of each one, and they should have suf-
ficient time to study in peace. Education should be encouraged,
while obedience should be tempered with discretion, freedom, and
a great deal of love. The Scriptures and the Fathers should have
their rightful place. Theology should shed light on everyday prob-
lems. Dogma should be regarded as a stanchion of piety. The typ-
ikon of the Church should be observed in its spirit. Communion
should again be taken with the frequency ordained by the sacred
canons. The spirit of worship should be interpreted every day in the
monastery. Continuous prayer should be regarded as the fundamen-
tal criterion for spirituality. Youth should be respected and its en-
thusiasm fostered. The elevated life and the vision of the glory of
God should be studied as the desideratum for the monk. Condi-
tions and circumstances will point to the need for adaptations and
developments, so long as these do not conflict with the canons and
are implemented with the consent of the bishop and the brother-
hood.45

In 1995, Elder Aimilianos began to suffer from an increasingly de-

bilitating illness. At about the same time, his works were first published,
starting with a five-volume series in Greek called "Spiritual Instructions
and Discourses." Two volumes of this series have appeared in English:
The Authentic Seal and The Ti{zy ofthe Spirit. Another anthology of the
elder's talks selected from across the five volumes has also been trans-
lated into English: The Church at Prayer. Since 2005, another series has

45 Authentic Seal pp. 36-37.

149
THE
 TRANSFIGURED IN THE NIGHT

Editor's note: In the next issue of 1he Orthodox Word we will feature
a commentary by Elder Aimilianos on Psalm 38 (37 according to the
Septuagint).

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