By Lambros Skontzos
Saint George Karslides (1901–1959) is one of the most distinctive and important holy figures of the twentieth century! His life seems to recapitulate the lives of many other saints whom we read about in the Synaxarion.
After all, he is not simply a Venerable of the Church, but also a confessor and martyr who lived through particularly harsh days of trial and martyrdom during the period of Communist rule in Georgia. The culmination of these trials, of course, was his confrontation with the firing squad.
The monk Symeon, the name given to the Saint when he was tonsured, having previously been called Athanasios, received several bullets from the firing squad, but chiefly in his legs! Thus, the wounds were not fatal. For this reason, his life was subsequently spared, since a law provided that anyone who survived a firing squad was entitled to a pardon!
Even now, we feel ourselves being overwhelmed by the divine grace of which he himself was a bearer, as we too participate in the martyric life of this relatively recent saint of our Church. His canonization by the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate took place in 2008.
Throughout his entire life, this confessor and martyr, our Saint, lived as a grace-bearing holy Elder, a Venerable and an ornament of the Church and the world! He stood beside the suffering people of his time, even amid particularly adverse conditions for survival, periods of uprooting and refugeehood, world wars, occupation, civil war...
It was an era in which the traditions of the land, both ecclesiastical and those of the ancestral way of life, suffered particularly severe blows, indiscriminate revisions, and questioning. Yet he stood as an image of the manifestation of Christ in the midst of his own century, a generous manifestation of divine grace in a troubled world!
The Saint, who was born in Georgia to parents of Pontic refugee descent, experienced many deaths and attempted murders from an early age, both bodily and psychic and spiritual. At the age of just three, he lost his parents to a cholera epidemic; a little later, he lost his second mother, that is, his grandmother, and subsequently his beloved sister, at whose grave a light was seen. Indeed, when her relics were exhumed, they bore signs of holiness!
But these were not the only hardships. The young Athanasios also endured martyrdom at the hands of his brother, and he was constantly an outcast, sometimes finding his final refuge in his parents’ graves! Eventually, he decided to leave his brother’s hostile and harsh household, alone and abandoned. Thus, he began wandering through the snow-covered Caucasus in the middle of the bitter winter!
From this point onward, however, the young Athanasios seems to have remained face to face with God. And so God Himself, through His saints, would personally take him under His care, support him, and guide him. First came the appearance of the Three Hierarchs, who allowed him to taste the grace and splendor of Paradise; then Saint George, who placed him on his horse and carried him somewhere far away, so that he might begin a different life! For this reason, he regarded Saint George as his protector, and thus he also received his name at his ordination.
Particularly significant, however, was the ceremony of his tonsure (July 20, 1919), during which the ringing of bells was heard! At that time, such a thing was forbidden. Thus, the abbot, initially terrified, immediately performed a new service when he realized exactly what had happened, making him a Great Schema monk!
The Saint was a constant support to the people of the region in every circumstance of their lives. He was an ever-vigilant and tenderhearted spiritual father who was deeply concerned for their spiritual lives. He was also a wonderworking physician, a merciful and suffering heart for all the inhabitants. He was a friend to children and a protector of the young!
Those who knew him personally experienced, on numerous occasions, extraordinary and revelatory signs of his holiness, such as visits from saints; his paradisiacal conversations with them, in a language and with sounds reminiscent of the singing of birds; his unexpected visits and appearances in various places; his complete knowledge of people, their thoughts and reflections; and his revelations concerning events in their lives known only to them, and concerning relatives of theirs who had disappeared in Asia Minor!
He even informed them about the condition of the souls of their departed relatives and how they should attend to them spiritually! And, of course, to this day he has not ceased working miracles and offering his support to those who ask for it with love and faith.
This is one of those very cases of saints whom we are accustomed to describe as a gift of God to the Church, to society, to humanity, and to the whole world! It is only necessary, however, that we not diminish the particular zeal and wholehearted devotion of these saints, who offered and continue to offer their entire selves to God Himself!
For in this way, through their wholehearted devotion, they become filled with grace and truly become gifts, as well as manifestations of God in the world! May the Venerable George, who lost both his parents to an epidemic of plague, be our helper and protector during the difficult days of the pandemic through which we are living, both in our bodily weaknesses and health concerns, and in our inner spiritual and heartfelt condition. May we have his blessing! But perhaps, first and foremost, we ought to thank him? Probably!
We thank him from the depths of our soul and heart!
The information about the holy life of the Venerable George Karslides was drawn from the book "The Venerable George of Drama: The Saint of the Poor and the Suffering," published by the Holy Monastery of the Ascension of the Savior, Taxiarches (Sipsa).
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
