Elder Anthimos of Saint Anne's

The Wise and God-bearing Contemporary Father of Athos

Dr. Charalambos M. Bousias

• Publisher: Orthodox Logos
• Year: 1905
• eBook ISBN: 9789081155595
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

It is with great pleasure that we announce the publication of the long-awaited English language edition of ELDER ANTHIMOS OF ST. ANNE'S, the wise and God-bearing Contemporary Father of Athos, by Dr. Charalambos M. Bousias. It was translated from the sixth Greek edition of 2004, and contains material not included in the Greek edition. Although the name of the Athonite Elder Anthimos (1913-1996) has not yet been added to the Church's calendar of saints, many of those who knew him have testified to the holiness of his life, and his strictness, or exactitude, in matters of the Orthodox Faith. This wise ascetic of Mount Athos has shone forth in our times "like a star shedding a new light of piety, and as a brightly shining vessel of grace." People were drawn to this humble monk because of his wise spiritual counsels, and by the holiness of his life. Reading the life of Elder Anthimos, we discover that he was indeed a holy ascetic who strove to purify himself of every sinful inclination, and to acquire every virtue. After years of struggle, he became an unerring guide of souls, a Spiritual Father to those at St Anne's, and in other monasteries on the Holy Mountain. He also had many other spiritual children in Greece, and in other countries. The Greek life of Elder Anthimos has already appeared in several editions. It has also been translated from Greek into Russian, and now, by the grace of God, it is available in English. The lives and teachings of righteous men and women can be a salutary antidote to the turbulent storm of modern existence, revealing the way of holiness to people in every land, and in every walk of life. It is hoped that those who read this book will be edified by his God-pleasing life, and encouraged by his words. New to this volume are some of the liturgical services in honor of Elder Anthimos, composed by Dr. Bousias, who is also a noted hymnographer. The service of Great Vespers, the Supplicatory Canon, and Matins were originally printed in a separate booklet. Now, the biographical and liturgical materials are conveniently gathered together in a single volume, which contains several photographs, many of them in color. A special Introduction to the English edition places Elder Anthimos within the context of Orthodox Tradition, and the spiritual history of Mount Athos. The influence of Elder Anthimos is not limited to St Anne's Skete, or to Mount Athos, for his life and teachings have great significance for the whole world. A Glossary has also been added, providing useful definitions of Orthodox terms for those who may not be familiar with them.

I.

Biography

Dawn in Zireia

The small village of Kallianoi is located in the heights of the Corinthian land, in the peaks of the cloud-covered Zireia. At a height of seven hundred meters, a little before the lake of Stymphalia, where the mythical Hercules killed the Stymphalian birds, and opposite the village of Psari, the birthplace of New Martyr Nicholas (beheaded at Constantinople on February 14, 1554), Kallianoi has resisted time, which tames everything. Although it is the main village of the surrounding area, today it has few inhabitants, for most of them went to Kiato, Corinth and Athens hoping for better days. Its natural resources are small, and the struggle to survive is difficult for its inhabitants.

In this semi-mountainous and semi-barren village the little Constantine Zapheiropoulos, who later became the famous Spiritual Father Anthimos of St Anne’s, first saw the light of the sun.

His first cries were heard on November 5, 1913, which with his premature orphanhood, the harsh conditions of life and his subsequent voluntary ascesis and prayer which ended in contrition, would accompany him in all his later life. These things, however, gave him the unending joy and rejoicing of the Kingdom of Heaven. His parents Charalambos and Vasiliki took him in their arms and hugged their young offspring in their embrace, but did not manage to see his godly progress, because He quickly called them to Himself. His father Charalambos was from a famous family which had come to Kallianoi from the mountains of Arcadia. His mother was from Kallianoi. Both were pious and virtue-loving, especially Constantine’s mother. She was quickly “taken up, so that wickedness would not change her prudence” (Wisdom of Solomon 4:11), leaving him orphaned at the age of seven, together with Anastasios, his only brother in the flesh. Their estate was modest. One could characterize them as poor, since their daily bread came with difficulty out of the fields which belonged to them. Although poor in land estates, they were rich, however, in love of God. They unstintingly passed this love on to their children also, especially to Constantine, a zealot for the Forerunner’s way of life.

