Everyone must see this

A bus arrived on November first. I will not say from which part of Athens. On November first, Saint David is celebrated. The priest and about fifty people were sitting in the hall, and I decided to tell them something that had deeply moved me. I had learned about it that summer. I will tell you about it.

However, while I was speaking, a man and a woman kept crossing themselves over their mouths.

I thought, “Apparently they woke up early, and because they are tired, the poor people want to yawn, and that is why they are covering their mouths with the sign of the cross.”

That is what I thought.

Listen, then, to what I told them.

Some pilgrims had come to the monastery of the Panagia in Karpathos.

They said there was a great church dedicated to the Panagia there. It was a very beautiful church, surrounded by cliffs all the way down to the sea. You could enter only from the front, and there was a square where the people of Karpathos would sit.

As soon as the Divine Liturgy had finished, the priest said, “Do you see this chandelier? It is a magnificent chandelier. We have not seen one like it in any church in Greece. I ask the gentleman who donated it to come up to the pulpit and tell us why he gave us this gift.”

A gentleman came up and said,

“I am now an old man.

When I was a young child, my mother died.

My father worked on the ships and had to travel constantly. How could he raise me? After a short while, he married another woman, and they came here to the Panagia, to the square, just like everyone else, to sit and talk.

As soon as it began to get dark, my stepmother took me by the hand. She took me to a place where nobody else was around and threw me off the cliff.

Then she returned with crocodile tears, shouting, ‘I lost the child! The child fell! I lost the child!’

My father said she had gone mad.

Meanwhile, night had fallen.

There was no way for them to climb down the cliff. The jackals began howling.

My father, together with the village president, the policeman, the teacher, and everyone else, sat at the edge of the cliff and shouted:

‘Little Kostaki, don't be afraid. In the morning we will come and get you, Kostas.’

This continued throughout the entire night.

As soon as dawn broke, they heard Kostaki's voice:

‘Dad, I am fine! I am at such-and-such beach.’

He mentioned the place, apparently one they knew.

The people went crazy with joy.

They gathered all the ropes in the town. A young man tied himself to a large tree and climbed down.

He brought me back up from below.

As soon as my father saw me, he embraced me and said,

‘My Kostaki, why, my boy, did you leave us in agony all night when you were alive?’

I said,

‘Dad, when Mother threw me down, she was caught. She died in prison. The police were there.’

An aunt of mine took me into her arms.

My father did not understand.

He asked, ‘And why didn't your aunt shout, since you weren't shouting?’

‘She kept her hand over my mouth and told me, “No, my boy, don't shout now, because they will be killed.”’

But when morning came, she told me, ‘Now shout,’ and my aunt left.

The priest understood.

He took me by the hand and brought me inside the church.

‘Could this aunt have been Saint Irene? Saint Catherine? Saint Paraskevi?’

‘No,’ I said.

As soon as we reached the iconostasis and I saw the Panagia, I said,

‘This is the aunt who held me in her arms throughout the entire night.’

I said,

‘This Panagia became my mother at the most difficult moment. Doesn't she deserve a gift?’

I went to Canada and studied chemistry, and the first money I earned bought this chandelier.”

I was so deeply moved that everyone who came that year—one, two, five, a hundred people—I would tell them:

“Come, let me tell you a story.

Come, let me tell you a story about how our Panagia comes running to us even when we do not call upon her.”

So, as I was telling this story on the bus, as soon as I finished telling the miracle, I continued:

“You see, my Christian brothers and sisters, our Panagia…”

I could not say anything else.

Those who had been crossing themselves over their mouths were demon-possessed.

I did not know it.

But the people on the bus knew, and they grabbed them because they got up to beat me.

Feeling safe because they were holding them back, I said:

“Well, devil, you have misunderstood, because we are talking about the Panagia.”

And they said:

“You filthy old woman! In this filthy monastery you are ruining my plans!”

I thought they were insulting her.

I thought they were saying that they did not want people to hear her.

I thought they did not want people to hear her son.

And I tell you, they were so ready to beat me.

But I was safe because they were holding them, so I said,

“Ah, because this bothers you so much, I will keep saying it.”

But I assure you, when I left the monastery, a nun said to me:

“Don't go and tell the children about this, because who knows what temptation may come upon us.”

Every time we tell the story, another temptation comes.

That is how angry the devil becomes.