Άγιος Πορφύριος -Saint Porphyrios

 I will tell you something. If someone is not spiritually cultivated, they cannot understand it.

Once, I gave a lecture, and a student said to me, “Forgive me, you explained things well, and thank you very much, but I do not believe what you said.” There was a very blessed soul named Helen Daskalopoulou, an ascetic nun who served the abbots at the Monastery of Saint Dionysios on Mount Olympus. One day, she invited Prokopios, the late abbot who was a bishop, to dinner. She also invited Mary and me to join them and receive the elder’s blessing. We went to the house to spend the evening with Mary and Helen Daskalopoulou. When we arrived, the food was not ready. Helen said to Prokopios, “Until the food is ready, why don’t you tell us something that made an impression on you?” Helen then said, “These past few days, something happened to me that I cannot even begin to imagine.” She continued: “I wanted to visit my elder, Father Porphyrios, at Kallisia. As soon as I arrived, I stood before the Elder, and he said to me, ‘Helen, my child, I have a very important matter to attend to. I need to go to the Apostle in Eretria. Can you come with me?’ I replied, ‘Thank you, Elder. Go downstairs and get the car ready, and I will come.’ I went downstairs and prepared the car. Father Porphyrios got in, and we drove down the road toward the asphalt road that would take us to the airport. As we turned right onto the asphalt road, the car suddenly lifted into the air! It felt like we were in a helicopter! I looked down, and the cars below seemed to blend together. We were flying! Whenever we seemed about to fall, I was frightened. I said to the Elder, ‘Elder, we are falling! Do you understand what is happening?’ And Father Porphyrios answered calmly, ‘Well, well.’ Eventually, the car came down and stopped a little to the right. The Elder said to me, ‘Come on now, sit down. Why are we in such a hurry?’ We continued to the airport, waited for the caravan, got inside, and went to Eretria. There, we found a man who was preparing to commit suicide, and we saved him from taking his own life. Imagine turning a car into an airplane and sending it up into the air! This was the grace that God had given him.”