Orthodox Christianity - Source: Pemptousia
November 21, 2016
Elder Iakovos Tsalikis (5/11/1920-21/11/1991)
Our age and today’s culture has, unfortunately moved away from the
vision and pursuit of sanctity. The Orthodox faith is based on the
presence of the saints. Without these, our Church is on the path
towards secularization. Naturally, as we know from Scripture, God
alone is holy, and sanctity derives from our relationship with Him,
and therefore sanctity is theocentric rather than anthropocentric.
Our sanctity depends on the glory and the grace of God and our union
with Him, not on our virtues. Sanctification assumes the free will of
the person being sanctified. As Saint Maximos the Confessor says, all
that we bring is our intentions. Without those, God doesn’t act. And
Saint John the Damascan repeats that we render honour to the saints
‘for having become freely unified with God and having Him dwell in
them and by this participation having become by grace what He is by
nature’. The saints didn’t seek to be glorified, but to glorify God,
because sanctity means participation in and communion with the
sanctity of God.
The source of sanctity in the Orthodox
Church is the Divine Eucharist. By partaking of the Holy One, Jesus
Christ, we become holy. The ‘holy things’, the Body and Blood of
Christ, are given as communion ‘to the holy’, the members of the
Church. Sanctity follows on from Holy Communion. The ascetic struggles
of the saints are not an aim but a means which leads to the aim,
which is Eucharistic communion, the most perfect and complete union
with the Holy One. In the Lord’s prayer, the ‘Our Father’, we see that
sanctification is associated with the Kingdom of God. We ask that
His Kingdom come into the world so that everyone can praise Him and
can partake of His sanctity and His glory, which is what we call
‘deification’.
The Kingdom of God and deification are an
eternal extension of the Divine Liturgy within space and time, as
Saint Maximos the Confessor writes. By taking part in the Divine
Eucharist, the saints become gods by grace, but they’re aware that
‘they have the treasure in vessels of clay’ and they see ‘through a
glass darkly’. They await and expect the time when the gate of
heaven will open and they’ll see God ‘as He is’. Their struggle
against the passions and the demons is continuous and they believe
that everyone else will go to Paradise except them. They know their
insignificance and unworthiness, they don’t believe in their moral
superiority and worthiness and, with the humility which they feel,
they see others as saints, especially when these people render them
honours. This is due to love, which is the one thing which will remain
in the Kingdom of God.
An example of their love for God is
their personal struggle to observe His commandments. Submission to the
will of God cleanses people of their passions and prepares the
place for grace to take up its dwelling. All the saints are
characterized by an attitude of asceticism and self-sacrifice.
According to Saint Isaac, the ascetic life is the mother of
sanctification ‘from which is born the first taste of the sense of the
mysteries of Christ’. Or, as Saint Maximos the Confessor puts it:
‘By their voluntary mortification, denying all evils and passions…
they have made themselves pilgrims and strangers to life, fighting
boldly against the rebellions of the world and the body… and have
preserved the honour of their soul’.
Such a vessel of grace
and dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit, was Elder Iakovos Tsalikis, one
of the most important and saintly personalities of our day, a great
and holy Elder, a true friend of God.
He was a living
incarnation of the Gospel, and his aim was sanctification. From early
childhood he enjoyed praying and would go to different chapels, light
the icon-lamps and pray to the saints. In one chapel in his village,
he was repeatedly able to speak to Saint Paraskevi. He submitted to
God’s call, which came to him when he was still a small child, denied
himself and took up the Cross of Christ until his last breath. In
1951, he went to the Monastery of Saint David the Elder, where he was
received in a miraculous manner by the saint himself.
He
was tonsured in November 1952. As a monk he submitted without
complaint and did nothing without the blessing of the abbot. He would
often walk four to five hours to meet his Elder, whose obedience was
as parish-priest in the small town of Limni. The violence he did to
himself was his main characteristic. He didn’t give in to himself
easily. He lived through unbelievable trials and temptations. The
great poverty of the monastery, his freezing cell with broken blinds
and cold wind and snow coming in through the gaps, the lack of the
bare essentials, even of winter clothing and shoes, made his whole
body shiver and he was often ill. He bore the brunt of the spiritual,
invisible and also perceptible war waged by Satan, who was defeated by
Iakovos’ obedience, prayer, meekness and humility. He fought his
enemies with the weapons given to us by our Holy Church: fasting,
vigils and prayer.
His asceticism was astonishing. He ate
like a bird, according to his biographer. He slept on the ground, for
two hours in twenty-four. The whole night was devoted to prayer.
Regarding his struggle, he used to say: ‘I do nothing. Whatever I do,
it’s God doing it. Saint David brings me up to the mark for it’.
His humility, which was legendary and inspiring, was his main
characteristic. The demons which were in the possessed people who went
to the monastery cursed him and said: ‘We want to destroy you, to
neutralize you, to exterminate you, but we can’t because of your
humility’. He always highlighted his lack of education, his
inadequacies and his humbleness. It was typical of him that, when he
spoke, every now and again he’d say: ‘Forgive me’. He was forever
asking people’s forgiveness, which was a sign of his humble outlook.
Once, when he was invited to visit the Monastery of Saint George
Armas, where the abbot was the late Fr. George Kapsanis, he replied:
‘Fathers, I’m a dead dog. What will I do if I come to see you?
Pollute the air?’ He always had the sense that he was a mere nothing.
