Saint Sophrony and the Children That Visited Him

Father Paisios the Mathematician was a direct disciple of Saint Paisios the Athonite and the spiritual father of the female Monastery of Saint Hilarion near the village of Promachoi in the Municipality of Aridaia. One of his neighbors was a little girl named Chryse, and according to him she once went to visit Saint Sophrony with her mother. The Saint had never met them before, but as soon as he saw Chryse he welcomed her by name, saying: "Welcome Chrysoula! I knew a little girl would come from Greece!" And when the girl's mother asked the Saint to bless the child, he said: "Why should I bless her! I wish where this child will go, I will go too!" Shortly after this meeting and the photo taken above, Chryse passed away.

Parable of the Sparrow and Two Sisters

Two little sisters, after listening to the biblical story of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise, said to their dad:

"Dad, if Lena and I were in paradise, we would never eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. After all, God didn’t allow for it to be touched, isn't that right, dad?

“Correct,” the father smiled and put the children to bed.

The next morning, the father got up before everyone else, caught a sparrow in the yard and put it in a saucepan. Having woken up the girls, he showed them the saucepan, placed it on the windowsill of the open window in the kitchen and said:

Encyclical on the Catechism of the Youth (Metr. Hierotheos of Nafpaktos)

 

My beloved brethren,

By decision of the Sacred Synod, the Catechism for male and female students begins again this year, which is a serious work of the Church, by which young people are introduced to the blessed institution of the Church.

Normally, Catechism precedes the mystery of Baptism, because first one gets to know the life of the Church and then enters it.

Since, however, with the passage of time, infant baptism was introduced into the Church, that is, a person is baptized a short time after their birth, while they are still an infant, for this reason the Catechetical Schools began to function from a long time ago, for those who were preparing to be baptized who were of mature age, and for the illumined, that is, for those who had been baptized.

Children Celebrate the Patron Saints of Education on a Remote Greek island Without a Priest

 

Arkoi is a small island in the Dodecanese near Patmos, with few inhabitants. The two children of the island have one teacher, but there is no priest, and without a priest there is no Divine Liturgy, no confession, no Holy Communion, unless a special visit is made to them or they go to a more inhabited nearby island.

This past January 30th, however, which is the feast of the Three Hierarchs, who are revered as the patron saints of education, the teacher of the two young boys took it upon himself to honor the Three Hierarchs with his students at a chapel on the island. Here is what he said about it:

When Saint Porphyrios Traveled Invisibly To Serbia and Observed the Emptiness of the Youth

Saint Porpyrios of Kavsokalyva once said the following to Bishop Irinej of Bačka:

"One day I sat on a bridge over there in your parts [in Serbia, where he used to travel in an invisible way by divine grace], I was observing the people who were passing by. And by the grace of God I saw them transparent, both their bodies and their souls.

What can I say to you, Irinej! I saw empty, lonely, wounded, broken souls. I saw boys and girls passing by holding hands, but without their souls having the strength to truly love. They fall in love roughly and superficially. Raised without a family or even in an atheistic family, they have no provisions for true love. Many of your girls are not even in a position to become mothers from the libertine life they lead.