Mother Nectaria McLees has given us a great gift in this book,
Evlogeite. This is the most amazing travelogue and comprehen-
sive guide to Orthodox Greece available today. It would be hard
to choose which of the stories in this pilgrim's guide is the most
moving. Among my favorite is the heart-wrenching story of
Righteous Chrysanthi of Andros who reposed in the Lord in 1992.
Mother Nectaria had the blessing of being present at the
Monastery of Zoodoghos Pigis in the island of Andros, Greece,
for the fortieth day commemoration prayers after the saint's
repose. Righteous Chrysanthi's life moves my heart to tears.
It is apalling to read how Saint Chrysanthi's neighbours treated
her, how cold and cruel their behavior towards her. It is also
uplifting to read of Chrysanthi's patience, her meekness and
humility. Her faith and love gave the saint the strength to
endure in the midst of unspeakable brutality. In a previous post,
I quoted from St Bishop Nikodim, concerning the lives of such
as Saint Chrysanthi of Andros,
"There are people who are mocked by all, despised by
all, who are sometimes abhorred by even the most lost
person. Homeless, destitute, wretched in appearance,
tormented by hunger and thirst, they wander amidst
cold and self-satisfied people. Cold, hunger, eternal
mockeries, contempt, and complete loneliness - this is
the lot of these people. The world considers them mad,
stupid, pathetic people who have neither reason nor
shame. Only the simple soul of the believers among
the people regards them with compassion and calls
them "little blessed ones," God's people; and the
rare, tender and noble heart will feel the greatness
of spirit in them and the unearthly beauty of their
souls. Such are these ones. These are the Fools-for-
Christ." St Bishop Martyr Nikodim of Belgorod in his
'National Ascetics of the 18th and 19th Centuries' (1906-1910) [Russian]
as quoted by Abbott Herman of St Herman Serbian Orthodox Monastery,
Platina CA 1998 Calendar.
Mother Nectaria narrates for us, "Almost completely unknown
outside Andros, and there only to a few, Righteous Chrysanthi
was both an enigma and a blessing to those who knew her. Of
these we can count only a handful of villagers and the monks
of St Nicholas Monastery who visited her lonely monastery
above Batsi. Abbott Dorotheos was for some years her confessor.
Chrysanthi had no family and had gone, perhaps as a young girl,
to live in a monastery in Siseroes. She was never officially
tonsured but had been blessed, like a novice, to wear black and
live and work alongside the nuns. She was a bright, pious girl and
in 1943, when the local bishop began making innovations in
traditional church practices, she fearlessly disputed them with
him. Although young, she was a staunch defender of everything
handed down to her from the holy men and women she had
known, and finally the irate bishop sent her to the Monastery
of the Life-Giving Spring (Zoodochos Pigis) on Andros. She was
twenty-three years old and her exile lasted fifty years.
Why she didnt leave and go elsewhere is known only to God. Her
life was a mystery to those around her; at times she was sage and
serious, at other times almost like a fool-for-Christ in her cheerful
poverty and seeming indifference to hardship. Whether she had
consciously foreseen and accepted these trials early in life as
God's providence for her salvation, no one is sure, but it is known
that she accepted her lot uncomplainingly, and at least once was
granted a vision of the Mother of God.
The Monastery, sitting atop a hill half-way between the coastal
villages of Batsi and Gavrion, is an old, huge stone foundation,
which throughout the period of this story housed only a handful
of nuns (all of whom have now reposed). In the winter, fierce,
wrenching winds blow through the monastery, and in summer
the heat scorches the barren hilltop to a dull brown. For the five
decades Chrysanthi lived here she endured much from the other
sisters, both because of her status as an exile and because she
was simply different- she lived a life apart from theirs.
Normal, even kindly women in their own way, the evil one
incited the sisters to an intense dislike of the girl that continued
throughout her life. Her first abbess at Zoodochos Pigis loved
her like a daughter, but after her repose Chrysanthi was treated
as an outcast. She did not sleep with the handful of other sisters,
who themselves lived very simply, but in an unheated store-room
with a dilapidated wooden floor in a ruined part of the monastery.
Her room, when the author saw it about six weeks after her
death, was filled with rubble piled five feet high like a barricade:
bits of wood, oil cans, rags, and pieces of broken furniture.
A further room was full of gunny sacks. In one far corner were some
paper icons on the wall, and a pile of cloth and cardboard on the
floor where she slept. It was difficult to make one's way through
the rubbish.
She spent much time outdoors in the hills and in the small chapels
dotting the island. The other sisters' aversion for her was so strong
that they would not allow her into the monastery church, and even
in winter she was forced to stand outside during services. The
monks of St Nicholas however told me that she would often slip
quietly into the back of the narthex, listening intently and crossing
herself with great vigor when the saints were mentioned.
