Fr. Rafail, a disciple of Fr. Sophrony, talks about the main characteristics of a saint: humbleness and naturalness. These were abundantly found in the personality of Fr. Sophrony Sakharov.

This video is part of the speech of Fr. Rafail Noica given at the International Colloquium “Meeting with the spiritual father”, November 13-15, 2016, Iasi, Romania.

Fr. Rafail:

“Over the years, I started to understand that Fr. Sophrony [Sakharov] – a humble and ordinary man, like everybody else, he was occasionally joking, saying puns – was a special man. I did not dare to call him a saint, I did not know what a saint was… over time, I realized, just like His Grace Hierotheos [Vlachos] was saying, that those are the saints… It is possible to pass by him, to spit on him, to ignore him… Brothers and sisters, this is our great danger of perdition… God and His saints are so humble, so ordinary, so natural… This is what I saw and I still see in the writings of Fr. Sophrony and other saints: when one has grace, he or she does not realize this thing… it’s the nature of things… one realizes only when he or she loses it, when you can no longer find it and you do not know what has happened. God and the saints of God are so humble, so common, so close to your heart, that you may even ignore them, this is the danger of perdition…

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