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.