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Wounded by Love: The Life and Wisdom of Elder Porphyrios

September 2010

Elder Porphyrios (1906-1991) is one of the most revered of a host of contemporary saints of Greece brought to light by a growing number of accounts in English translation. This is one of the most striking, gleaned from a series of recordings and notes of the reminiscences of Elder Porphyrios by two nuns who knew him for over three decades. Porphyrios was born into the humblest of Greek homes in Evia, and the extreme poverty of his family required that he work from the age of seven, after only a year of primary school education, in a relative’s general store. At age twelve, through the reading the life of St. John the Hut-dweller (b. 460) Porphyrios was inspired to leave life in the world and become a monk, “an urchin for Christ,” first as a novice under two monks who were brothers, then on Mt. Athos. A severe illness forced him to leave the Holy Mountain, and he spent most the rest of his life as a monk-priest, chaplain to a leper hospital, and spiritual father to countless souls. This account of his life and teachings is a masterpiece, transparent-allowing the luminous soul of Elder Porphyrios to shine through every sentence, with an artlessly beautiful simplicity: “On the bench where I was working, where I was doing my woodcarving, I also had the Holy Scriptures. I opened them and read… read, worked and repeated the words in my head. I repeated the words of the Gospels innumerable times and I remember them even now. What I wanted was to have holy words in my head. I never tired of repeating them again and again. I loved the divine words; I sensed them vibrantly and fathomed them ever more deeply. I would repeat them insatiably all day long…”

Author: Elder Porphyrios

(synopsis via Eighth Day Books)