In this video, Mother Chrysovalantis recounts the day St. Iakovos Tsalikis of Evia (✝ 22 November) was visited by the devil, who appeared in the form of a nun bringing him a cake. What did St. Iakovos do? He got rid of the cake immediately.
Video source: Ιερός Ναός Αγίου Δημητρίου Δήμου Αγίου Δημητρίου
Watch the full interview here.
Church of Saint Dimitrios, Athens, Greece, October, 2023
Mother Chrysovalantis:
[Gerondissa Chrysovalanti]: Once you meet him, he has a really aristocratic posture. He was from Asia Minor and he had the whole nobility [that comes with the Greeks of Asia Minor]. He wasn’t too lenient. This is a parenthesis. Fr. Kyrillos [Cyril], who was too lenient and full of love and humility, saw him in his sleep one night. And says to him, “Geronda, what made you a saint?” [Fr. Kyrillos] said to St. Iakovos. [St. Iakovos]: By being strict! Because [St. Iakovos] was telling Fr. Kyrillos to be strict, but he couldn’t; he was openhearted by nature.
[St. Iakovos] wouldn’t scold you. You were going for confession to him, and he would tell you some stories, and they were what you were planning to confess. And he wouldn’t say, “This is what you did!” He would say, “My child, there are some things, this and that… which we shouldn’t do.” And he would have laid out everything you wanted to say. You weren’t tired to confess them [at all]. One thing that I admired about him: all the time his mind was on God.
In case a brother [fellow monk] didn’t do what Fr. Iakovos said — they were “amateurs,” they too had their weaknesses — he wouldn’t get into a fight like I do. He would say, “Father, is it difficult for you to understand it?” “You’ll [come to] understand it on the ascent [to Judgment].” Right away they changed their mind. They got scared. They thought: “What if I find it on the ascent…?” Keep in mind what testimony we will give to God! At all times! At all times!
One day… This is shocking, that’s why I am sharing it. We see him holding a bag. “How are you, Geronda?” [St. Iakovos]: I’m on my way to burn a cake. My child, you’ll eat nothing that comes from strangers! “Why, Geronda?” [St. Iakovos]: Listen to what happened today. “A nun” came to confess. She entered inside. She says, “Fr. Iakovos, you’ll first eat from the cake I’ve made for you, and I’ll then confess.” “Because, afterwards…” — excuse me for the language, but it’s important — “Because, afterwards we’ll make love.”
I grab her from the back, I take her outside the exomologitirion and I say to the fathers, “Quickly, go find which is her car!” [Gerondissa Chrysovalanti]: There was no car, no man… The devil brought this temptation to him, one month before his reposal. Because he was so accurate in “God’s things” and preceded it. He went and burnt the cake of the supposed “nun.” He also laughed and said, “If the devil grows old, he becomes ‘a nun.’” He wanted to mess with us.
He was fully in prayer, in love, in giving. They cut the olive trees in a field [of his monastery], and he went to St. David [of Evia] and said, “St. David, I came here to pray. Not to run to the courts for trees.” “Unless the one who cut [the trees] comes before nightfall, I’m not lighting your [vigil] oil-lamp.” At night, a man came and said, “I am sorry, it was me who did it.” His prayer was so powerful! Because he was only on God. His mind, his heart, his desires, his thoughts.
We were watching him kneel — we can’t kneel anymore, we’ve destroyed our knees — whereas he, with his black knees [because of his health problems], was kneeling the whole time during the Divine Liturgy. The whole time! What else can I say, what else, what else… He was a man whom you couldn’t meet without “being confronted” [for your sins].
Once, I had a health problem and in order to gain strength and meet people, I was eating chocolates in big numbers. But I confronted myself. “Can I be a nun and eat chocolates?” “Can it be my gluttony?” And I say, “Geronda this and that…” He didn’t say, “Why do you do it?” or “Don’t do it…” What is that he said and troubled me. “My child, I eat one loukoumi [Turkish delight] a year.” “Thank you very much, Geronda. I am much obliged.” “I am much obliged; one loukoumi a year.” He was restrained, most restrained.
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