Father Dimitris Gagastathis, vicar of the village of Platanos (Vania) in Trikala, is characterized by those who knew him and experienced him as a “man of God”, that is, a saint. The characterization should not surprise us. Holiness has never been the privilege of a single era. Saints always exist. And in our days they certainly live and move among us. We do not distinguish them because evil abounds and drowns virtue, which does not scream or is displayed and advertised, like sin.
Married with nine daughters, six of whom are living, and one “was enveloped in the angelic form.” Of few letters and simple-mindedness, he continually became the man who received the Grace of God after a ceaseless night-and-day struggle against the evil one.
His ever-increasing progress and his spiritual ascent to holiness were due to prayer and his constant conversation with God, especially with divine worship. It was a “common secret” to all. At noon in the surrounding fields and hills, at midnight in his beloved little church, Taxiarches, endless hours were given over to fervent prayer and thanksgiving. He achieved this, apart from the Divine Liturgy, in the endless Vespers, the continuous Communion and the beloved Greetings, in his home, in his wakefulness and even in his sleep, which was minimal, since he performed most of the services between 12 and 3 midnight. Every hour in any place, the holy Levite prayed. Meteora was the favorite place of Fr. Demetrios. He often went there to “rest”, as he said, to keep vigil and to rest while keeping vigil. This whole-souled and whole-body giving at the time of the Consecration of the Precious Gifts earned him the privilege of feeling the fragrance of the Holy Table of the Archangels.
He knew how to live and he knew what he was asking of God. Here are some of his requests: “Help me, my Redeemer, to combine in my life and my work tenderness and rigidity, delicacy and strength, sensitivity and severity.” Holy requests, admittedly. He writes elsewhere: “Teach me, Lord, how to teach children, how to inspire the young, how to counsel the elderly, how to convert sinners, how to support those who are about to die.” Pastoral lessons not from the wisdom of mortals, but directly from the “wisdom that comes down from above.”
Those of us, who were worthy to know him, enjoyed his simplicity, his humility, but above all his practical love for all, enemies and friends, and above all his fervent zeal for the miraculous prayer and the Divine Liturgy. His prayers did not go unanswered. He literally worked miracles with prayer. This was noticed by many.
The greatness of the unforgettable Pope Demetrius Gagastathis becomes evident through the numerous letters he received and replied to, from which we quote only some of the names.
From the Hieromonk Amphilochios Makris, now Saint Amphilochios of Patmos
On Patmos, 1-1-68
Dear brother in Christ, Father Demetrius, rejoice in the Lord,
I cannot describe to you the joy and emotion that I experienced with your letter. It is full of love for the Great High Priest.
I thank you for your prayers for me. Prayer is conversation with God. So when someone constantly converses with God, he becomes familiar with Him and little by little tries to reach likeness. That is, to reach a similarity with God, who is an ocean of love and Grace?
The midnight Divine Liturgies is truly very beneficial. Follow them…
The joy and admiration of all of us cannot be described with your story about the miracles of the Holy Great Martyr George. Great are the miracles that are performed in our Orthodox Church! Indeed, the Saints are very close to us and are ready to hear our prayers and respond beneficially to the requests of faithful Christians made with faith and love.
With much love in the Lord
Amfilohios Makris, Hieromonk
From the then Hieromonk Ephraim Katounakiotis, now Saint Ephraim
In Christ, dear brother Pope-Demetrius,
When you pray and are sad, do not pray that God will relieve you, but that He will give you patience.
The saints did not ask God to remove their suffering and sorrows, but to give them patience to endure them without complaint.
… Sorrows, my brother, and sufferings are the means, the vehicles that will take us to Heaven. Sorrow gives birth to joy. So be courageous and do not despair easily. You are doing very well and praying often and asking God for help. Always do so. However, I think it is good to tell you how you should say the prayer. “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” You will find great comfort. Hold the rosary in your left hand and say this prayer.
You write to me that the world has gone downhill. Leave the world and look to Pope Demetrius. End times and bad times. May God cover us.
I will beg you, just as we, the unworthy, remember you in our prayers, so you will remember us, dear brother. I will never forget you. Your face is engraved in my soul. Your divine words constantly echo in my ears. Blessed is the hour in which I met you. Blessed is our meeting. Glory to the holy God for all things.
By the Hieromonk Emilian Simonopetritis
Mount Athos, Holy Monastery of Simon Petras, 29-8-1961
My dear father,
It is truly a great honor that the Lord bestows upon His priests to converse as friends with one another.
I beg you to pray always, so that I may be a known and readable epistle of Christ and His faithful steward.
… You say that you are an illiterate priest. Do you remember the Lord’s answer when the disciples asked him, who will sit on his right and left? “Those for whom it is prepared,” he said. As if to say: “Do I know now? Whoever longs to be first in the Kingdom of Heaven and will struggle and toil, he will sit on my right and on my left. Not the one who seeks glory here, but the one who seeks Heaven.” Perhaps it is the ardent James or the Lord’s close friend John, perhaps the decisive Peter or the fiery Paul. Perhaps, however, some unknown man of labor or some illiterate and forgotten priest. For God is not partial. He looks at the heart. It does not matter, then, how we appear here. It is enough that we are the crucified of the earth that will shed our sweat for the Cross of Christ.
