“Take heed to thyself...”
On the 21st of September 1929, on the Nativity of the Mother of God, there reposed the great hesychast Father Daniel of Katounakia. “Father of fathers” the dwellers of Athos called him. From the God-enlightened guide not even the least movement of the human soul was hidden. His word delivered many from that dreadful temptation which is called spiritual delusion. We shall tell of three such cases from his life.
A certain good Christian named Demos saw in a dream that in a certain place a church lay buried under the earth. In the morning he woke his fellow villagers and told them his vision. Armed with picks and shovels, they came to the place seen in the dream. They dug — and indeed they found a church.
This happening lifted Demos up in pride. “O Demos, thou art the chosen of God!” said the thought to him.
Demos was a builder by trade, and came to work on Athos, at the monastery of Vatopedi. Here they gave great honour to Saint Eudocimus, whose holy relics had been found in a wondrous manner in the cemetery of the monastery. Of his life no one knew anything, but Demos began to insist that this saint was an Albanian, that he had a flat skull; and besides, that he had appeared to him and himself told him that he was from Stiki and was even his kinsman. The fathers were troubled. They warned him: if he appears to thee again, make the sign of the cross, and he will vanish.
Just at that time Athos was visited by Bishop Alexander of Rodosto. When his opinion was asked about this matter, he considered and concluded that the visions of Demos were true. This gave Demos wings. He grew so proud that he even wrote a thick book, in which he told of unbelievable wonders and visions and prophesied a war and the return of Saint Constantine. “What is this? This is not from God, this is some sort of madness; let us go and ask the opinion of Father Daniel,” said the fathers. They took the manuscript and went to the desert of Katounakia. Scarcely had he begun to read when Father Daniel understood everything. “The demons are making sport,” he said to the monks; then he hastily wrote a letter in which he set forth the teaching of the holy fathers and episodes from their lives, and sent it to the monastery of Vatopedi. When Demos learned the answer of the venerable father, he was terribly angered: “How dares Father Daniel contradict, when the bishop himself has acknowledged the truth of my visions?” But the hermit was not content with this letter and began to pray for Demos, that his visions might cease. Later the fathers of Vatopedi somehow contrived to bring Demos to Father Daniel. The venerable father admonished the deluded man once again, which angered the proud man yet more. But soon he himself was convinced of the venerable father's rightness, for his “visions” ceased, and Bishop Alexander sent Father Daniel a letter of thanks.
A certain monk won a name as a strict faster and ascetic. He always wore old, tattered clothing and went barefoot even in winter, and at the fulfilling of his prayer rule he made, instead of three hundred, three thousand prostrations. Looking upon him, the other monks were amazed; but in Father Daniel, who was then comparatively young and younger than they, a doubt arose concerning this monk's asceticism, and soon he was convinced that he had not erred. Once he passed by his cell and noticed that a chink had been made in the door on purpose, that passers-by might peep in and see the monk's “labours”.
Father Daniel was troubled and reported everything to the father abbot. The abbot came to the monk, questioned him as to how he lived, rebuked him and commanded him to make only fifty prostrations a day.
The “great ascetic”, after this reproof, changed noticeably — even fifty prostrations were now a burden to him. Instead of coarse clothing he wore costly garments, and in food too he was particular. It was then that the fathers understood into what delusion their brother had fallen.
The monk of Xeropotamou, Father Alop, greatly loved the Jesus prayer. When he prayed, his soul rejoiced with a heavenly, indescribable joy. But suddenly something strange befell him: scarcely did he begin the prayer when a trembling fell upon him. During the divine service, when he said the prayer, all those in the church trembled together with him. And when he prayed in his own cell, his cell shook like Vesuvius. Many spiritual fathers read over him the prayer of exorcism for the casting out of the demon, but in vain.
The case was becoming grievous, for the monk could no longer leave off the prayer, neither in his cell, nor in the church, nor in the refectory. And so everything and everyone about him shook.
And one day Father Alop visited the house of Katounakia. Father Daniel desired to speak with him. “Father Alop,” he said, “though I am not thy spiritual father, I wish to know every detail of thy spiritual life. I wish to hear thy confession from thee. Tell me, when didst thou first tremble at prayer?!”
“That night I was praying with my prayer rope,” Father Alop began his account, “I was in the bell tower, which stands near the monastery, in the vineyard. Suddenly the door bolt rattled. I was afraid and trembled all over. The bolt was moving, going up and down. Then they knocked several times. I went to the door, but there was no one there. I understood that these were the devil's wiles, and tried to pay no heed to the noise and to pray. But the knocking grew stronger, and first the door and then the bell tower began to shake. Since then, as soon as I leave off the prayer, the shaking leaves off; I continue, and it begins again.” Father Daniel grew thoughtful. And a little later he asked: “Father Alop, when thou first heardest the knocking at the door and understoodest that it was from the devil, what didst thou think, what feelings reigned in thy soul?” Father Alop answered: “I thought: let them knock and rattle as much as they will, they shall not hinder me in prayer; did not the same thing befall Anthony the Great, after whose pattern I struggle? Whether my body trembles now from grace or from the envy of the demons, I shall pray to my last breath and shall overcome the demons.”
Father Daniel counselled him to say the Jesus prayer with humility and repentance and truly to feel that he was a sinner. Know, he said to him, that it is demons who make thy body tremble: if such a thing should happen again, ask deliverance of the Saviour — only thus wilt thou obtain the mercy of God.
Father Alop was healed and began to struggle yet more fervently. He obtained also the mercy of God — the gift of healing those possessed by demons.
