Cycles of Newness

I want to invite everyone to join me for Saint Ephraim’s feast day on January 3rd this Saturday. Friends are coming over from the Serbian Church and we will read Saint Ephraim’s Akathist at 6:30 PM MST. the Akathist is at the bottom of this article if you want to follow along.

At the beginning of my second semester at Holy Cross in Boston, a saint came to watch over me hidden from my awareness, Saint Ephraim of Nea Makri. Saint Ephraim came to the monastery at Nea Makri on Mount Amomon, just east of Athens in the late 1300’s during the Ottoman occupation of Greece. While he was gone from the monastery the monastery was destroyed and the monks slaughtered by Ottoman troops. He lived in the ruins of the monastery for another year when the Ottomans returned and tormented him for 8 months, then hung him from a tree, nailing a torch through his navel. His love for God burned brighter than any torch and he gained the saintly crown of martyrdom. He lay unknown in his grave at the ruined monastery until 1950, when a nun named Sister Makari came to live at the monastery ruins and he guided her to dig up his relics in his old cell as she rebuilt the monastery. He had a long 400 year rest and was restless to intercede for the faithful. Many have received healings through Saint Ephraim, like the monk who suffered from a blocked intestine for a week and was faced with painful surgery:

A letter from a cured monk from Athens (May 5, 1977)

I should have written to you sooner and inform you about the benefaction of a cured I received from the Great Martyr Saint Efraim, thanks to your prayers. On the day of the Saint’s memorial, we were going to visit you and thank our Saint.

Here, at the Orchard of the Virgin Mary, where I live, I always thank Him. Today, with the old calendar, we celebrated His memorial and we commemorated the Saint with koliva. We also chanted the Supplicatory Canon. Every day, we have Liturgy, we chant His Dismissal Hymn.

For almost a year, I had been suffering from constipation and indigestion. The day we came to worship the Saint, we heard the He is miraculous. I was suffering badly because of a block in my intestine from dry old stools for a week and I had terrible pains in the abdomen, vomiting, and not appetite for food or water. That doctor had told me that I needed to be operated on. But our Saint, through other faithful people, invited us to the place of His martyrdom so He could free me from my sickness. After you blessed me with His holy remnants that were very fragrant, we chanted the Supplicatory Canons and left for Athens. We were still in the area of the Monastery when I felt the stools moving and at the same time, the pain stopped. Ever since that day, my peptic system works normally, again.

I thank the Great Martyr Saint Efraim for His benevolence. Every single day, I ask Him to intercede to God for me.

The least of the Monks, Th.

My own story with Saint Ephraim begins this last semester as I began a struggle with anxiety and constipation from the anxiety. The week after the Feast of the Holy Cross I woke up at 3 am constipated. I ended up in the ER with my heart beating fast and lots of pain. Many lessons of not forcing things and slowing down will follow! Chris Kousopoulous came with me to the ER and prayed to Panagia (an affectionate term for the Mother of God) as I could not feel God in my prayers beyond the pain and panic. I felt like Saint Silouan who could not move God by his prayers for 15 years until he learned humility. The next night after the hospital I played in bed and wondered if I could slip into the unknown, the great beyond and my heart and whole being reeled shouting “Lord have mercy, I must live.” I jolted out of it like waking from a bad dream. The next week I woke up at 3 am with my heart beating rapidly, later I learned this is our bodies response to unresolved traumas, our guard is down when we sleep and it surfaces so I wake back up to try to calm down. Chris took me to the hospital again and after 6 hours I calmed down. Over the next month I visited the hospital a few more times, thank you to all who took me, Chris, Nick, Phillipos, Michael, Jovan and Dimitri.

Before I began my struggle God was already working His miracles through His saints. A few days before my last ER visit my friend Arthur suggested I ask Saint Ephraim of Nea Makri for his prayers, a saint know to heal people with anxiety and gut issues. The next day my friend Pavlos said the same and handed me his icon of Saint Ephraim to borrow. I had seen that icon before! As I went up to my room I glanced across from my door and there was the same icon of Saint Ephraim sitting on a tv right across from my room. He had been there since the beginning of the semester, someone had left him still wrapped in packaging. Just as God pursues us, so do his saints! This has been my greatest lesson through all of this – Saint Ephraim wanted to get to know me, start a relationship.

Miracles started flooding in. My parents and I did a call every night to pray together. If my hear woke me up I would call dad until we talked through things and I calmed down. God revealed buried wounds that were causing me to wake up so I could feel them, surrender them and ask Him to forgive me and for the grace of forgiveness for those involved. One night I was pacing around the seminary ground and my cousin Rebecca sent me a text that brought me peace that night. Every night was a miracle. Saint Ephraim’s prayers and your prayers calmed my heart and mind. My parents and I eventually decided that I should move back home to finish the semester, I was losing weight and sleep. My dad flew to Boston and Andres and I picked him up from the airport. Andres drove and picked him up, I was moral support. I stayed with my dad in his hotel room and slept my first full night in a month. We met with Father Phillip Zymaris who encouraged me, that this feeling of being in the tomb of death would become the womb of new life in the Resurrection. Thank you Father Zymaris, I needed to know that Life was ahead of me. I gave the miracle icon of Saint Ephraim to Larissa but I kept a smaller one with me. As we were pulling out of Boston Thea called me that she had a gift for me, an icon of Saint SIlouan, the saint that saved me in my undergrad when I lost my gallbladder from anxiety. He brought us back to Montana, thank you Thea.

