Memories of Father Iulian of Prodromos – Father Pimen Vlad

Listen to a warmhearted word – from heart to heart – of Father Pimen about Father Iulian of Prodromos, in which Father Pimen tells us some of his memories of his former spiritual father.

Enjoy!

Well, my dear ones, we see each other again. As I told you, I will try to tell you a few more things about the elder, Father Julian, my spiritual father. He was, is, and will be the elder. Another like him will never be born again, an Avva from the Patericon… Avva Julian.

Let me show you first, two or three more photos of him. And I have others, but these are what I found handy, so you can see the elder. The man who went to heaven and fulfilled his mission here on earth. In this picture I was under the stole of the elder, who so many times absolved all my evils. In this picture you see the elder in action, here he was mowing. He was also used to working when time permitted. Here it is, we might say, a photo of the Patericon, the elder in prayer with the stole around his neck confessing someone and praying at the same time.

Besides those of us who stressed and drove him crazy every day, those from Prodromos Skete or Lacu Skete, or others,  the elder also had real hermits whom he confessed. There were hermits who did not go out at all and did not step out on their obedience to the elder. They came down only when they needed it most, when they came to confession or went to Karyes to shop. They were zealous, obedient. Only to mention one of them, a hermit that stayed secluded in the woods for years, quietly. He came down only to confession. The elder had a place in the woods at one end of the path where there was a cross.

Every day he went for at least an hour for a walk in the woods and everyone knew and waited for him on the path. Or sometimes God would let him know that someone needed it and the elder would come down and wait for him there. Someone told me he was praying to meet him in the woods. He did not want to enter the Skete, but to see him in the woods. And when he came down, long before the usual place of confession, somewhere much higher up the path, he saw the elder waiting for him. Got it? The elder saw more than we do.

And speaking of which, I remember going to him once. When I arrived, the elder was just going out for his walk. I don’t remember if he listened to my confession first and then went for a walk. I asked him if I could accompany him for a walk, and he said, “Come, but let’s not talk.” And off we went… Just where he entered that path, near a wall, he strung ten pebbles on the ground with his stick. We walked to the cross and returned, prayerfully, with “Lord Jesus…,” in silence. When I got to the cross he told me that he was confessing the hermits there, and when we returned, with his stick he stuck one of the pebbles strung earlier to the wall.

What did this mean? That’s how he knew when he made ten trips to the end and back, without his mind diverting from prayer. Such was our elder, like a father with a mother’s heart. What else can I tell you about him? He had a lot of patience. Sometimes he would confess and he wouldn’t get to go to the meal, and that’s when they would bring his food to his cell. It was evening and he didn’t get to eat again. And then he would send through someone the food he received for lunch and ask to bring him the food for the evening. He didn’t even have time for lunch because everyone wanted to be received by the confessor when he came to confession, without thinking about the fact that the confessor may have had ten confessions before, that he had been sitting there still for 4-5 hours and confessing. When he confessed, he didn’t get to eat. He sacrificed himself for others. They didn’t think about him, although he needed exercise, he was numb, he was hungry too because above all he was human.

He exceeded himself even though he had lung problems, he had a cold… It didn’t matter, that’s where he sat for confession. In his cell he had a stove where he made his own fire, he did not let others help him. He said he still could, he didn’t want to be served, not to be a burden to anyone. And he continually offered patience, love, humility, with a kind word for everyone who came.

Once when I was walking with him, a younger one came, a rather chatty monk, brother. He chatted about this and that, telling the elder all sorts of things… I felt like telling him that he was driving the elder crazy with his stories from the world. But the elder listened patiently and smiled without reprimanding him to say anything while I boiled inside. The elder was like a kind mother to her child who told her all the craziness.

He did not differentiate between the more scatterbrained ones and the more zealous ones, he welcomed everyone and listened to them with love. Once a great confessor came to us here in Lacu, from a metropolis in Veria. He was in his 60s and experienced. And I said let’s go to Prodromos for a little while and we took them to worship and to meet the elder. I confessed, and the elder went out for a walk and I told him then that my companions wanted to ask him a question. 

