In Eternal Remembrance, Where Gratitude, Honor, Love, and Reverence Weave Their Solemn Tapestry to My Beloved and Ever-Blessed Mother, Catherine... ΕΙΣ ΑΙΩΝΙΟΝ ΜΝΗΜΟΣΥΝΟΝ ΕΥΓΝΩΜΟΣΥΝΗΣ ΑΝΑΓΝΩΡΙΣΗΣ ΤΙΜΗΣ ΚΑΙ ΑΓΑΠΗΣ ΤΗΣ ΠΕΦΙΛΗΜΕΝΗΣ ΚΑΙ ΑΞΙΟΜΑΚΑΡΙΣΤΟΥ ΜΑΝΟΥΛΑΣ ΜΟΥ ΑΙΚΑΤΕΡΙΝΗΣ..
In Eternal Remembrance, Where Gratitude, Honor, Love, and Reverence Weave Their Solemn Tapestry to My Beloved and Ever-Blessed Mother, Catherine...
ZFKZ from Adam's Dawn, November's Thirtieth Day (By the Holy Mountain's Calendar)
O debt of filial honor, as deep as the pit of filial sin, I pay to my mother with trembling reverence, confessing my ingratitude—a serpent coiled against all her labors and pains to raise me in Christ's holy fold. Not with harsh sermons, but through life's own trials, shaped by deeds of sacrifice and steadfast devotion. Alas, despite my unworthiness, the foul stain on my character, and the stormy wreck of my life, I offer these humble lines as lowly gifts upon her sacred shrine. On this fateful day, when the Hellenic Church honors her saintly namesake, the Virgin-Martyr Catherine the Great, and before a few moons pass, four years will mark her soul's rise to heavenly realms, on the feast of Saint Andrew—the First-Called Martyr bold (By Athos' ancient reckoning), whose parish held her faithful heart.
From here, I unfold fragments from her life's deep story, perhaps to uplift the souls of my brethren, yet with a humble warning on spiritual matters, hidden in mystery, known only to God Most High—the All-Knowing Judge of fates.
By way of brief prologue: She grew as a child amid the iron grip of Occupation and the devouring flames of Civil War, where chaos ruled, and souls were hardened in the forge of affliction—Orthodox teaching of trials as ladders to heaven, climbing through the thorns of earthly sorrow.
Though she lived like a hermit, avoiding idle chatter over wires or vain whispers, she pierced the veil of ignorance: All the world's tumults, Greece's struggles, her village's hidden rhythms—all lay open before her inner eye. And behold, in her final three years: Her sight faded to faint shadows, her hearing hushed to profound silence—yet wisdom flowed from eternal depths, like the hesychasts' prayer on Athos' peaks, where hearts see by Uncreated Light.
On a sweltering summer evening, scarce months before her rest, from her dim chamber she gazed upon the courtyard, and whispered: "Who are you, clad in fustanella, with maiden children circled around your throne?"—Visions as dire as saints' appearances, where heavenly fire touches earth's despairing ground.
In confidences from three years before her passing: "One midnight hour, as sleep held me fast, a clamor at the door stirred, as if a ghost breached the home. Alarmed, I cried, 'Who comes here?' 'It is Michael,' came the voice. 'What do you seek?' I asked. 'I come to take you away,' he said. 'No, I am not ready!' I replied boldly."—Like the archangel Michael's summons from the scriptures, a thoughtful debate with Death's unrelenting blade, where readiness crowns virtue's seat.
Toward the end of her life, she lay like a living wound on her bed of pain. I spent two or three hours easing her body, then days recovering my own shattered strength—for tasks beyond my weak ability, done only by God's mercy and His Mother's grace, though through this sinner's unworthy hands. Such suffering in the glow of Christian martyrdom, where endurance brings salvation's dawn, as Chrysostom's golden words proclaimed.
