Ιερά Σκήτη Προφήτη Ηλία Αγίου Όρους

Elder Philemon, Dikaios of the Coenobitic Skete of the Prophet Elias (Pantokratoros) on Mount Athos, speaks about the joy of life in Christ. He describes a chain of transformations that Christ performs: water into wine, wine into His blood, and that blood into resurrection, life, and paradise. The elder applies this sequence to the Christian life today.

In our era, he says, there should also be this trained, incorruptible light. He admits this is not easy, but he says it at least shows us a solution. He sets a boundary for how a Christian should relate to this light: a Christian should not be deified by it, but should know that this is our path, see it, and hold on to it so as not to become discouraged.

The post shares a video from the channel Kiriakos Agio Oros, where the full talk can be watched, and lists hashtags on Christ, joy, life, faith, Christianity, and Orthodoxy. The discussion in the source stays with the elder's own words: the transformation of water into wine, wine into blood, and blood into resurrection and paradise; the presence of a trained, incorruptible light in our era; the difficulty of this; the solution it points to; and the counsel that a Christian should see this path and hold on to it in order to avoid disappointment.

The post is in Greek, with English hashtags alongside the Greek ones, and identifies the speaker by name and by his office in the Holy Skete of the Prophet Elias on Mount Athos.

Elder Philimon, a elder of the Holy Koinobiotic Skete of the Prophet Elijah on Mount Athos, speaks about the emptiness of the self and the Grace of God. He says that when a person is emptied and feels like nothing, then God works through him. He contrasts this with the present state of Christians: today, he says, we live in pretense and call ourselves Christians, but a real Christian feels he is nothing.

He uses stark images to describe this inner state: a real Christian feels like an upside-down cockroach in a bathtub, a nobody, a piece of trash. Against this, he sets our actual condition: we swell up and deflate, and we cannot even bear being judged by a simple child. The talk is presented under the title about the nihilism of our ego and the Grace of God, and the themes are marked with the tags kenosis, egoism, the Grace of God, faith, Christianity and Orthodoxy.

The full video is available on the Pemptousia website of the Holy Skete. The discussion the talk opens concerns how the self must be emptied, in the sense of kenosis, so that divine Grace can act in a person, and how far our everyday Christian self-image stands from this humility. The elder's words place the measure of true Christianity not in outward identity but in the inner feeling of one's own nothingness before God.

A monk on Mount Athos recalls the advice he received from Elder Maximos, who served as prosmonarios, the guest-master, at the Monastery of Iviron, at the Panagia Portaitissa. The elder compared life to driving: a person may drive well, but he is not alone on the road, and someone beside him, perhaps drunk or looking at his phone, may crash into him.

For this reason, the elder said, we must be very careful. The speaker, Father Ioakim, says that every time he went to confess and seek counsel, Elder Maximos gave him the same two-word answer: 'Father Ioakim, attention and prayer.' The elder explained that a person watches out as far as it is humanly possible, and then the grace of God, together with prayer, opens the mind so that one makes fewer mistakes.

The video was posted by the Holy Church of Saint Demetrius in the municipality of Saint Demetrius, and the speaker is Elder Philemon, Dikaios of the Holy Coenobitic Skete of the Prophet Elias of Pantokrator on Mount Athos. The post points viewers to the full video on YouTube. The short clip centers on one theme: human effort alone is not enough, and vigilance must be joined to prayer so that divine grace can guard a person where his own strength ends.

A questioner asks Elder Philemon, a confessor at the Holy Monastic Skete of the Prophet Elias on Mount Athos, what to do when thoughts of past mistakes keep returning even after confession, sometimes appearing in dreams. The elder answers that the mind is not our best friend and jokes that in English 'ideas' sounds like 'my ties', so we should not keep company with our thoughts.