And on the way to Lavra, that confessor said he had a problem that he couldn’t figure out. He had people whom he had confessed for years and they did not straighten out, they did not change anything, which is why he said, “If they don’t change, they should go to someone else, since I could not help them with anything.” He had even gone to Elder Paisios the Hagiorite with this problem. And Father Paisios the Hagiorite, now Saint Paisios, said to him, “Well, if you can’t, let them go to others if you really can’t help them.” He asked others and that was their opinion. The elder let him finish and said, “No, no, not so! Be patient with them!” “For how long father?” asked the confessor, and the answer was, “It doesn’t matter, one year, two, ten, twenty, your whole life… And they will change, not for their sake, but for you, as their spiritual father. If God sees that you are patient with him for ten years, twenty or even longer, as long as it takes, He will change him for your patience as a spiritual father, because He sees that you are like Him.”

That is, you endure, you endure until you exceed any limit, and then God out of love and kindness, when He sees your patience and love, will change that person, slap him, do something to him and change them. If a person has problems and you tell him that you cannot help him and drive him away, he will go to another spiritual father, who will send him to another. So he changes one, he changes the second, it is not known if he changes the third, and he may not go to any spiritual father. And what did you do then? You’ve lost him. Or he might give up Orthodoxy, say, “It’s clear, these guys don’t help me!” The man has problems, and you have lost him altogether. And you are responsible to God for not having patience for him.

Then I heard that confessor say, “Oh my! No one else has told me that. I have not received such an answer from anyone. You’re right, father! I really look back now, there are people I sent from me, no other confessor managed to help them and now they do not step into the church! I have real cases, which also left Orthodoxy. What do I do? My conscience began to chastise me!” The confessor marveled at how much grace the elder had. You see, the kindness and love of the elder… He went all the way, the impossible made possible with patience and love. I also marveled at how enthusiastic that experienced confessor, who had also been confessing for twenty-odd years, left. One could see the grace of the elder and the gift he had from God.

At confession he had so much patience and forbearance. I wrote down everything I had to confess and read them freely. The elder would let me finish reading, and he would pray during this time. After I finished reading, he prayed for a few more moments and then addressed exactly those points where healing was needed. He would say two or three words to me and immediately send me to Holy Scripture: “Look what it says, there! Look there!” He knew everything by heart, but he also made me search: “Look there! What does it say there? Do you see what the apostle Paul says? How do we have to heal, what do we have to do, how do we fight?” He was always with the same zeal! He said, “Do you see how nice it’s said?” It was as if he heard it for the first time, he who knew it all by heart. That’s how he got excited every time I read a quote from Holy Scripture.

He was constantly reliving the joy of what the apostles said, what the Savior said, the prophets. It was something wonderful! I once went to confession with my own things… As a human you gather… You don’t go to confession to brag! I read the list feeling guilty and expected him to scold me for not doing the right thing. I sat with my head bowed waiting to be scolded. He didn’t have this habit, but I said then that “I deserve to get [hit with] the cross over the head!” although he comforted, he did not hit, he was the man of love. But I felt that I deserved to get a cross over the head.

He sat in prayer for a few moments and felt my state of repentance and how I saw myself then and said, “Should I add to that too?” And instead he began to tell me how he had heard jackals in the woods at night and how when the bell rang… and the elder started imitating the sounds made by the jackals, laughing at this story. I was frozen, because I deserved a cross over the head… And he would laugh and tell me what jackals were doing in the woods. I sat with my head bowed for a little longer, and then I looked up and looked at him. The elder was light, smiling and looking at me, almost hugging me. Moreover, he told me about his childhood and even sang me a beautiful song about titans, and I marveled.

And the elder didn’t stop until he saw me smile too, until he got me out of that state in which I felt miserable and humiliated. He gave me some advice, and said, “Come on, let me absolve your sins!” See how the elder worked? If he saw my repentance at that moment, he did not mention my sins either. That’s exactly what God does when you repent of something, He doesn’t punish you anymore, He takes you in His arms! That’s what the elder did. And until I walked out the door, the elder still laughed and blessed me.

