Documentary series dedicated to Ephraim of Philotheou and Arizona and other Elders (video)

A documentary series dedicated to Elders Hieronymus Simonopetritis, Joseph the Hesychast and the blessed Elder Ephraim of Philotheou and Arizona, provided with permission for usage to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, was produced by White Fox, S.A., Athens Greece.

As Archbishop of America mentions, “As the Holy Fathers used to say, it doesn’t matter where someone lives, but how he lives. What really matters is the way one lives, the contact and the communication with Christ and the church.

And this contact is facilitated by the communication we have with the gerondes of our time, with the Saints of our time, with the people who are trying to keep the Orthodox way of life and the principles of the Gospel alive; to bring it to their life and implement it. They show us that holiness is not something unreachable, that holiness is real, it is around us, just as God is real and Christ is real”.

Hieronymus Simonopetritis (1871-1957)

The enlightened Abbot of the Monastery, Simonos Petras, lived the last 26 years of his life in the Metochi of the Ascension in Byron, which he turned into a spiritual radiation centre. There he became the shepherd of the thirsty souls of the capital and the support of the wintering refugees of Asia Minor.

Joseph the Hesychast (1897-1959)

One of the greatest ascetics of modern times. He lived for 40 years in the caves of Mount Athos. He contributed to the spiritual rebirth of Mount Athos, as well as to the birth of Orthodox monasticism in America.

Ephraim of Philotheou and Arizona (1928 – 2019)

Ephraim goes to Mount Athos at the age of 19 accompanied by Joseph the Hesychast. After the death of his Elder, he undertook the Monastery of Philotheos, the manning of three more monasteries in the Orchard of the Virgin Mary and the spiritual guidance of male and female monastic communities throughout Greece. After receiving a message from God, he takes the bold step into the New World: Canada and the USA. There Elder Ephraim realises the great needs of the world but also the influences of Protestantism and secularisation. He did not know the language. He did not know the laws. He had no one next to him from the official Church. And yet, he transplants the spirit of Mount Athos in America with pain and toil, with prayer and blessing. At first tens, then thousands, and later hundreds of thousands, millions of people are influenced and taught by the life and work of Elder Ephraim the “art of saving the soul.”He founded 19 monasteries and monastic communities, with hundreds of monks and nuns, his spiritual children. And all together they experience what Saint Porphyry prophesied about Elder Ephraim and his work: the experience of the first Christian years.

Ephraim Katounakiotis (1912-1998)

He lived 65 years of strict ascetic life. 40 of them as submissive to an elder with exemplary obedience to him. This was the great legacy he left to his disciples when he became Elder himself. He taught them obedience and the relentless spiritual struggle in silence. “The fruit of silence is to see others as angels,” he said.