He advises treating a troublesome thought like a dirty fly from the toilet that lands in your mouth: reject it instantly and the temptation leaves quickly. If the thought comes, let it come, but do not accept it. He warns that the devil often replaces prayer with anxious self-examination, making us ask 'why did I say that' instead of saying 'Lord have mercy', so we waste time.

He quotes an elder who said that when we are covered in mud, we should leave it to dry and it falls off by itself. The discussion stays on this theme: do not dwell on weaknesses, because when you think about them they do not go away.

Elder Philemon, a priest of the Holy Coenobitic Skete of the Prophet Elijah of Pantokratoros on Mount Athos, speaks about choosing retreat, calm and peace instead of quarreling. He tells the story of two monks who heard others arguing and decided to argue as well. They placed a glass in the middle, and one of them declared that the glass belonged to him.

The other answered: 'If it is yours, take it,' and the argument ended there. The two monks never came to a quarrel. Elder Philemon notes that the same spirit operates in his own monastery. There, calm prevails and the prevailing attitude is 'don't trouble yourself, take it.' He presents this disposition as a way of life rather than a story from elsewhere.

The talk is presented by Pemptousia, and the full video, titled 'Mount Athos: The Garden of the Panagia,' is available on the Pemptousia website. The post carries hashtags on Mount Athos, retreat, calmness, peace, faith, Christianity and Orthodoxy, and names Elder Philemon and the Holy Skete of the Prophet Elijah. The video summary shows that the talk centers on this one anecdote and its application to monastic life: two monks imitate an argument, stage a dispute over a glass, and dissolve it with a single sentence of concession.

The elder connects the anecdote to the daily atmosphere of his skete, where monks avoid disputes by yielding to one another. The card points readers to the full video for the elder's own words.

The post shares a YouTube video from the Association of Friends of Mount Athos Heraklion featuring Gerontas Filimon, the righteous of the Holy Communal Pantocrator Skete of Prophet Elijah on Mount Athos. In the video, Gerontas Filimon recalls an elder who said the true fast is not abstaining from meat but avoiding the screen for a day.

That elder promised communion to anyone who could give up television, even if they ate meat. The speaker observes that today everyone, young and old, watches screens that show lies, and not everything seen is true, especially with artificial intelligence being pushed on people. He acknowledges that AI has many good things, but warns that we must avoid the trap of virtual reality.

He says we should have images, but images of God. The video is available on the association's YouTube channel.

Elder Philemon, Dikaios of the Holy Koinobiotic Skete of the Prophet Elias of Pantokrator on Mount Athos, speaks about tears of repentance in a video published by the Holy Church of Saint Demetrios in the Municipality of Agiou Dimitriou. He calls tears the second baptism: when we repent and weep, God sees it. To show what this means, he tells a story about a father who was about to leave the world and asked those around him to bring him a gift.

One person brought bread, another brought a glass of cold water, and a third searched and found the tear of a repentant person. The father chose the tear and said, 'This is what I want.' Elder Philemon asks whether this is not a parable: Christ and our God seek from us our repentance and our tears. The video is available in full on YouTube through the link in the post, and the post carries hashtags in Greek and English on tears, repentance, faith, Christianity and Orthodoxy.

Elder Philimon, Dikaios of the Holy Koinobitic Skete of the Prophet Elijah on Mount Athos, speaks about repentance and the new beginning it offers. He says that Mount Athos gives joy through its offering, and he identifies that offering as repentance. His talk centers on people on Mount Athos who repented and made a new start, people who said, 'I was there and I will go elsewhere.' He describes their state when they came to confession: they had looked with their eye toward the sky, toward nowhere, disappointed and despairing.

Despite this condition, they took courage and began again from the beginning. The video presents repentance as the path by which those who have fallen find hope and make a fresh start. The full video is available on YouTube on the channel 'Nektari Psychis'.

The post carries hashtags on Mount Athos, repentance, hope, faith, Christianity and Orthodoxy, and names Elder Philimon and the Holy Skete of the Prophet Elijah of Mount Athos.