And when he became abbot he always said that he wasn’t responsible
for what happened in the monastery: ‘Saint David’s the abbot here’,
he maintained. When he served with other priests, he went to the
corner of the altar, leaving them to lead the service. When they told
him: ‘This isn’t right, you’re the abbot of the monastery’, he’d
reply: ‘Son, Saint David’s the abbot here’.
Although he
didn’t seek office, he agreed to be ordained to the diaconate by
Grigorios, the late Bishop of Halkida, on 18 December 1952. The next
day he became a priest. In his address after the ordination, the
bishop said: ‘And you, son, will be sanctified. Continue, with God’s
power, and the Church will declare you [a saint]’. His words were
prophetic. He was made abbot on 27 June, 1975, by Metropolitan
Chrysostomos of Halkida, a post he held until his death.
As
abbot he behaved towards the fathers and the visitors to the
monastery with a surfeit of love and understanding and great
discernment. His hospitality was proverbial. Typical of him was the
discernment with which he approached people. He saw each person as an
image of Christ and always had a good word to say to them. His
comforting words, which went straight to the hearts of his listeners,
became the starting-point of their repentance and spiritual life in
the Church. The Elder had the gift, which he concealed, of insight and
far-sight. He recognized the problem or the sin of each person and
corrected them with discretion. Illumined by the Holy Spirit he would
tell each person, in a few words, exactly what they needed. Saint
Porfyrios said of the late Elder Iakovos: ‘Mark my words. He’s one of
the most far-sighted people of our time, but he hides it to avoid
being praised’.
In a letter to the Holy Monastery of Saint
David, the Ecumenical Patriarch, Vartholomaios, wrote: ‘Concerning
the late Elder, with his lambent personality, the same is true of him
as that which Saint John Chrysostom wrote about Saint Meletios of
Antioch: Not only when he taught or shone, but the mere sight of him
was enough to bring the whole teaching of virtue into the souls of
those looking at him’.
He lived for the Divine Liturgy, which
he celebrated every day, with fear and trembling, dedicated and,
literally, elevated. Young children and those with pure hearts saw
him walking above the floor, or being served by holy angels. As he
himself told a few people, he served together with Cherubim, Seraphim
and the Saints. During the Preparation, he saw Angels of the Lord
taking the portions of those being remembered and placing them before
the throne of Christ, as prayers. When, because of health problems
he felt weak, he would pray before the start of the Divine Liturgy and
say: ‘Lord, as a man I can’t, but help me to celebrate’. After that,
he said, he celebrated ‘as if he had wings’.
One of the
characteristic aspects of his life was his relationship with the
saints. He lived with them, talked to them and saw them. He had an
impressive confidence towards them, particularly Saint David and Saint
John the Russian, whom he literally considered his friends. ‘I
whisper something in the ear of the Saint and he gets me a direct line
to the Lord’. When he was about to have an operation at the hospital
in Halkida, he prayed with faith: ‘Saint David, won’t you go by
Prokopi and fetch Saint John, so you can come here and support me for
the operation? I feel the need of your presence and support’. Ten
minutes later the Saints appeared and, when he saw them, the Elder
raised himself in bed and said to them: ‘Thank you for heeding my
request and coming here to find me’.
One of his best known
virtues was charity. Time and again he gave to everybody, depending on
their needs. He could tell which of the visitors to the monastery
were in financial difficulties. He’d ask to speak to them in
private, give them money and ask them not to tell anyone. He never
wanted his charitable acts to become known.
Another gift he
had was that, through the prayers of Saint David, he was able to expel
demons. He would read the prayers of the Church, make the sign of the
Cross with the precious skull of the saint over the people who were
suffering and the latter were often cleansed.
He was a
wonderful spiritual guide, and through his counsel thousands of people
returned to the path of Christ. He loved his children more than
himself. It was during confession that you really appreciated his
sanctity. He never offended or saddened anyone. He was justly known as
‘Elder Iakovos the sweet’.
He suffered a number of painful
illnesses. One of his sayings was, ‘Lucifer’s been given permission
to torment my body’. And ‘God’s given His consent for my flesh, which
I’ve worn for seventy-odd years, to be tormented for one reason alone:
that I may be humbled’. The last of the trials of his health was a
heart condition which was the result of some temptation he’d
undergone.
He always had the remembrance of death and of the
coming judgement. Indeed, he foresaw his death. He asked an Athonite
hierodeacon whom he had confessed on the morning of November 21, the
last day of his earthly life, to remain at the monastery until the
afternoon, in order to dress him. While he was confessing, he stood up
and said: ‘Get up, son. The Mother of God, Saint David, Saint John
the Russian and Saint Iakovos have just come into the cell’. ‘What are
they here for, Elder?’ ‘To take me, son’. At that very moment, his
knees gave way and he collapsed. As he’d foretold, he departed ‘like a
little bird’. With a breath like that of a bird, he departed this
world on the day of the Entry of the Mother of God. He made his own
entry into the kingdom of God. It was 4:17 in the afternoon.
His body remained supple and warm, and the shout which escaped the
lips of thousands of people: ‘Saint! You’re a saint’, bore witness to
the feelings of the faithful concerning the late Elder Iakovos. Now,
after his blessed demise, he intercedes for everyone at the throne of
God, with special and exceptional confidence. Hundreds of the
faithful can confirm that he’s been a benefactor to them.
Icon from here
