Saint Paisios: Thousands of People at his Tomb From Every Corner of Greece – The Only “Popular Pilgrimage” That Smells of Eternity
Published on 11 July 2025
By Eleutherios Andronis
Sportime.gr
Social “explosion” in the world’s love for the Saint in recent years - A blessed phenomenon that shows that nothing has been lost.
If the love of the Greeks for Saint Paisios had already been excessive for decades, after the screening of the series “Saint Paisios, from Farasa to Heaven”, reverence for the Saint has evolved into a social phenomenon, one of the few pleasant phenomena in our sad times.
Hundreds of thousands of people who had no particular contact with ecclesiastical life and had never read a book about the Saint, saw the series and were “electrified” by his life, his unhypocritical love, his inexhaustible sacrificial spirit and the spiritual freshness that only a Spirit-bearing man of God, such as Saint Paisios, offers to every heart.
After the screening of the series that literally brought all of Greece to tears with its sanctified messages, the already busy pilgrimages associated with the life of Saint Paisios saw an “explosion” of new pilgrims. In both Panagouda on Mount Athos, as well as in Konitsa and the Monastery of Stomiou, thousands of pilgrims rush to feel something of the blessing left behind by the greatest Saint of our time.
And so now, on the eve of the Saint’s feast day (celebrated every July 12, according to the day he reposed in 1994), the Holy Monastery of Saint John the Theologian in Souroti is filled with people rushing to visit his tomb.
One of the most moving moments of the series was the scene with the now seriously ill Saint giving instructions to the Abbess of the Souroti Monastery on exactly where his tomb would be placed, so that the hesychast order would not be disturbed by the “people to come”. The Saint, with his prescient charisma, foresaw that his tomb would become a constant popular pilgrimage, regardless of whether he himself, with his humble spirit, believed that he did not deserve such an honor.
In fact, he initially wished to be buried away from the world on Mount Athos, but he was unable to do so due to his very poor health, but also because he realized that God’s plan was different: to remain as a beacon of spiritual hope close to the world to support everyone in the great decline of humanity that followed.
And indeed, this happens every year on such days in Souroti, and even more so this year. Faithful from every corner of Greece arrived from Friday morning at the Holy Monastery of Saint John the Theologian. Defying the expenses and the kilometers, ignoring the scorching sun, bypassing the worldly joys of summer, they go by the thousands to touch with their foreheads a sanctified tomb. A grave that is infinitely more life-giving than many living, wandering "graves" that dominate or instruct this wretched country.
Every Saint is someone who put into practice the commandment of Christ to store up treasure in Heaven and not on earth. But the wisdom of God acted in such a way that this treasury would be built in heaven, but that the earth would also be enriched. Every pilgrim who either physically or mentally kneels before Saint Paisios receives golden purses of free grace. His soul is healed with the balm that despite our decline (individual and national), the Saint is not going to abandon us. If he was anxious about his place while he was alive, bleeding his knees from prostrations and writing a letter as a legacy for the future, how much more will this "wireless radio operator of God" now respond, broadcasting his miracles directly from the frequency of Paradise.
We hear a lot of sadness in our days, we see phenomena of eschatological decline, we are constantly concerned with the invasion of darkness and its infinite forms. As humans, we often become darkened by this discouraging climate. But somewhere you will turn your gaze and you will see a Saint Paisios in an icon, in a book, in a vigil, looking at you with that look of unfathomable grace and softly chanting in a whisper to you “…that His mercy endures forever, alleluia.”
Yes, good still resists strongly, still triumphs, still steals many souls from the clutches of the wicked. Saint Paisios is a mirror both for our misery, and for the philotimo that continues to spring up like a persistent seed in the field of Greece. Like a good “weed” of God that greens the scorched earth again and again.
Thirty-one years will be completed on July 12, 2025, since the repose of the anointed one from Farasa. And you see young people, old people, families, travelers from abroad, every kind of class and education and profession, flooding the paths that the Saint walked, searching for the traces of his paths, discussing his words in the wells of pure company, resting in every word of his that remained on paper, invoking him in every dark hour, having him as a shield against every thought of little faith, feeling him as a father and brother and friend and companion, as a beat of our heart that was added to beat continuously for Christ and Greece.
Tell me what other human tomb overflows with so much life beyond those of the Saints, and I will tell you why every other ideology reaches the silence of the grave. Saint Paisios earned a resurrection seat in the consciousness of the Greeks, with a rusk, with half a lung and with a heart that ached from so much love because it was fleshy and could not contain it. Indeed, “God is wondrous in His saints.”