He wouldn’t let you go away from him sad, he made you change your mood, leave floating, that’s how our elder was! That’s why I loved him with all my heart! I would go and put myself at his feet and that’s it, as if all pressure disappeared. I read the sins and thought that I was upsetting him again, and the elder was blotting them out by the grace he had been given.

When he reached the age of 90, he went through a difficult time, ready to go. He was even unconscious for a while. Father Hariton said, “I almost lost him” And when he recovered, he looked around and said, “What, I didn’t leave? I should have gone!” And Father Hariton said to him, “No, Father! We still need your holiness here!” After a short time I got there too and the elder had recovered a little.

I walked up to him and he said, “My, my, do you know how I was? I was ready to go, I should have gone!” I said, “No father, we need you!” He was weak, transparent almost. It could be seen that he had been on the edge. I told him he will not go, “We won’t let you with our prayers, we need you. Your Holiness is ready to go, you have so many years in Athos, daily struggle… But we are not prepared to remain without your holiness!”

I know that’s when I prayed to the Mother of God. It was hard for me after so many years to see him ready to go, which was confirmed by the cell-attendant. He was very weak, the cell-attendant said it was not known if he would recover. He was very weak, from his face you could see that he had had one leg over. I prayed, “Mother of God, please don’t let him go!” I insisted and said, “Mother of God, please take five years from me and give it to the elder, just don’t let him leave!” I couldn’t accept that idea. Everything had been fine for so many years and to leave like this, all at once! And that’s how much I insisted until I felt that the Mother of God listened to me! It came as an assurance that the elder will not leave for another five years. He was 90. And I calmed down.

I also found out when I walked there that he had felt sick again, but inside I was reassured that the elder was not leaving. He would be sick, he would recover. About a year was full of ups and downs, but slowly, slowly the elder recovered. I felt inside me that the elder wouldn’t leave until he was 95. And he reached 95 years old! I said, “I know, Mother of God, from now on I don’t ask you for anything! I asked you for so much because I needed it. From now on, as you know further.” After 95 years, the elder slowly began to lose weight and again I said “Mother of God, as You know!”. After that, the cell-attendant who helped him said he could no longer confess. Somehow the Mother of God had given him five more years to confess to us.

After that, she gave him two more years, so that he could quiet down, so that we would not trouble him anymore. In the last two years, so gradually, gently, he began to stop listening to confessions, preparing to leave quietly for God. I stopped by to get only his blessing and he would speak to us. At first it was very difficult for me, though of you who have gone through this know, I couldn’t accept it, I was praying, wondering what I was going to do because I had him for a lifetime. When the cell-attendant told me that he would never recover, then I understood. And the elder said, “I can’t do it anymore, look for someone else!” Slowly, I started to accept it, to struggle with myself, and finally my soul settled down, I accepted it and found someone else to confess to. Whatever it was, I had to understand!

I went to him less often… maybe too rarely. I said that if he had always received me, at least now he should breathe too, since others would come and disturb his peace. However, the elder always welcomed us, even if only for the blessing. There are many things to say about the elder. I have tried to tell you just a few so that you can figure out who this Avva of ours was, our father with a mother’s heart.

He will stay here [in my heart] always until I go beyond and I hope, through his intercession, to gain a place at least somewhere in a corner there. May the Mother of God help us, may the good God help us, and may the elder intercede for all of us to go where we belong. Because you know, that’s where we belong, in heaven! That we don’t go because of our follies, that’s our mistake, but our place is in heaven. So, as they say, we must go back home to our Father!

Yes, dear ones! Come on, courage, we go forward with the fast to reach the Resurrection with joy. We don’t have to complain that it’s hard in the fast, no! Someone asked me how it was at the funeral, how I felt. I felt sadness and joy at the same time. The sadness was natural, my father left. And the joy was because he rested now, he also went to God, he went to rejoice after so much toil.

At the funeral there were over four hundred people, of whom over two hundred were only monks from Athos and Romania, who were with him on the final journey. Almost everyone who was there has once passed under his stole. May the good God and the Mother of God help us! God help us!

I’ll show you a little bit our dear elder, so you can see him closer [ed. note: approaching the camera with a photo]. The father of the heart! God help us!

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