Elder Porphyrios of Kavsokalyva once foretold to one of his spiritual children that he would live so many years. When this man put his health at risk, the holy elder said to him that he could have died. Bewildered, he questioned the elder about how this agrees with the prediction given earlier. The elder replied: “What I told you is true. Nothing changed. The lamp of your life has oil for as many years as I told you, but if you drop it, the oil will spill and the lamp will go out! That is life! God gives us the precious gift of life; we accept it and are obliged to protect it, and not to expose it to dangers, especially senseless ones.