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
Sportime.gr
Social “explosion” in the world’s love for the Saint in recent years - A blessed phenomenon that shows that nothing has been lost.
If the love of the Greeks for Saint Paisios had already been excessive for decades, after the screening of the series “Saint Paisios, from Farasa to Heaven”, reverence for the Saint has evolved into a social phenomenon, one of the few pleasant phenomena in our sad times.
Hundreds of thousands of people who had no particular contact with ecclesiastical life and had never read a book about the Saint, saw the series and were “electrified” by his life, his unhypocritical love, his inexhaustible sacrificial spirit and the spiritual freshness that only a Spirit-bearing man of God, such as Saint Paisios, offers to every heart.
After the screening of the series that literally brought all of Greece to tears with its sanctified messages, the already busy pilgrimages associated with the life of Saint Paisios saw an “explosion” of new pilgrims. In both Panagouda on Mount Athos, as well as in Konitsa and the Monastery of Stomiou, thousands of pilgrims rush to feel something of the blessing left behind by the greatest Saint of our time.
And so now, on the eve of the Saint’s feast day (celebrated every July 12, according to the day he reposed in 1994), the Holy Monastery of Saint John the Theologian in Souroti is filled with people rushing to visit his tomb.
One of the most moving moments of the series was the scene with the now seriously ill Saint giving instructions to the Abbess of the Souroti Monastery on exactly where his tomb would be placed, so that the hesychast order would not be disturbed by the “people to come”. The Saint, with his prescient charisma, foresaw that his tomb would become a constant popular pilgrimage, regardless of whether he himself, with his humble spirit, believed that he did not deserve such an honor.
In fact, he initially wished to be buried away from the world on Mount Athos, but he was unable to do so due to his very poor health, but also because he realized that God’s plan was different: to remain as a beacon of spiritual hope close to the world to support everyone in the great decline of humanity that followed.
And indeed, this happens every year on such days in Souroti, and even more so this year. Faithful from every corner of Greece arrived from Friday morning at the Holy Monastery of Saint John the Theologian. Defying the expenses and the kilometers, ignoring the scorching sun, bypassing the worldly joys of summer, they go by the thousands to touch with their foreheads a sanctified tomb. A grave that is infinitely more life-giving than many living, wandering "graves" that dominate or instruct this wretched country.
Every Saint is someone who put into practice the commandment of Christ to store up treasure in Heaven and not on earth. But the wisdom of God acted in such a way that this treasury would be built in heaven, but that the earth would also be enriched. Every pilgrim who either physically or mentally kneels before Saint Paisios receives golden purses of free grace. His soul is healed with the balm that despite our decline (individual and national), the Saint is not going to abandon us. If he was anxious about his place while he was alive, bleeding his knees from prostrations and writing a letter as a legacy for the future, how much more will this "wireless radio operator of God" now respond, broadcasting his miracles directly from the frequency of Paradise.
We hear a lot of sadness in our days, we see phenomena of eschatological decline, we are constantly concerned with the invasion of darkness and its infinite forms. As humans, we often become darkened by this discouraging climate. But somewhere you will turn your gaze and you will see a Saint Paisios in an icon, in a book, in a vigil, looking at you with that look of unfathomable grace and softly chanting in a whisper to you “…that His mercy endures forever, alleluia.”
Yes, good still resists strongly, still triumphs, still steals many souls from the clutches of the wicked. Saint Paisios is a mirror both for our misery, and for the philotimo that continues to spring up like a persistent seed in the field of Greece. Like a good “weed” of God that greens the scorched earth again and again.
Thirty-one years will be completed on July 12, 2025, since the repose of the anointed one from Farasa. And you see young people, old people, families, travelers from abroad, every kind of class and education and profession, flooding the paths that the Saint walked, searching for the traces of his paths, discussing his words in the wells of pure company, resting in every word of his that remained on paper, invoking him in every dark hour, having him as a shield against every thought of little faith, feeling him as a father and brother and friend and companion, as a beat of our heart that was added to beat continuously for Christ and Greece.
Tell me what other human tomb overflows with so much life beyond those of the Saints, and I will tell you why every other ideology reaches the silence of the grave. Saint Paisios earned a resurrection seat in the consciousness of the Greeks, with a rusk, with half a lung and with a heart that ached from so much love because it was fleshy and could not contain it. Indeed, “God is wondrous in His saints.”
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