Before she was fully bedridden, while still seated, she fixed her gaze on the vaulted skies above, with wild turmoil and raging sorrow, as real phantoms—scenes of doom—unfolded before her eyes: "...Great evil comes... Monstrous woe... From heaven's wrathful dome!" This warning, one year before her eternal sleep, two years before the Zionist-antichristian tyranny's grand show, with COVID's forged and fiendish plague, born in laboratories, unleashed upon the earth. Apocalyptic sights, like John's visions on Patmos...
Soon after, calmed in the following days, I urged her: Tell what horrors you saw—for she never spoke unasked, veiling truths in deep silence, revealing gems in rare moments, shared slowly and calmly, requiring great patience and sharp attention, virtues I, alas, lacked. If pressed, she would chide: "It is spoken now... You should have noted it well..." Thus she revealed: "All in chaos overturned... Fishes tangled amid the white linens..." No strangeness struck me, for a saintly elder had prophesied the seas rising sixty meters high, devouring shores in a watery grave. So I understood: She saw floods invading homes with wild fury, fishes surging through the broken dwellings (linked to Thera's volcanic rage, or nuclear storms dread).
Hers was all-beautiful grace: Like comely Joseph, in her youth she thwarted a rich young man's lustful attack on her virgin purity. In many ways she mirrored her saintly patron, joining the ranks of chaste women who loved one man alone, entered marriage untouched, faithful unto death's cold embrace—chastity's stronghold, the fortitude of Orthodox martyrs' bright witness, where love defies time's hungry jaws.
She lived in worldly form, yet as a hidden nun—not in outward show, but in pure essence. Upright in unyielding truth, a hesychast in her soul's quiet storm, prayer flowing from her heart's deep well. A folk poet of divine and human themes. Injustice, hypocrisy, deceitful masks—she hated with fierce passion. A generous spirit, noble in grace, benevolent as the dawn's first light, with boundless love for tender innocents. Yet wounds from kin and foes overwhelmed her body, borne as a cross of sublime martyrdom, keeping love even for her vile tormentors. That cross often bent her to the breaking point, yet God saw her valiant soul, meant to endure until victory's crown. Now, as I write these words, tears fall like autumn rains from overflowing eyes—for most those deep wounds I inflicted, I the base ingrate, the worthless wretch, the thankless child. Too late for floods of repentance, for she has departed: At the third hour of the night vigil, dawning on December 13th's gloom—November 30th by Athos' lore (2019). She seemed withered, life's essence gone. I offered holy water often, after her timely Eucharist. As her soul flew free, my eyelids grew heavy; a maiden child in dream called my name three times. I knew she was gone. Before that, her faint voice called me, yet exhaustion's deathlike hold kept me still. At morning, approaching, I saw her passing. I fell to my knees, kissed her hands still warm as life itself, wailing for forgiveness in wild lament, reciting Psalms over her still form. All night, the holy Gospel shielded her from demons' anger, a candle flickering by her bed—for I awaited fate's decree. Foreknowing her departure's time, she granted sweet pardon, chose garments for her grave. She slept as a nun, buried so. In Elias' prophetic church, we held divine Liturgy, then funeral rites where I, granted the honor, chanted her dirges—reading and singing all. Her hands entwined with my prayer-rope, I prepared with funeral kin. At last, farewell: Voice thundering toward the high heavens, "Fair voyage, dear mother!"—prosphora shared among the few mourners.
In her wished-for plot she rests, grave plain—a wooden cross, humble slab with her name on earthen bed—not to fulfill her wish, but my unworthiness forbade a grander shrine. As she lived and desired, so buried: Without worldly noise, clamor, or fretful crowd. Even the knell's somber toll did not ring that day, by my own fault (avoiding crowds of false kin who, in her bedridden year, never asked or came—nay, some embittered her with vile plunders on the family estate... "False blood and comrades"...). Perhaps her will: No fanfare for her "death," mere end of earthly struggle, passage to immortality's embrace, attuned to God as you shall see below. I recall her prophecy: "No bells shall peal for me at funeral's rite." Yet closest souls attended, few but comforting to her spirit.
