SAINT ATHANASIOS CHAMAKIOTIS
“Did you see, my child,
how much God loves us?”
The following incident is also very moving. It was the nightmarish winter of 1942. People were dying in the streets from hunger and disease. A spiritual daughter, one of the most beloved children of Elder Athanasios, was sick and exhausted, breathing her last. She knew her end was near and was telling her family to prepare her burial shroud. Her only comfort was a small Gospel book with a thick, dark cover. She would read a little, then get dizzy and leave it by her pillow. In her dizziness, she turned and saw it. It looked like bread to her. She said to herself, “Oh, my Christ! If only I had a little piece of bread!”
Those in the room smiled. At that time, not only was there no bread, but people were rationed only twelve grams of lupins, and even this meager food had not been distributed for over ten days.
The sick woman thought, “This must be a temptation! ‘Man shall not live by bread alone’ (Matt. 4:4).”
Outside,
everything was covered in snow. The residents of Marousi had never seen
so much snow before. It was more than half a meter deep. The cold was
biting. Everything had come to a standstill. Father Athanasios was on
the other side of town, somewhere in Pefki, where he was performing a
blessing of a house. The people of the house, instead of money, offered
him two pieces of white bread. It was the best they could give. But the
blessed Elder Athanasios didn’t keep it or put a single bite in his
mouth. He thought of his spiritual children. He remembered two of them
who were in the greatest need. One was the sick woman we mentioned. He
started walking to her house. The road was long and, with so much snow,
extremely difficult. But, “love does not seek its own” (1 Cor. 13:5). It
disregards everything! Who knows how long, or rather, how many hours
the late Elder Athanasios walked in the snow! He arrived at the house of
the bedridden woman who had longed for a little white bread and went straight to her room.
“How are you, child?”
“I can’t, Father, I’m not well!”
The man of the Holy God, the Elder Father Athanasios Chamakiotis, took one of the pieces of white bread out of his bosom.
“My child, I went and performed a blessing at a house, they gave me some bread, and I brought it to you!”
The
sick woman was stunned. She began to cry and, through her sobs, told
him about the “temptation” she had just experienced. The Elder smiled
with satisfaction.
“Did you see, my child, how much God loves us?”
The blessed Elder sat down, spoke words of comfort, lifted her shattered morale, and blessed her. The dying woman slowly recovered, survived, and to this day recounts the incident with tears.
But Father Athanasios’ mission wasn’t over. He continued his journey through the snow. You see, he still had another piece of bread in his bosom. Another poor young girl, sick with adenopathy, was hungry and suffering. The Elder reached her house as well. He offered the second piece of bread, comforted the sick girl there, and left. Exhausted, soaked, frozen, hungry, and alone, he returned to his beloved Hesychasterion at Panagia “Nerantziotissa.” The long road of the self-sacrificing love of the Spiritual Father, at least for that day, had come to an end…
