‘I had the impression I was surrounded by flames which didn’t burn me’

(Edited by Stelios Koukos)

[Saint Porfyrios]- ‘I suggest we pray together, both of us, at exactly the same time. We’ll each pray for the other’.

We agreed and promised. We even set the time for the prayer-10 p.m. He explained that he had great faith in this kind of prayer.

‘The results of common prayer are astonishing. You’ll see for yourself. But I want you to be exactly on time for our rendezvous. Don’t fail to keep your promise even once. I’ll do the same’. I went with Father Porfyrios as far as the bus terminal for Polygono. This time he wouldn’t let me see him home as he usually did.

‘No, don’t come with me. Go home. We’ve just promised something. We have to start straight way. From tonight. We’ve got to get a move on’. I did as I was told. He boarded the bus and I waited for it to leave. As soon as it started moving, I remember, he tapped the window and said to me: ‘10 o’clock sharp!’.

I can see him and hear him now as he was then. His face shone and it was positively angelic. He was also, of course, thirty years younger. At the height of his powers.

I stayed at the terminus until the bus was lost in the chaos of bustling Athens, taking with it a then unknown saint of the Church of the Lord Christ. Then I left at a trot to get home in time to be completely ready for our rendezvous for prayer.

So at 10 o’clock I shut myself in my room and began to pray. But from the very first minute, strong currents began running through my body, starting from the lower extremities and going up to my head and then down again. There was also a strong light flooding the whole room and I had the impression I was surrounded by flames which didn’t burn me. In the beginning I was terrified and was very nearly overcome with panic.

But I soon realized that all of this was the outcome of Father Porfyrios’ prayer and so I calmed down. Not only that, but I was overwhelmed by an incredible feeling of joy which gave me the sensation of not even having my feet on the ground. All of this continued until the end of the prayer.

The next day, my first job was to get in touch with him. I was determined not to tell him anything. I wanted him to speak first. And he did. No sooner had I asked for his blessing than, with great satisfaction and loud laughter, he said:

‘You were terrified, eh? You very nearly ran away… But I saw you in an intense light which inundated your room and you were joyfully ascending… going up and up as if you wanted to reach the Lord’s throne. See what power this kind of prayer has? Continue and you’ll remember me’.

And I do, indeed, remember him. And I’ll remember him not only in this life, but in the next one, as well. Because these phenomena, over time, have become so intense that I can’t begin to describe them.

I wish he were here to pray with me now. I wouldn’t ask anything else. Amen.

Testimony from the book «Πατήρ Πορφύριος», by A. Kalliatsos, pubd. by The Transfiguration of the Savior Press.