In brief strokes, I paint her virtue's splendor, my own abyss of vice. Without her, dear brethren, no confession of faith for creed and land, no bond of love between us. All good in me, all deeds of light, flowed from God and the Virgin Mother, through my spiritual father and mother's grace, aided by wise educator Basil Asimomytis—eternal rest—whose mother, by fate, taught in her village, with her young son at side.
Nor do I forget unnamed benefactors, my unpaid debt of gratitude.
After fifty-five days, in the realm of sleep we met, spoke as living beings—radiant, joyous in a penthouse blazing with light—saints' heavenly glows, where life after death is endless luminescence.
Brethren, understand: Much remains unwritten, for writing falls short of speech's speed, nor dives into life's deep chasms, hidden details, profound truths. Omissions perhaps, frail forgettings—but chiefly, my inability to sing virtues' high praise. Yet I dream: Her bones among those an Angel carried to Athos' sacred heights.
Exhumed on August 29th, 2025, by daughter kin and devout bosom friend—true spiritual sibling. On the day Greece honors the Forerunner's beheaded crown. Athos then (16th) celebrated the Dormition's afterglow, the holy Mandylion—shroud's echo veiling her face, the Bridegroom's divine countenance, Whom now she beholds like the sun in living light, in the Jerusalem above.
In new-sealed vaults she lay, yet flesh and garments dissolved to nothing. No foul odor, no balm's scent rose at disinterment. Bones, washed in wine, gleamed pure ivory. Prayer-rope around wrists remained incorrupt—sanctity's seal, like undefiled relics of saints whose bodies fled, essence eternal.
Perhaps her relics among those angel-borne to Athos' realm, for the digger seemed angel-like in deed.
Pray, brethren, in Christ our divine Lord, to Whom alone glory, honor, adoration flow—with the Unbegotten Father, the Good and Life-giving Spirit—through His Mother's intercessions and the saints' host, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.
Sinner... inscribed... Amen.
ΕΙΣ ΑΙΩΝΙΟΝ ΜΝΗΜΟΣΥΝΟΝ ΕΥΓΝΩΜΟΣΥΝΗΣ ΑΝΑΓΝΩΡΙΣΗΣ ΤΙΜΗΣ ΚΑΙ ΑΓΑΠΗΣ ΤΗΣ ΠΕΦΙΛΗΜΕΝΗΣ ΚΑΙ ΑΞΙΟΜΑΚΑΡΙΣΤΟΥ ΜΑΝΟΥΛΑΣ ΜΟΥ ΑΙΚΑΤΕΡΙΝΗΣ..
+,ΖΦΚΖ ΑΠΟ ΚΤΙΣΕΩΣ ΑΔΑΜ ΝΟΕΜΒΡΙΟΥ ΤΡΙΑΚΟΝΤΑ (ΗΜΕΡΟΛΟΓΙΟΝ ΑΓΙΟΥ ΟΡΟΥΣ)
In Eternal Remembrance, Where Gratitude, Honor, Love, and Reverence Weave Their Solemn Tapestry to My Beloved and Ever-Blessed Mother, Catherine...
ZFKZ from Adam's Dawn, November's Thirtieth Day (By the Holy Mountain's Calendar)
O debt of filial honor, as deep as the pit of filial sin, I pay to my mother with trembling reverence, confessing my ingratitude—a serpent coiled against all her labors and pains to raise me in Christ's holy fold. Not with harsh sermons, but through life's own trials, shaped by deeds of sacrifice and steadfast devotion. Alas, despite my unworthiness, the foul stain on my character, and the stormy wreck of my life, I offer these humble lines as lowly gifts upon her sacred shrine. On this fateful day, when the Hellenic Church honors her saintly namesake, the Virgin-Martyr Catherine the Great, and before a few moons pass, four years will mark her soul's rise to heavenly realms, on the feast of Saint Andrew—the First-Called Martyr bold (By Athos' ancient reckoning), whose parish held her faithful heart.