How much I like what you did, that is, that you raise for prayer at two in the night. In the silence of the night, a soul alone praises its Creator. How much will its angel rejoice at that hour? …
I am touched by your reverence for the Taxiarchs, who will certainly intercede with the Lord for you. However, I am particularly impressed by your spiritual fortitude for the hall that shook the ship of our Church.
Let us not forget that this is not the first time that such events have shaken the Church. Above all this, the Spirit of God is hovering, as if over a new abyss, to direct and demonstrate that “even the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
With love in the Lord
Hieromonk Emilianos
By Archimandrite Philotheos Zervakos
In Paros on 20-1-1960
You’re Eminence and in the Lord, beloved brother and co-celebrator, Fr. Demetrios, rejoice in the Lord.
I congratulate you and pray from my heart that the Lord may strengthen you in the good fight which you may fight well and lawfully, until the end, in order to hear the sweet and joyful voice: “Well done, good and faithful servant, well done worker in the vineyard of Christ, you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things, enter into the joy of your Lord.” May we all be worthy of this sweet voice and of inexpressible joy and gladness. Amen.
But in order to be worthy of these heavenly goods, we must preserve two virtues, humility and love. The Lord looks upon the humble, dwells in them and rests. But in those who have love, He unites with them and remains with them united and inseparable, because God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him.
These two virtues are the two wings for which the prophet David prayed, saying: “Give me wings like a dove, that I may fly away and rest.”
Let us, beloved, beseech God with reverence, faith and devotion to give us these two wings, humility and love, so that we may be able to fly away and rest in the immaterial monasteries, where the abode of all who rejoice is.
My dear Fr. Demetrios.
For years I have been begging God to stop the Church’s slander, and one night I heard a voice invisibly, saying: God sends out a way for the wicked to be saved. And I say nothing else, as one of little faith, except to echo the voice of Peter. “O believers, save us, we are being scattered.”
Let us not despair completely, however, but let us continue to cry out like Peter: “O Lord, save us, we are perishing” and let us hope that as He is compassionate, Merciful and Merciful, He will extend His hand to us, as He did to Peter, and will say to us: “O you of little faith, why did you hesitate?”
I have heard that you are sick and I thought – and I am sick – to come through my present letter so that we may help each other, as the wise Proverbs says, “A brother is helped by a brother, like a strong and walled city.”
According to the wise saying, “He who teaches is taught twice,” I, the ignorant and the rustic and the disobedient and the sinner, decide to say two words to you for the benefit of both me and you.
“Whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives,” so that “a few who are disciplined will be greatly benefited.”
I believe that you have more patience than I do. Pray for me, I beg, that patience may be given to me too, so that I, the sinner, may be saved.
With brotherly love and heartfelt prayers
Archimandrite Philotheos Zervakos
By the Hieromonk Fr. George Kapsanis, abbot of the Holy Monastery of Gregory
To the Most Reverend Fr. Demetrios Gagastathis, good shepherd of the reasonable sheep of Christ
With deep respect and filial love G. Kapsanis (13-5-1974)
Respected Father Demetrios, bless me.
Your letter gave us much joy and blessing. The program of prayer that you apply is truly wonderful and capable of lifting the soul and uniting it with the longing Lord. May we also be able to apply a similar program.
With respect and love of Christ
The least among the hieromonks
Archim. George and my brothers
This is what Father Demetrius believed about prayer.
Prayer is a telephone, a wireless that communicates directly with God. You dial the number to reach God with the telephone of prayer and He answers. You hear Him clearly, you feel Him very close. When you have something, pick up the phone and talk to God. He, like a suffering Father, will listen to you and fill your heart with joy, peace, love.
When you want to pray, get up at night, on an empty stomach. Then, oh then, there is nothing better and more beautiful. When the people are sleeping, God hears you… Cry out to God, with all your strength, from the depths of your heart. Pray especially at night, when the enemy is on the prowl. After 12 o’clock at night, until 3:30, then the devil finds an opportunity to act, when people are sleeping. For this reason, the shepherd must be vigilant for the flock.
Prayer first comes to the throat, then it rises to the mind, then it descends to the heart. And then, then the tears come to the eyes. From here on out, nothing is said. It is true that at first you will encounter difficulties. You will go to pray and then you will not be able to, sometimes you will have thoughts and temptations, and sometimes you will not be able to wake up at night. You persevere. And the Lord, who will see your disposition, will strengthen you and will bring you out of temptations. However, I must not waste the whole night in sleep, because then Satan does to us whatever he wants. I, from a young child, loved to pray. I would go to a quiet place and cry out to God, my heart thirsted for Him. I had also learned the greetings from outside and I would say them. What joy, gladness and peace I had in my heart!
Whatever I asked of our good Virgin Mary, she gave it to me.
The Virgin Mary helped me a lot. Now I have increased the greetings. The more I say them, the more my heart becomes sweeter…, and I very much desire to surrender my soul with my mouth full of “Rejoice, O Unwedded Bride.”
Τhe text is from the website of the HOLY CHURCH OF SAINT GERASIMOS ILISION
saints’ lives