Vasiliki’s premature death plunged the father and the two boys into very deep mourning, which became unbearable for the two young lads after their father’s second marriage. Not only did their stepmother never love them, but she also beat them without mercy. The two orphans had no place in their paternal home. The nest which warmed them now became a scorpion’s nest, and a warm embrace was replaced by savage beatings with a stick. Their stepmother’s harsh and coarse behavior made even the little children’s sleep difficult. She lived an immoral life and did not want the children to see her vicious actions. One day she attempted to kill little Anastasios, who escaped due to the sudden return of their father. Another time she tried to burn the two children in the oven, where the poor things took refuge to warm their emaciated and frozen little bodies.

After all these things, Constantine decided to leave secretly and to seek his fate on his own. He took all his belongings in a handkerchief: two changes of clothes and a piece of bread with a little food, and set out. He made the Sign of the Cross and took to the road. He stopped at the edge of the village to look back and gaze at his little village which could not contain him now. Pictures from the happy years with his beloved dear mother came back to his mind, even if they were poor. He was certain that she would escort him and guide him from heaven on his new journey to the unknown. He called upon her, and a burning tear rolled down his soft childlike cheeks. He did not go very far. He sought refuge in the neighboring Nemea, where he worked hard in a grocery store in order to have food and shelter. There he became acquainted with a certain Athonite Elder, who approached him and took him to Athens with him.

Acquaintance with Famous
Spiritual Fathers

Constantine finished the Academy in the city of light and letters, and since he loved letters very much, he frequented various libraries and read with unceasing zeal. Our good God, his only company and consolation, opened new paths for him. He Who said, “Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven and all these shall be added unto you” (Matt. 6:33) was interested in and concerned for the adolescent who had been orphaned on earth, but not in heaven. He brought him to the virtuous Spiritual Father Jerome of St Paul’s, an unerring guide who stood by him and led him on the paths of the divine commandments and of salvation, to the living waters “springing up to eternal life” (John 4:14). Fr Jerome’s vigils, his ceaseless prayer of the heart, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner”, his fasts and every type of hardship of his body, his love for everyone, his elevating humility and the multitude of his virtues, by God’s grace, made him an experienced and clairvoyant Spiritual Father.

Divine providence placed him in young Constantine’s path, to form his easily malleable heart according to the eternal will of the heavenly Father. Later, when Fr Jerome was deprived of natural light because of a serious disease of his eyes, he received an increase of spiritual light from the Light-giving Lord, and he received the gift of clairvoyance until the end of his life on earth. When Fr Jerome’s physical powers weakened and he could not guide young Constantine, whom he saw progressing in Christ, with the eyes of his clairvoyance, he sent him to the famous Spiritual Father Michael the Blind who lived in the small hermitage of the Holy Archangels in Vyrona.

Elder Michael was from Madyton of Eastern Thrace. He was the brother of the famous Spiritual Father Gabriel Lambi, a monk of the Skete of St Anne on Mt Athos. Michael also lived in God-pleasing asceticism in this large Skete’s Kalyva of the Entrance of the Theotokos for more than two decades. During these years he worked diligently, prayed with contrition, labored honorably in asceticism and was an obedient disciple. He became a model of monastic life and a precious vessel of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. However, for reasons which only the Lord knows and permits, his eyes were assailed by an illness which gradually made him completely blind. So he was forced to come out into the world for therapy, and there to carry the cross of the sins of many souls who trusted him as a Spiritual Father and unerring guide toward salvation. Although he himself was blind, he scattered the true light, the unsetting light of Christ, to souls who lived in the darkness of ignorance and of sin-loving daily life.

