Unknown Saints-Agiou Pavlou Monastery

One afternoon as I was sitting in the courtyard of the Monastery of Saint Paul, I saw two old men walking and talking quietly.

One, Father Mitrofanis, 85 years old, came as soon as he got a pension, he has been away from the world for 25 years.

The other, Father Ignatius, 92 years old, Romanian by origin, has been on Mount Athos for 70 years.

He lives in a solitary cell about 45' away.

Recently he developed a cataract and the Abbot insists on going to Thessaloniki for a week to have an operation, but he has not gone out again and feels uncomfortable.

I'm afraid brother Mitrophanes, how am I going to go there for a week, how is the world? Far from our Mother's orchard?

If the world wins me and now in old age I lose my soul? I wish Our Lady would take me this evening before I can go!

Ignatius, we must always obey our Abbot, you will go and the Grace of obedience will cover you!

They said this and disappeared, one in the deanery and the other in his cell.

Already the night spread its curtain over the orchard and the stars shone above the Byzantine domes.

And yet God obeyed this genuine child of his. During that night we heard the bell ring, Father Ignatius left the world before he could face the secular world.

His Lady showed him the way to Heaven, closed his blind eyes to vanity and faced the light of Christ in Eternity.

He was buried behind the lonely cell he lived in, never seeing the world he left as a small child.

Metropolitan Nikolaos of Mesogaia

Source https://www.vimaorthodoxias.gr/peri-zois/ena-apogeyma-kathos-kathomoyn-s...