It was such a beautiful day, that day when I visited the village of Karyes in Mount Athos. Karyes is the administrative center of the Holy Mountain. It was sunny and the birds were chirping all around me as I walked to the entrance of the Church,
No matter where I was in Karyes, whether inside or outside the churches, it always felt like I was inside a Church. Before walking to the Protaton I had been at the Skete of St Andrew which holds a wondrous reliquary with the skull of St Andrew. The relic is myrrh streaming and very fragrant. The aroma filled my soul!
The feeling of being in church while walking around the village is so strong, I could only pray the Jesus Prayer, Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me. The ascetics of Christ, the monks were all around me; also many pilgrims. But the moment I entered the nave of the Protaton Church, I found myself alone in deafening silence.
There was not a monk, priest or pilgrim in sight. The church has many icon murals painted by some of the greatest iconographers of all of Greece, Theophan the Cretan, Manuel Panselinos and others. The beauty of it all was breathtaking. I was in awe.
As I looked around, in wonder, I felt someone grabbing me by my right arm. It was a young monk, not tall, and very pleasant. I noticed that I didn't hear him walking towards me. He said, "Come with me." I followed and he took me to a room deep inside the side of the temple, away from the nave, a place pilgrims have no access to. Again there was no one with us when he pointed at some relics in a box and said, "Cosmas Protos". I noded to let him know I understood and asked him in Greek if I could take a photo of the relics, and I did. At the moment I took the photo (which appears at the beginning of this post) I was not aware of the icon on the wall. I just wanted a photo of the relics. Then, with a certain sense of dread, I asked the monk if I could venerate the relics.
The monk was holding his hands and looking down at the floor, and he nodded yes. He looked really shy and embarrassed. I made two prostrations in front of the reliquary and reaching inside I picked up one of the bones and kissed it.
I turned to look at the monk. He was still acting embarrassed but he smiled at me. Then I put the bone back in the reliquary and got up. To my shock, the monk had dissappeared. It happened really fast. I only looked away from the monk for an instant! And he was gone.
I started to look for him everywhere I could, inside and outside to no avail. I even called out in Greek, "Father! Father! I was really surprised that the monk could just walk away so fast. How did he do that? I thought," This is so strange! " Afterwards I went back to the monastery of Philotheou, where I was staying, finished my pilgrimage, and returned home to Washington state, USA.
For the next couple of years I kept thinking about the incident without being able to explain it. One day, I drove to Seattle, to the St Nectarios Press and Bookstore to check out the new books.
It was always very nice to go there and chat with Ms. Nina Seco and Fr Nikita. I could spend hours looking at the books. Then I remembered my trip to Athos and decided to ask Ms Seco, a very pious lady, "Do you know anything about St Cosmas the First? She knew about other saints named Cosmas but nothing about
the one I was asking about.
So I began to tell her about my experience at the Protaton. Meanwhile Ms Nina Seco kept looking for information on the saint. There was a guy at the store working that day and he asked out loud, "Was the monk acting embarrassed?" it hit me hard that he asked me about this, but I still didn't catch on what was going on. Before I finished my shopping Ms Seco told me about St Cosmas the First, a martyr of Christ killed by the Latins on the grounds of the Protaton.
When I returned home to Yakima, I remembered that I had taken some photos of the relics of St Cosmas, and I began to look for them. I found the photo I posted at the beginning of this article,
Imagine my surprise when I realized that the monk in the icon, was the monk who talked to me and showed me the relics! The face in the icon was exactly the face of the monk who talked to me, only that the monk had no grey hair.
Why would a saint visit me? I am not worthy. Worthy or not, this happened exactly as I'm telling you. Glory to God for his mercy!
Note: The photo of the reliquary was taken by me. The other photos were downloaded from the web because that was easier than looking for specific photos of the Protaton among the thousands of photos that I have. 🙏