On our way back home we got to stop in a German restaurant in Pennsylvania and I made a million smoothies. We stopped in Wisconsin to see my Uncle Randy who is struggling with Parkinson’s and I was blessed to give him an icon of Saint Dymphna, a saint for those struggling with mental health and we prayed for my uncle. When we got back to the interstate we got a flat and God gave us a tire shop 20 minutes away and a good Mexican joint. Saint Silouan watched over us every night. We pulled onto a highway in Bozeman, Montana and a deer jumped infant of us. Dad managed to stop in time but a car coming the other way hit it violently. That was enough for me, I balled, letting out the months of emotions I had buried. I finally had a release and cried for a good half hour. I was starting to feel my body and emotions again. I was reminded of Christ on the Cross, the deer was sacrificed so that I might let out my pain, confess it. Why did it take a deer? God knows, glory to Him for all things.

When we got home the miracles kept coming. I went to Bible study with my dad at his church, Valley Assembly in Twin Bridges and the topic was about prayer. I kept thinking to myself, “Prayer must be communion, it can’t be one way.” Pastor Terry chimed into the conversation, “Prayer is dialogue” and I was encouraged and agreed, “yes, prayer is communion with God.” Then at my parent’s church on Sunday Pastor Terry preached on the faith of the Roman Centurion. Christ marveled at the Centurion’s faith, God wondered at man. That tied together my topic for my dogmatics paper I was working on, a paper that has been on my heart since 2013 when I took the Theology of Love class in Germany. A ten year paper. God wonders at us. (Paper to come.) The God of the Universe who knows all is awed by you.

The next Saturday I attended Vespers at the Holy Trinity Serbian Orthodox Church in Butte. I did confession with Father Russel and admitted my fear of death. Father Russel counseled me to embrace the Resurrection, just as Father Zymaris did, then I could accept the pain and discomfort I felt. And be still, go outside and hug a tree. I spent the night in Butte at Katies house and prayed to Panagia to heal my heart. The next morning I donned my cassock and served in the altar. As I walked into the altar after I took Christ’s body and blood I felt my shoulder and heart heal, my greatest fear taken away. Glory to God for all things. After church I had coffee in Butte with my friend Jake from my dad’s church. He had asked me what was causing my health issues and I said, “I need to tell you about Saint Ephraim of Nea Makri who has been praying for me next time we talk.”

My prayer for my life has always been to bring all my friends together that they might share communion with one another, this journey is an answer to that prayer. I was still losing weight an having trouble sleeping. My cousin Rebecca, her husband Scott and I had great talks about miracles and prayers together. She gave me the name of a doctor and suggested I try bone broth. The bone broth was a miracle that cleared my brain fog and began to heal my stomach, untying the knots. God is amazing. A couple days later Jake stopped by for coffee. As we were catching up the mail man drove up and dropped off a package for me. In it there was a letter from Nickos Francis, “After hearing your story about Saint Ephraim’s icon praying for you I was blessed to visit his monastery in Greece. Here is a book about his miracles, holy oil from his relics and holy water from the monastery. I also submitted you name to be remembered at the monastery liturgy for 40 days.” Thank you Nickos. I turned to Jake and said, “This is the perfect time to tell you about the miracles of Saint Ephraim.” and showed him my icon. Every night I used his holy oil to anoint the places that hurt. Vincent, a novice monk at the Serbian Church suggested I pray Saint Ephraim’s Akathist every night, a prayer service asking for his intercessions. (Please forgive me if this is graphic, I can’t tell it any other way.) I prayed the service on a Friday night and woke up at about 2 am with bad constipation. I asked Saint Ephraim if I should take some medication I was worried I would get hooked on. There was a flash of light behind his icon like the fire he holds in his icon and the Saint appeared, taking away my fear. I took the medication and all was well, I have been regular since that Friday.

My part in this work is forgiveness. “Forgive everyone for everything,” Dostoyevsky. I had resentments buried. When one surfaces I am learning to let them out, write them down in my journal (personal inventory), feel the feelings I had buried, recall the good of the person I encountered and my own fault in the matter and write how I felt and the truth about myself and the lie I believed, write out the fear that lies under that situation. Then I need to cry, cry through the feeling, feel remorse, and thank God

Saint Ephraim’s first feast day is on January 3rd when Sister Malaria found his relics. I want to invite you to join me on zoom on Saturday night to pray his Akathist together at 6:30 pm MST. There will be a few people at my home and we will read it.

Through the prayers of Saint Ephraim Lord have mercy on us and save us. Amen

Here is the Akathist to Saint Ephraim, you can download it.