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Orthodox Christianity - August 29, 2016

The great work of Elder Ephraim of Arizona:
A conversation with Alexandra Lagos, a spiritual child of Elder Ephraim

By Olga Rozhneva

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In 1960 the Greek Orthodox priest and theologian Archpriest John Romanides wrote: “Athonites should immediately send their representatives to the US and found there monastic habitations, otherwise Orthodoxy on the American continent awaits its inevitable doom.” A few years later these prophetic words were realized in the life and efforts of just one man. The monasteries of Elder Ephraim have appeared in many regions of the US and Canada: New York, Texas, Florida, Washington, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Illinois, California, Michigan, Montreal and Toronto. Chief among these is the Holy Monastery of St. Anthony the Great in Arizona. [...]

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Building monasteries in America was not easy. There, even amongst the Orthodox, there can be felt a totally different religious tradition—the tradition of secularism. But Elder Ephraim managed to achieve amazing results [...]

The elder saw that it was necessary to do everything quickly. He would constantly say: “We must hasten to make it in time—hard times are soon coming in the world.” Nevertheless,he met great resistance on the part of Archbishop Iakovos (Koukouzis), who at first did not give a blessing for the building of the monasteries [...]

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In the end, after a few months the elder received a blessing from the Ecumenical Patriarch to build monasteries.  |Archbishop Iakovos, who had been an opponent of the construction, had by that time departed to the Lord. His successor was the monastic-loving Archbishop Spyridon (Papageorgiou, 1996-1999). Then Elder Ephraim began to open monasteries one after the other.

The elder managed just in time. Archbishop Spyridon resigned from his post in 1999 and a difficult period again began for the elder  [...]

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[...]  | In 1996 His Eminence Spyridon became the archbishop of the Greek Church in America. He very much supported the elder, and during his service (July 30, 1996-August 19, 1999) the elder opened eight more monasteries. Elder Ephraim opened the last two monasteries after Archbishop Spyridon’s retirement.

Translated from Russian by Jesse Dominick

[ Orthodox Christianity - http://orthochristian.com/96543.html - August 29, 2016 ]