Due to his blindness, Fr Michael did not serve as a priest in the hermitage of the Holy Archangels in Vyrona. He did not yet have the gift of speech for preaching. He was content simply with the work of hearing Confessions, and with the admission of sins and the correct guidance of the believers. It was not rare for someone to wait quite a while for his turn to come for Confession. No matter how weary he was, Fr Michael tirelessly and patiently heard everyone. He had great love, understanding, and discretion. Everyone felt comfortable at his epitrachelion, and left feeling renewed and joyous. For this reason he had gathered so many people around him that they crowded in the small, but for them redeeming church of his hermitage. The Elder knew how to cultivate the field of the soul of the penitents quietly, speaking to them about the works of virtue, repentance, tears, prayer, charity and ascesis. Through his humble work, he guided souls freed from the bonds of sin to Paradise guilelessly, humbly, without selfishness and with firm steps.

In Fr Michael’s quiet and poor cell where people found consolation and strengthening at his epitrachelion during those difficult years of expatriation and misfortune, Constantine also took refuge as if it were a calm port. He was intoxicated by the aroma of the Athonite wilderness which the blind Elder breathed, and his love for reading books in the rich libraries of the Holy Mountain urged him to visit them. He pictured Athos as a spiritual oasis, as indeed it is, a piece of the heavenly Eden transplanted onto the long, narrow peninsula of the Macedonian land, which the Panagia selected as her portion, and which for centuries has been watered by the sweat and the tears of the firm-souled ascetics. Fr Michael not only cultivated this longing of the young Constantine, but also, at the appropriate moment, sent him to his brother Gabriel, who lived an ascetical life there in a God-pleasing manner, so that he might take care of him and direct him on the Athonite footpaths.

The Young Constantine’s
Arrival on Athos

The Kallianote, who loved to read, took the road for the Athonite life when he had scarcely completed his seventeenth year. “I did not come here with the desire to become a monk”, he said, “but to read books from the inexhaustible libraries of the Cenobia and the Sketes of the Mountain.”

At the Skete of St Anne and in the Kalyva of the Entrance of the Theotokos, of the familiar Brotherhood of the Theophileon, Constantine met Elders Theophilos and Gabriel, who received him with abundant unselfish and unhypocritical love. Constantine, who was eagerly initiated by them into the secrets of monastic conduct and life, particularly admired this. Although it was not his goal to become a monk, nevertheless he philosophized every day about the life of these otherworldly inhabitants of the wilderness. In the beginning he asked himself, “Why should these Fathers live in these inaccessible cliffs and kalyvas? Why should they, like wilderness-loving sparrows, build the nests of their asceticism in the shady forest, and even on the dry slopes of the cloud-covered Athos? Why should they ceaselessly give their weak flesh over to hardship, scorning the joys and the beauties of the world?”

With the passage of time, these unanswered questions, which the Tempter poses to every newcomer to the Holy Mountain, ceased in Constantine’s soul, and the grace of God fully answered him. In 1929, the Skete of St Anne numbered two hundred and seventy Fathers. The young lover of reading, with the correct guidance of his Elders, slowly came to feel an aversion for the vanity of secular pleasures. He rejoiced for the eternity of the incorruptible good things (1 Peter 1:4) “prepared from the foundation of the world” (Matt. 25:34). He also would go to the vigils in the Kyriakon of St Anne, and was literally overcome by the slow nocturnal chants he had never heard before, and something within him urged him to dedicate his young life to this sacred cliff, to this myrrh-streaming Garden of the Panagia. The thoughts of flight, despair, faintheartedness and weakness which had assaulted him day by day departed and were replaced by a will to stay, by trust in God’s providence, and by a strong and deep faith in Crucified Love. Delving into sacred letters elevated him into the spheres of high spirituality. He read in the Ladder of St John that “Angels are a light for monks, and the monastic life is a light for all people” (Step 26:31), and his soul was filled with divine light. Furthermore, God Himself is light (1 John 1:5) and, as St Symeon the New Theologian (March 12 & October 12) says, “The things around God are light. The Father is Light, the Son is Light, and the Holy Spirit is Light (Gregory Nazianzen P.G. vol. 36, p.136). They are a simple light, light without mixture, timeless, before all ages, and which has the same honor and the same glory. Furthermore, whatever comes from them is light, because they are given to us from light. Life is light, the living water is light, love, peace, truth, the door which leads to the Kingdom of Heaven, and the Kingdom itself is light. Paradise is Light, the country of the meek, the crowns of eternal life, and the very garments of the Saints. Jesus Christ, the Savior and Deliverer of all is Light. The Bread of His immaculate Body is Light. The Cup of His precious Blood is Light. His face is Light. His hand, His finger, His mouth, His eyes are light. His voice is Light because it comes from light; the Comforter is Light. Hope and faith are Light” (Symeon the New Theologian, Complete Works Vol. 4, p. 59).

