Metropolitan Nicholas of Mesogaia and Lavreotiki

Despota Nicholas, why does disbelief have meaning and value for you? It is, quite frankly, paradoxical to hear from a metropolitan…

—Because the Lord reveals Himself only to those who sincerely doubt His existence. I doubted. When I was seventeen, I straight out said, “I am an atheist.”

—Did it last long?

—About until I was twenty-two. I still believe it’s better to humbly doubt from the sidelines than to boast of being within the Church’s enclosure [when you don’t actually believe]. My best teachers in the faith were not “savvy” theologians and hereditary clergymen, but those who underwent the novitiate of unbelief.

—It’s all the stranger to hear from a Greek—it’s more like something from recent Russian history…

—Greece truly perceives itself as being within the two-thousand-year continuous tradition, and with you [Russians—Trans.] everything is indeed being born again! This explains the inexpressible color and freshness of Church life. It is a revolution of the Spirit! It’s unique in the history of mankind and indicative for Orthodoxy throughout the world, because our faith is not of this world. That’s why I didn’t want to believe in my youth simply “because you have to.” I didn’t need anyone’s stories and arguments about Christ, I was looking to experience His presence. But He didn’t come. And I confessed: “I don’t know anything about Him.” The true God is the One without Whom it’s impossible to live. The Church lives by Him, because He isn’t a certain sum of opinions about Him by certain people; He is Life itself.

Since you’re already physicists… First lessons on Athos

—Even St. Paisios the Athonite was infected with disbelief in his adolescence. Did you meet Elder Paisios while you were still an unbeliever?

—Yes, and I didn’t understand him. I can even say I was scared. He was obviously able to unfurl my life—I felt it but didn’t succumb. I tried to get out from under his influence. I thought, let him train on others.

I remember when I first went to see him in his kalyva with my brother, he asked: “What do you guys do?” “We’re physicists,” we answered. “Listen! Since you’re already physicists, you have to achieve the main thing—the disintegration of the atom of your own self. Then subtle energy will be released, by which you will be able to escape the Earth’s gravity and embrace the contemplative Sun, which is Christ.”

I really liked how, using the language of science familiar to us, he opened spiritual horizons to us. Over time, these horizons became significantly more interesting even than cosmic heights for me.

In our first visit to the elder, I heard how some high schooler asked his blessing to become a novice and the elder joked: “Have you finished college?!” and when he, downcast, said he was still only in high school, the elder said: “I only take those with a university diploma!” I remember that…

Do you know what else he interested us in in our first visit? He said: “I don’t know what sciences you’re studying there, in your universities, but if you come here, to the Holy Mount Athos, then understand that here we study only one natural science—holiness. If someone loves God above all, then he feels that his skin is softening, and he melts all over like wax, receiving the fire of God’s blessing. Thus is the human soul freed…”

This was incomprehensible for me at the time… But the elder continued.

“There’s one man,” he said (I think about himself), “who is sometimes transported to other places on the planet.” Can you imagine what it was like for physicists to hear this?! “During his prayer here, on Athos, the Lord enraptured him and carried him to the region of the Caspian Sea… and gave him a commission. When he fulfilled it, God carried him back. How could that happen? And what proof is there that it really happened? When he returned to his cell he suddenly saw in his hand a flower that only grows in the Caspian region…”

I didn’t believe him then. I perceived everything too rationally then. I still don’t know how much I have managed to split the atom of my self; but at least now I don’t have a problem perceiving such stories.

“You no longer ask: Does God exist? You see Him!”

—Then you were even able to live next to Elder Paisios?

—Yes, my college degree helped [laughs]. I really went and showed him my diploma and reminded him of his words… But he generally wasn’t taking anyone to himself.

I’ll tell you, these are completely different things: To hear something about a saint, to read about his works, to meet a saint, and to live together with a saint. When you find yourself near such a person, like Elder Paisios, you are assured: The Lord lives. He’s real and you communicate with Him. You no longer ask: Does God exist? You see Him!

—That is, knowledge in the Church is always experience? And this in particular is the difference between faith and scientific knowledge?

—The power of faith expands your consciousness beyond its inherent rationality. God is bigger than our conceptions of Him. Those who seek Him with their reason will not find Him, because such a God does not exist. There is no God Who can be deduced from the equation of life and proved logically. The true God is born in the heart in the experience of faith, and thus death is overcome.