Porphyrios of Kafsokalyvia

Porphyrios of Kafsokalyvia (also known as Porphyrios Bairaktaris, 7 February 1906 – 2 December 1991) was a Greek Eastern Orthodox monk and Saint who lived on Mount Athos.

• What is the spiritual battle? Well, the soul is a garden divided into two parts. On one half are planted thorny bushes, and on the other half flowers. We also have a water pump with two taps and two channels. The one guides the water to the thorns and the other to the flowers. I always have the choice to open one or the other tap. I leave the thorns without water and they dry up, I water the flowers and they blossom.
  • Precious Vessels of the Holy Spirit - The Lives and Counsels of Contemporary Elders of Greece, p. 170

Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia; Fr. John Raftan (trans.). (2018). Wounded by Love: The Life and Wisdom of Saint Porphyrios. Chania, Crete, Greece: Holy Convent of the Life-giving Spring – Chrysopigi / Limni, Evia, Greece: Denise Harvey. ISBN 978-960-7120-19-9.

• For the people of God there is no such thing as distance, even if they be thousands of miles apart. However far away our fellow human beings may be, we must stand by them.
  • p. 89

• From the moment I became a monk I believed that death does not exist. That’s how I felt and how I always feel – that I am eternal and immortal. How magnificent!
  • p. 90

• Pray without forming images in your mind. Don’t try to imagine Christ. The Fathers emphasized the need for prayer to be free of images. With an image, the focus of prayer is easily lost, because one image can easily be displaced by another. And the evil one may intrude images and we lose the grace.
  • p. 121

• Prayer should be interior, prayed with the mind and not with the lips, so as not to cause distraction with the mind wandering here and there. Let us bring Christ into our mind in an unforced manner by repeating very gently, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me’ Don’t think anything except the words, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me’. Nothing else. Nothing at all.
  • p. 121

• God is everywhere present and fills all things. I try to take wings to infinity and fly amidst the stars. My mind is lost in the magnificence of Gods omnipotence as I contemplate the distances of millions of light years. I feel this omnipotent God before me and I open my arms and I open my soul to be united with Him, to participate in the Godhead ...
  • p. 128

• In prayer what is important is not the duration but the intensity. Pray albeit for five minutes, but abandoning yourself to God with love and longing. One person may pray all night long and another person only for five minutes and yet the five-minute prayer may be superior. This is a mysterious matter, of course, but that’s the way it is.
  • pp. 128-9

• Prayer is beneficial for everything, even for the simplest of things. For example, if you are suffering from insomnia, don’t think about sleep. Get up and leave your bedroom and then come back in and lie down on your bed as if for the first time, without thinking about whether you will sleep or not. Then concentrate your mind, recite the doxology and then repeat the prayer, ‘Lord Jesus Christ...’, three times over and that way you will fall asleep.
  • p. 130

• Make the most of beautiful moments. Beautiful moments predispose the soul to prayer; they make it refined, noble and poetic. Wake up in the morning and see the sun rising from out of the sea as a Icing robed in regal purple. When a beautiful landscape, a picturesque chapel, or something beautiful inspires you, don’t leave things at that, but go beyond this to give glory for all beautiful things so that you experience Him who alone is ‘Comely in beauty’. All things are holy – the sea, swimming and eating. Take delight in them all. All things enrich us, all lead us to the great Love, all lead us to Christ.
  • p. 218

• Observe all the things made by man – houses, buildings large or small, towns, villages, peoples and their civilizations. Ask questions to enrich your knowledge about each and everything; don’t be indifferent. This helps you meditate more deeply on the wonders of God. All things become opportunities for us to be joined more closely with everything and everyone. They become occasions for thanksgiving and prayer to the Lord of All. Live in the midst of everything, nature and the universe. Nature is the secret Gospel. But when one does not possess inner grace, nature is of no benefit. Nature awakens us, but it cannot bring us into Paradise.
  • p. 218

• Biography