He derived much benefit from Elder Gabriel, as he himself admitted many times. He did not cease to say that Michael the Blind and Gabriel, his brother in the flesh, were his two guardian angels. The brilliantly shining beauty of their spiritual life dazzled him and he constantly looked for ways to imitate them. Finally, he made an important decision. On November 21, 1930, the Feast of the Entrance of the Theotokos, which their Kalyva celebrated as their patronal Feast, he was tonsured a monk by Elder Gabriel, and took the name Anthimos. Then his life completely changed. The dreadful promises he gave before God and men had to be kept with every sacrifice. Anthimos was a high-flying eagle, and he was drawn to the heights of spirituality. From then on he devoted himself to the practice of monastic life with greater zeal. He learned and lived the toil and the agony of ascesis, the order of spiritual exercise, the practice of unceasing prayer, the way of vigilance and wakefulness, the majesty of the liturgical and sacramental life. This day and night struggle did not make him yield. On the contrary, it made him strong. The words of St Athanasios the Great resounded in his progress-loving soul, “Let him who has comfort in this world not hope to receive eternal comfort. For the Kingdom of Heaven is not made up of those who are comforted here, but of those who are persecuted in this life in much affliction and distress” (Athanasios, Concerning Virginity, BEPES 33, p. 69). Of course, he tried to walk the aforesaid path of life with obedience, so that he might present his soul and his body to Christ free from the wounds of shame and of despondency, and receive the crowns of victory. He always kept vigil, and disregarded all pleasant things. He was not attached to anything earthly, not even if it seemed like genuine gold, not even if temporal enjoyments or opportunities for more comfortable residences presented themselves. He considered everything refuse, vapor (James 4:14), dust and ashes, murmuring to himself, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity” (Eccl. 1:2).

He had his citizenship in heaven (Phil. 3:20) and he considered himself as a traveler hastening to the end of the path. He gazed beseechingly at the infiniteness of heaven and, as if he could see the Lord of Glory in his inner depths, he prayed, “Lord, remove me from the path of injustice and by Thy law have mercy on me” (Ps. 118/119: 29).

The young monk Anthimos unquestioningly obeyed his Spiritual Father, the virtuous Gabriel, whom the Ecumenical Patriarch himself had appointed as Spiritual Father of the Great Church of Constantinople. His words refreshed him like a heavenly dew and sweetened his inner being like a balsam. He listened to him reading with undiminished interest from Abba Dorotheos, “Not only must we all pay attention to what we are eating, but we must also abstain from every sin, so that while the belly fasts, in the same way the tongue should also fast. In other words, we must abstain from slander, from lying, from vain talking, from mocking others, from anger and, in a word, from every sin which we commit with the tongue. In the same way, our eyes must also fast and not look at vain sights. Let us not be haughty with words and not look at anyone with rudeness and audacity. In the same way, if we are fasting, our fasting is pleasing to God when the five gates of our senses are well closed and preserve us pure and undefiled”. (Abba Dorotheos, Homily On Fasting. Patristic Treasury, p. 163).

