Saint Paisios, one of the best-known elders and monks of the Holy Mountain of the second half of the 20th century, reposed in the Lord in 1994, two weeks before his 70th birthday. He was born in Turkey, but very soon after his birth, his family moved to Konitsa, Greece in the expulsion of Greeks from Anatolia following the Greco-Turkish war of 1919-1922.
Arsenios Eznepidis, the future Saint Paisios, was baptized by Arsenios Annitsalikhos who was canonized in 1986 as Saint Arsenios the Cappadocian. Even though Saint Arsenios died later in the same year, prayerful intercessions of Saint Arsenios for his godson played an important role in the spiritual formation of the young Arsenios. From early childhood, Arsenios was drawn to piety and asceticism, as he nurtured his mind and soul with the reading of Scriptures and the lives of saints, and attempted to imitate them in prayer and fasting.
In 1945-1950, Arsenios served in the Greek military and took part in the Greek civil war, at the end of which, still wearing his military uniform, he arrived on Mount Athos. After three months, Arsenios left Athos and went back to Konitsa in order to help his family, but returned to Athos in 1953 and became a novice at one of the monasteries (Esphigmenou). Severe asceticism so weakened the health of the young monk in only three years, that he was forced to leave the monastery and return to Konitsa in early 1957 in order to restore his health. In March of 1957, Arsenios, by then monk Averkios, was tonsured with the name of Paisios. He remained in Konitsa until 1962 at which time he left for Saint Catherine’s monastery on the Sinai peninsula - the very one that was recently in the news when an Egyptian court ruled to transfer the ownership of the property from the Church which owned it for a millennium and a half to the state of Egypt. By 1964, Paisios’ health forced him to leave Sinai and return to Athos; but only a few years later, Paisios was admitted to a hospital in Thessaloniki. In 1967, Paisios returned to Athos and remained there until 1993. In 1993, Paisios again required medical attention and was admitted to the hospital in Thessaloniki, where he was diagnosed with cancer. He never returned to Athos, remaining at Saint John the Theologian monastery just outside of Thessaloniki. His health remained weak, but he continued to practice asceticism - fasting, vigils, prayers, and prostrations - until the very end of his life. Saint Paisios was buried at Saint John’s monastery, behind the altar of a church dedicated to Saint Arsenios the Cappadocian.
Whether feats of monastic asceticism contributed to Saint Paisios’ ill health is difficult to tell. Many of our contemporaries do not practice asceticism and yet suffer from ailments, become hospitalized, and die of cancers all the same. The latest trend seems to be about healthy living, longevity, life-span, and health-span. This is sensible enough. As for Saint Paisios, his concern was spiritual health, and he looked for longevity not in this world but in the kingdom of God. We must pay for everything in this life; and our very life itself is most often the payment that is required. But if we are going to pay such a great price for something, may we not settle for anything cheap, not even for the whole world (Mk 8:36, 37), but only for the most precious of pearls.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls:
Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.
- Matthew 13:45, 46
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