From here, I unfold fragments from her life's deep story, perhaps to uplift the souls of my brethren, yet with a humble warning on spiritual matters, hidden in mystery, known only to God Most High—the All-Knowing Judge of fates.
By way of brief prologue: She grew as a child amid the iron grip of Occupation and the devouring flames of Civil War, where chaos ruled, and souls were hardened in the forge of affliction—Orthodox teaching of trials as ladders to heaven, climbing through the thorns of earthly sorrow.
Though she lived like a hermit, avoiding idle chatter over wires or vain whispers, she pierced the veil of ignorance: All the world's tumults, Greece's struggles, her village's hidden rhythms—all lay open before her inner eye. And behold, in her final three years: Her sight faded to faint shadows, her hearing hushed to profound silence—yet wisdom flowed from eternal depths, like the hesychasts' prayer on Athos' peaks, where hearts see by Uncreated Light.
On a sweltering summer evening, scarce months before her rest, from her dim chamber she gazed upon the courtyard, and whispered: "Who are you, clad in fustanella, with maiden children circled around your throne?"—Visions as dire as saints' appearances, where heavenly fire touches earth's despairing ground.
In confidences from three years before her passing: "One midnight hour, as sleep held me fast, a clamor at the door stirred, as if a ghost breached the home. Alarmed, I cried, 'Who comes here?' 'It is Michael,' came the voice. 'What do you seek?' I asked. 'I come to take you away,' he said. 'No, I am not ready!' I replied boldly."—Like the archangel Michael's summons from the scriptures, a thoughtful debate with Death's unrelenting blade, where readiness crowns virtue's seat.
Toward the end of her life, she lay like a living wound on her bed of pain. I spent two or three hours easing her body, then days recovering my own shattered strength—for tasks beyond my weak ability, done only by God's mercy and His Mother's grace, though through this sinner's unworthy hands. Such suffering in the glow of Christian martyrdom, where endurance brings salvation's dawn, as Chrysostom's golden words proclaimed.
Before she was fully bedridden, while still seated, she fixed her gaze on the vaulted skies above, with wild turmoil and raging sorrow, as real phantoms—scenes of doom—unfolded before her eyes: "...Great evil comes... Monstrous woe... From heaven's wrathful dome!" This warning, one year before her eternal sleep, two years before the Zionist-antichristian tyranny's grand show, with COVID's forged and fiendish plague, born in laboratories, unleashed upon the earth. Apocalyptic sights, like John's visions on Patmos...
Soon after, calmed in the following days, I urged her: Tell what horrors you saw—for she never spoke unasked, veiling truths in deep silence, revealing gems in rare moments, shared slowly and calmly, requiring great patience and sharp attention, virtues I, alas, lacked. If pressed, she would chide: "It is spoken now... You should have noted it well..." Thus she revealed: "All in chaos overturned... Fishes tangled amid the white linens..." No strangeness struck me, for a saintly elder had prophesied the seas rising sixty meters high, devouring shores in a watery grave. So I understood: She saw floods invading homes with wild fury, fishes surging through the broken dwellings (linked to Thera's volcanic rage, or nuclear storms dread).
Hers was all-beautiful grace: Like comely Joseph, in her youth she thwarted a rich young man's lustful attack on her virgin purity. In many ways she mirrored her saintly patron, joining the ranks of chaste women who loved one man alone, entered marriage untouched, faithful unto death's cold embrace—chastity's stronghold, the fortitude of Orthodox martyrs' bright witness, where love defies time's hungry jaws.
