Following the Flame, Part XI: The Flame Still Burns

Before I conclude this series, I should say that these pages are only a glimpse of the journey. I didn’t write them to be an autobiography, nor an attempt to recount every event in my life. They are simply some of the moments through which, in all my weakness and sinfulness, I tried to follow the desire that God had placed in my heart.
Even now, recalling many of these events is very painful. Some memories still bring tears. I think we all avoid dragging up old memories. Sometimes though, this can help us in actuality. Yet I have chosen to share them because they testify not to my own faithfulness, but to God’s patience and mercy.
After three years of labor, sacrifice, and countless difficulties, we were finally able to move into our new monastery. It was still unfinished. Most doors and windows had yet to be installed, (and those were only temporary ones!), and there was much work ahead. Yet to us it was a palace, because after so many years of uncertainty we had finally found a home.
The road had been filled with temptations, anxieties, disappointments, and trials. More than once, it seemed that everything would collapse. Yet the Lord never abandoned us.
In time, after many struggles, we also found a safe harbor within the Russian True Orthodox Church. We had witnessed so unsettling things in our True Orthodox Church of Greece. (I do plan on writing about that soon!) There, by God’s providence, in the RTOC we found peace and stability after so many years of uncertainty.
In early 2013, I underwent an extensive multiple spinal fusion that lasted an entire day. Recovery was long and difficult, but once again the Lord granted me strength to rise and continue. It was a miracle that I walked again!
The years that followed brought still more crosses. Cancer. Diabetes. Other health problems that continue even now. None of these were things I would have chosen for myself.
Yet I have come to understand that God fashions each of us through the crosses He permits. He is patiently trying to transform me into a vessel fit for His service. I am making it difficult for Him! My greatest obstacle has never been illness, but my own sinful nature, which so often resists His grace.
Many people speculate on how I became a bishop. Different people have their own explanations. I could write a lot on this.
However, the answer, at least from my own perspective, is very simple.
I became a bishop because it was the sincere desire of our First Hierarch and priest at that time. Out of love, trust, and deep respect for him, I accepted something that filled me with fear. How would I ever be able to do this work? Sick, poor, and without gifts, how could this come about? His confidence in me was a burden I have tried, however imperfectly, to carry with humility.
As I look back over these years, I realize that the flame I first felt as a young man never promised me an easy life. It did not lead me where I expected to go. It led me through closed doors, disappointments, uncertainty, and suffering. It led me through monasteries, parishes, earthquakes, illness, and responsibilities I never imagined I would bear.
Yet it also led me to the protection of my elder, to the monastery that God would allow us to build, to our brotherhood, and above all, to a deeper understanding that God’s will is always better than my own.
If there is anything worth remembering from these pages, it is not the story of one truly odd man.
It is simply this:
If God places a holy desire in your heart, guard it carefully. The road may be long. It may lead through valleys you never expected. But if you continue to follow the flame with humility and patience, God will bring you exactly where He wants you to be.

Glory be to God for all things.