Imitating the ancient ascetics, and having living examples of holiness in the Skete of his repentance, Anthimos disciplined himself in the implementation of God’s will and the deadening of the passions. He admired the contemporary Saint Savvas the New (April 7), who reposed venerably at Kalymnos in 1948, and who had learned iconography in their Kalyva when he was a monk on the Holy Mountain. St Savvas of Kalymnos is the first one who depicted the figure of the miracle-working St Nektarios, with whom he was associated, and who was worthily made wondrous by the Lord for his pure life and exemplary behavior, whose body is preserved incorrupt. The quiet of the Garden of the Panagia, of the saint-nurturing Holy Mountain, and the grace of its supplier and protectress the Lady Theotokos, together with the prayers of his Elders, greatly helped Anthimos in the deadening of the “external senses” and in the activation of the “internal movements”. As St Isaac the Syrian (Jan. 28) characteristically mentions, “Silence deadens the external senses and stirs up the internal movements.”

Seeing his zeal for spiritual things, and also the purity of his heart, the discerning and wise Elder Gabriel put Anthimos forward for ordination to the priesthood. On April 13, 1933 Anthimos was ordained a Deacon at the Kyriakon of the Skete of St Anne, and to the priesthood on August 24, 1936 by the virtuous, charitable and humble Metropolitan Hierotheos of Militoupoleos, who practiced monasticism on the Holy Mountain. Suffice it to say that Hierotheos, who did very much for the ecclesiastical questions of Albania, once when he was going to Karyes gave his shoes to some poor ascetic and arrived at the capital of Athos with bare feet. The ever memorable one was the true incarnation of holiness. He had completely hated money and was of those firm bones, from the leaven of those men who always held Orthodoxy high. He served in Asia Minor, Pontus and Korytsa. He always ran wherever they called him, and was a role model for everyone. He never forgot the high ordinances of the ancient Fathers of the nation and of the Church. The only estate he left was one chalice, which his heirs dedicated to the church of the Protaton, a carved icon, which was given to the Skete of St Anne, another one, which the blessed one destined for his successor Constantine and a little food, which was distributed to the indigent hermit monks.

Fr Anthimos received the office of Archimandrite, and later that of Spiritual Father, from Metropolitan Panteleimon I of Thessalonica, who was one of the monks in the neighboring Kalyva of St George of the Kartsonaion Brotherhood at St Anne’s. The service took place in the chapel of the Metropolitan’s residence in Thessalonica.

The vision which Fr Anthimos was granted to see at the time of his ordination to the diaconate is noteworthy. He saw the heavens opening and the church he was in without a roof. Earth and Heaven were united. The Church Militant and Triumphant rejoiced together at his ordination, which particularly pleased the Knower of hearts, the almighty Lord Jesus Christ. He was also granted to behold another vision after his ordination to presbyter. He saw all the priests who participated in the service bathed in divine light, except for one. Unfortunately, he was later defrocked, an event which the clairvoyant Elder had foreseen.

Thirst for Knowledge,
Longing for Virtue

Fr Anthimos approached the holy altar with the fear of God and elevating humility, and performed the Bloodless Sacrifice as a godly sacrificer and a p...

Table of contents

• Hymns in the honor of the Elder
• Letter of the Ecumenical Patriarch
• Prologue
• Introduction to the English Edition
• I. BIOGRAPHY
• II. TEACHINGS OF ELDER ANTHIMOS
• III. WONDROUS SIGNS
• IV. PRACTICAL PATERNAL COUNSELS
• V. ELDER ANTHIMOS AS SEEN BY HIS CONTEMPORARIES
• VI. PUBLICATIONS ON THE ELDER’S REPOSE
• VII. LETTERS FOR THE PUBLICATION OF HIS LIFE
• VIII. GREAT VESPERS
• IX. THE SERVICE OF MATINS
• X. SUPPLICATORY CANON
• GLOSSARY OF TERMS