She lived in worldly form, yet as a hidden nun—not in outward show, but in pure essence. Upright in unyielding truth, a hesychast in her soul's quiet storm, prayer flowing from her heart's deep well. A folk poet of divine and human themes. Injustice, hypocrisy, deceitful masks—she hated with fierce passion. A generous spirit, noble in grace, benevolent as the dawn's first light, with boundless love for tender innocents. Yet wounds from kin and foes overwhelmed her body, borne as a cross of sublime martyrdom, keeping love even for her vile tormentors. That cross often bent her to the breaking point, yet God saw her valiant soul, meant to endure until victory's crown. Now, as I write these words, tears fall like autumn rains from overflowing eyes—for most those deep wounds I inflicted, I the base ingrate, the worthless wretch, the thankless child. Too late for floods of repentance, for she has departed: At the third hour of the night vigil, dawning on December 13th's gloom—November 30th by Athos' lore (2019). She seemed withered, life's essence gone. I offered holy water often, after her timely Eucharist. As her soul flew free, my eyelids grew heavy; a maiden child in dream called my name three times. I knew she was gone. Before that, her faint voice called me, yet exhaustion's deathlike hold kept me still. At morning, approaching, I saw her passing. I fell to my knees, kissed her hands still warm as life itself, wailing for forgiveness in wild lament, reciting Psalms over her still form. All night, the holy Gospel shielded her from demons' anger, a candle flickering by her bed—for I awaited fate's decree. Foreknowing her departure's time, she granted sweet pardon, chose garments for her grave. She slept as a nun, buried so. In Elias' prophetic church, we held divine Liturgy, then funeral rites where I, granted the honor, chanted her dirges—reading and singing all. Her hands entwined with my prayer-rope, I prepared with funeral kin. At last, farewell: Voice thundering toward the high heavens, "Fair voyage, dear mother!"—prosphora shared among the few mourners.
In her wished-for plot she rests, grave plain—a wooden cross, humble slab with her name on earthen bed—not to fulfill her wish, but my unworthiness forbade a grander shrine. As she lived and desired, so buried: Without worldly noise, clamor, or fretful crowd. Even the knell's somber toll did not ring that day, by my own fault (avoiding crowds of false kin who, in her bedridden year, never asked or came—nay, some embittered her with vile plunders on the family estate... "False blood and comrades"...). Perhaps her will: No fanfare for her "death," mere end of earthly struggle, passage to immortality's embrace, attuned to God as you shall see below. I recall her prophecy: "No bells shall peal for me at funeral's rite." Yet closest souls attended, few but comforting to her spirit.
In brief strokes, I paint her virtue's splendor, my own abyss of vice. Without her, dear brethren, no confession of faith for creed and land, no bond of love between us. All good in me, all deeds of light, flowed from God and the Virgin Mother, through my spiritual father and mother's grace, aided by wise educator Basil Asimomytis—eternal rest—whose mother, by fate, taught in her village, with her young son at side.
Nor do I forget unnamed benefactors, my unpaid debt of gratitude.
After fifty-five days, in the realm of sleep we met, spoke as living beings—radiant, joyous in a penthouse blazing with light—saints' heavenly glows, where life after death is endless luminescence.
Brethren, understand: Much remains unwritten, for writing falls short of speech's speed, nor dives into life's deep chasms, hidden details, profound truths. Omissions perhaps, frail forgettings—but chiefly, my inability to sing virtues' high praise. Yet I dream: Her bones among those an Angel carried to Athos' sacred heights.
Exhumed on August 29th, 2025, by daughter kin and devout bosom friend—true spiritual sibling. On the day Greece honors the Forerunner's beheaded crown. Athos then (16th) celebrated the Dormition's afterglow, the holy Mandylion—shroud's echo veiling her face, the Bridegroom's divine countenance, Whom now she beholds like the sun in living light, in the Jerusalem above.
In new-sealed vaults she lay, yet flesh and garments dissolved to nothing. No foul odor, no balm's scent rose at disinterment. Bones, washed in wine, gleamed pure ivory. Prayer-rope around wrists remained incorrupt—sanctity's seal, like undefiled relics of saints whose bodies fled, essence eternal.
Perhaps her relics among those angel-borne to Athos' realm, for the digger seemed angel-like in deed.
Pray, brethren, in Christ our divine Lord, to Whom alone glory, honor, adoration flow—with the Unbegotten Father, the Good and Life-giving Spirit—through His Mother's intercessions and the saints' host, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.
Sinner... inscribed... Amen.