Not only was she not allowed in church, but the sisters would not
let her eat with them. After their own meals were finished she
would creep into the kitchen and take a little of what was left
over. Even in the bitter winter cold she was not permitted to
warm herself in the heated living quarters but would kindle a
small fire in the unused, centuries-old kitchen off the courtyard.
When the sisters discovered her there, they put out the fire
and drove her away.
Why the other nuns acted like this is unknown, and certainly not
typical. Most likely they had come to the isolated monastery as
uneducated girls from surrounding villages, and after the first
abbess reposed simply lacked competent leadership. They are
perhaps more to be pitied than condemned- the succeeding
abbess was not well-trained enough herself to give them a
proper formation, and they did not have a resident spiritual
father. Fallen nature took its course, and Chrysanthi, as both an
outsider and a disgraced 'exile' became a scapegoat for the
sisters'irritations. In other ways the nuns were quite normal.
The author met several of them after Chrysanthis' repose, and
found them welcoming and hospitable.
When the old nuns were no longer able to take care of the
monastery business, Abbott Dorotheos began to come each
month to help assist them in business matters and hear
confessions. Although he admonished the nuns about their
attitude towards Chrysanthi, they were simply too entrenched
to change. When he heard confessions, Chrysanthi would wait
quietly in a corner of the courtyard until the other three sisters
finished. Only after they were gone would she slip in to speak
to him. Abbott Dorotheos says she had an acute mind, and
would talk to him in great detail about the needs of the mon-
astery, as if she herself was the abbess.Excluded as she was
from the society of the other sisters, he never understood
how she knew much more than they did about monastery
business.
Sometimes she predicted what would happen if a certain course
was followed, and she was always right. She never complained
about how she was treated, and seemed to have fully accepted
the cross of her life, neither shrinking from it, nor being beaten
down by it. She never expressed a desire to leave.
Chrysanthi was unfailingly cheerful, and always the first at the
gate to welcome guests, with whom she would warmly chat until
the other sisters arrived and sent her away. Father Vlasseou, one
of the young monks of St Nicholas Monastery who often accomp-
anied the abbott, used to sit with her in the courtyard during
fine weather, where she would speak to him of God, the saints
and spiritual life. He remembers her as being unlike anyone he
ever met, and says that there was an otherworldliness about her
that he found indescribable.
Once, when Abbott Dorotheos was at the convent he told the
nuns of the centuries-old tradition that on the feast of Theo-
phany, all of the salt water in the sea turns sweet. On Old-
Calendar Theophany the nuns went down to the shore, with
Chrysanthi following behind. They all took a cup of the salt
water, but three tonsured nuns couldn't drink theirs- it was salt
as usual, only Chrysanthi's was sweet, and she drank several
cups, exclaiming, "It's sweet, it's sweet."
Three days before her death on St Spyridon's Day in 1992, the
Mother of God appeared to Chrysanthi while she was praying
and said, "There is no abbess here. I am the abbess. Have
patience for a little longer and I will come and take you, and
then you can rest". Chrysanthi was extraordinarily happy and
told the other sisters what she had seen. They accussed her
of inventing it to annoy the abbess, and treated her particularly
roughly for the next few days. On the third day as she tried to
make her way back across the courtyard against a savagely
bitter wind, she became too weak to go on. Slipping into an
empty room a few doors from her own, she quietly died.
Abbott Dorotheos was called, but when he came to say the
first prayers for the departed, the sisters insisted he should
not pray for her in church, but outside in the courtyard. Even
after her death they spoke badly of Chrysanthi, and Father
Dorotheos, angered by their callousness, told them, "She was
the best of you all". He read the prayers over her body in
church, and the next day she was wrapped in a blanket and
buried. There was no coffin.
On the ninth day after her repose, Father Vlasseou, accompa-
nied Fr. Dorotheos to serve the pannikhida (prayers for the
dead) at her grave. He relates that the bitterly cold wind was
blowing so fiercely they could scarcely stand upright as they
made their way up the hill. As they came within a few feet of
Chrysanthi's grave, however, the wind stopped completely,
and although they could hear it blowing all about them, around
her grave it was still, and even warm. The candles stayed alight,
and when they finished singing the pannikhida they turned to
incense the other graves-but as soon as they stepped outside
the shelter of Chrysanthi's grave, the wind hit them again with
full force.
The author was present for prayers on the fortieth day after
Chrysanthi's repose, and as we were sitting over coffee, one of
the old nuns looked out of the window and began crying, "I see
her, I see her, there's Chrysanthi". The abbott smiled and told
her gently to sit down: "Chrysanthi is no longer with us". But she
kept insisting, "Don't you see her? She is right there walking on
the hill !".
Righteous Chrysanthi, pray to God for us!".
From 'Evlogeite, A Pilgrim's Guide to Greece' p.96-100, by Mother
Nectaria McLees, St Nicholas Press, CrossBearers Publishing 2002
