Wednesday, April 14, 2021

Further Updates and Clarifications of Vaccinations on Mount Athos


Since I am occasionally asked to update information and clarify matters regarding the vaccination of the monks of Mount Athos, with some even denying that it is taking place or overly downplaying it, I decided to make my own personal contacts with people I know on the Holy Mountain and have also sought reports directly coming from Mount Athos to provide the latest information, as of April 13th 2021.

- There was a long delay in sending the vaccines from Athens to Mount Athos, endangering the lives of the older monks and of monks with underlying diseases.

- Vaccinations started about three weeks ago, but only with 120 vaccines available, which were given in five days. No other vaccines had been sent to Mount Athos.

Tuesday, April 6, 2021

Spiritual Benefits of Sicknesses, Doctors and Medicines (Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra)


By Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra

So when someone does not want to take medicines, or if they do not want to go to a doctor, whatever their illness, they show how they are governed by an individual-centred system of life, or they show that they are guilty, and therefore hide. Like, when you ask for someone and they don't show up, then you ask for them again and they don't show up again, so you say, they must have done something, something is happening, so likewise is anyone who hates medicine or drugs that is seriously ill physically, above all mentally. He is a nonsensical man, for it says, "a sensible man will not despise them" (Sirach 38). He is a nonsensical man, a nonsensical woman, incorrigible, unrepentant, he doesn't care about God, but only cares about his worm-eaten body and worm-eaten soul as he sees fit, just in case he can get out to the seashore. But medicine and doctors show that we lay the administration of our existence to God, that we are not the rulers of ourselves.