By Fr. George Dorbarakis
We came to know Venerable Arsenios the Cappadocian, the Hadjiefendis, primarily through the book written about him by another Venerable of our time, Elder Paisios the Athonite. He was the one who “captivated” Venerable Paisios when he was still a small child, beginning in the place of their common origin, Farasa in Cappadocia. Because of this, he wished to follow in his footsteps and become a monk, wholly dedicated to God. Perhaps this turn toward monastic life on the part of Elder Paisios, apart from his own inclination, was due to some extent also to the power of the prayers of Saint Arsenios, who saw in the person of the little boy from Farasa (the future Saint Paisios, son of Prodromos Eznepidis, who was then the president of Farasa) his own successor. Indeed, he expressed this even at the time of the child's baptism. It is well known that, at the time of the naming, he “compelled” the godfather, instead of giving the child the name Christos, to give him his own name, Arsenios. Saint Paisios's desire to write the life of Saint Arsenios had been firmly planted within him many years earlier, until he finally brought it to fulfillment. And when he had gathered sufficient material — which continued to increase over time through his own research and that of others he knew — and had more or less completed the book, Saint Arsenios, after making a miraculous appearance, “approved” the work of his disciple and “successor.”
The fact that one Saint writes about another Saint demonstrates the seriousness of the undertaking and provides the inner assurance that what is being written is reliable and bears the seal of the Spirit of God. Has this not, in fact, been the case throughout the history of our Church? How many Saints have written about those who lived before them, such as Saint Athanasius, for example, who wrote about Venerable Anthony the Great? Our soul therefore finds rest as we read through the life of Holy Hadjiefendis, becoming partakers of the grace experienced by his biographer through the presentation of the testimonies he collected. We do not wish to dwell at length on this life — it is very easy for anyone to seek it out and find it, especially since it is not very long — but rather to focus on a particular point that Saint Paisios raises from the life of this more recent Cappadocian Venerable.
Perhaps the only things we would like to mention from his biography are that he was born in 1840 in Farasa; that from childhood he experienced the grace of the Saints, who turned him toward the desire for God; that he pursued his studies because he possessed an exceptionally receptive intellect; that he was ordained a clergyman and served as a teacher to the children of the villages in his region; that, as a clergyman, he displayed a rare spirit of self-sacrifice toward his flock and beyond; that he was endowed by God with the gifts of clairvoyance and wonderworking, which both Christians and Muslims experienced; that he possessed an intense patriotism, taking the lead in preserving and cultivating the national consciousness of the Greeks living under Turkish rule; that he was fearless and courageous like a lion; and that all these qualities were accompanied by a severe asceticism toward himself, which was expressed continually as profound humility (he struggled fervently to conceal himself through a kind of holy foolishness) and boundless love for everyone. In 1924, he too was compelled, together with the other inhabitants of Farasa, to leave his homeland and take refuge in the Great Homeland, Greece. Upon arriving in Kerkyra, after forty days, as he had prophesied, he surrendered his sanctified soul into the hands of his Creator. In 1958, Saint Paisios performed the exhumation of his relics and took them to Konitsa and then to Thessaloniki, while in February 1986 the Ecumenical Patriarchate officially enrolled him in the registers of the saints of the Church.
What is the particular point on which we wish to focus? It is something that Venerable Elder Paisios writes about from the pastoral ministry of Saint Arsenios. After the Divine Liturgies in particular, he would gather the people of Farasa, especially those who were older in age, in order to speak to them about Gospel subjects, the lives of Saints, and even stories from the Old Testament. The manner and method of his pastoral ministry are noteworthy, revealing the height of his discernment and holiness.
“When (Saint Arsenios) saw some elderly men becoming restless whenever the narration was long, because they wanted to smoke, he himself would get up, bring them tobacco, and put them at ease on such occasions. In this way, they were willing to sit and listen attentively, so that afterward each of them could recount the stories at home or in the neighborhood.”
One might say that the Saint would have become angry when he saw the elderly men growing restless because they wanted to satisfy one of their passions. And perhaps this would have been justified: he was preaching the word of God and seeking to raise them to a higher spiritual level, that is, to make them partakers of the grace of God, while they were moving on a “carnal” level. Would this level not provoke a laborer of God? For it reveals that the priority of these people is material and earthly things, their passions, and not God and His word. But the Saint was down-to-earth and deeply understood human nature. In other words, he knew that when someone has yielded to one of his passions, especially repeatedly, that passion, through habit, acquires great depth in the human soul, puts down roots, and becomes so firmly established that it is rendered almost impossible to eradicate. It is no coincidence that those who are most philosophical about life say that a passion becomes a second nature in a person; its eradication resembles the “death” of the person and causes the greatest suffering. Saint Ephraim the Syrian, for example, often reminded us that we must not become accustomed to yielding to our passions, because this habit becomes our second nature. “Do not become accustomed to defeat in battle. For habit is a second nature.” Saint Arsenios therefore understood the suffering and “restlessness” of the elderly men who were addicted to smoking. Even if they wanted to give it up, they could not do so all at once.
This understanding of his, which was the fruit not merely of a pedagogical principle but of a “provocation of love,” according to the Apostle's words, “Let us consider one another in order to provoke one another to love,” made him not only tolerate their weakness but also hasten to satisfy it himself — he brought them their tobacco. Why? On the one hand, particularly given the circumstances of that time, smoking may have been a passion, but not a deadly one; it was considered a simple pleasure of the human being. On the other hand, he saw that they were well-disposed people, with love for God, to such an extent that they not only received his saintly stories attentively but afterward also acted as missionaries, passing them on to others in their families and more broadly as well. This latter point, certainly, would also have given the Saint hope for their overcoming this particular passion. For when someone is oriented toward God, He then gives that person the strength gradually to free himself from whatever weakness he may have. The spiritual life requires, as we say, moderation. The passions are “cut off” little by little, to the degree that a person moves toward God. And just as when someone begins to run, at first his speed is slow and then gradually increases, so it is in spiritual matters: a person takes some small, hesitant steps, and in proportion to his love for God, these steps become leaps, and the leaps may become running with wings. There are, of course, exceptional cases in which someone is so deeply wounded by the love of Christ that, all at once, he reaches the utmost that is possible for him, like the grateful thief beside Christ, or like Venerable Paisia, whom Venerable John the Dwarf brought to repentance (Sayings of the Desert Fathers). But we are speaking of the more usual cases, not the exceptions, in which “one hour of repentance is accepted by God more than the repentance of many who persist in it for a long time, because they do not show the fervor that is required.”
Saint Arsenios is a gift of God to the contemporary world. His love, his discernment, and his continuous wonderworking, because of the “boldness” of his soul before God, are rays of the grace of God that act therapeutically in our world, which is afflicted by sin. And as Venerable Paisios writes near the end of his book about the Saint:
“Now Hadjiefendis (Father Arsenios) no longer runs on foot and becomes breathless in order to reach the sick in time, read the appropriate prayer over them, and heal them. Instead, he flies freely like an Angel from one end of the world to the other and can reach all the faithful who invoke him with reverence.”
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
