ELDER PORPHYRIOS: TESTIMONIES AND EXPERIENCES - By: Klitos Ioannidis

Published by: Holy Convent of the Transfiguration of the Savior - Athens, 2007. "Elder, where can we find the solution to our problems?" "Only holiness will solve your problems." The realm of the sacred and the transcendent, as expressed by that child of God and true man, Elder Porphyrios, belongs to the category of the unbelievable. It can however become believable because, "sin does not prevail where grace abounds."  Elder Porphyrios was a person filled with grace, a bearer of the power of the Holy Spirit, a child of the Kingdom, a genuine and true tree of paradise. Whoever wishes to speak about the inner spiritual life of a saint, must be a saint himself. We, the writers of this book, are not saints. We are confined to what we saw and what we heard. We are amongst those many others, who, as St. Luke the Evangelist says, have “taken in hand to set in order a narrative.” We are not trying, with our poor and futile speech, to describe the life of a contemporary saint, but rather we are falteringly trying to express our joy in having met a saint; our joy that Christ lives yesterday, today and forever; our joy that holiness is not a thing of the past, that grace can be felt next to us, that our hands touched a “little father” who really lived the expression “I no longer live, for Christ lives in me.” Until the Lord reveals the servant who was Elder Porphyrios’ eye-witness, who observed him throughout his life and in all his works and will write about his life accurately and fully, we are forgiven. For we have only seen “in part.” We describe, write about and speak of the miraculous things that God did for us through His servant, Porphyrios. Amin.