Greek metropolitan reflects on his personal encounters with St. Paisios

Metropolitan Hierotheos speaking at the Konitsa Town Hall on July 12, 2026. Photo: UOJ Greece

On July 12, 2026, Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agios Vlasios spoke about his many years of personal acquaintance with St. Paisios of Mount Athos and the profound influence the saint's guidance had on his life and episcopal ministry. The talk took place in Konitsa during celebrations honoring the saint’s feast day, the UOJ’s Greek edition reports.

“I owe a great deal to St. Paisios. His words sustained me during times of great trials,” the Greek hierarch said. According to him, the saint’s counsel played a decisive role in shaping his future path.

“I must publicly acknowledge, without going into details, that I owe my election as a metropolitan precisely to him,” he stated.

The metropolitan recalled first meeting St. Paisios on Mount Athos in the early 1970s and then visiting him regularly for nearly two decades.

“Once we walked together for four hours from Simonopetra Monastery to Panagouda, and I listened to his God-inspired counsel,” Metropolitan Hierotheos recalled.

On another occasion, the saint invited him to stay overnight in his kalyva and woke him at three o’clock in the morning so that each of them could pray with a prayer rope in his own cell.

According to the metropolitan, St. Paisios constantly urged him to focus on his inner spiritual life.

“I never asked him about political or social events, heretics, or the Antichrist. I asked only what I should do in order to meet God,” he said.

The saint taught that “prayer is not merely the recitation of prayerful words” and that the essential thing is “for the heart to begin to work.”

Metropolitan Hierotheos described St. Paisios as a God-enlightened man who combined profound spirituality with simplicity and a sense of humor.

“He never presented himself as either a teacher or a monk, although he was truly a teacher and a genuine monk,” the hierarch noted.

He also recalled that in 2004 he submitted a petition to Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople requesting the canonization of St. Paisios.

As previously reported by the UOJ, the life of the 20th-century New Martyr Metropolitan Anatoly of Odesa has recently drawn renewed attention.

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