I know a layman who became holy with the asceticism he practiced. Yes, not many years ago there was a man and his son who worked for years on the Holy Mountain. Later, a good job opportunity presented itself back in his homeland, and the man decided to leave and take his son with him so that the entire family could be together again. His son, however, had been greatly affected by the ascetic life of the monks; and remembering the worldly life with its many pressures, he didn’t want to follow his father and return to the world. “Father, since you have other children,” he told him, “leave just one of them in the Garden of the Panagia.” Because he insisted, his father was forced to leave him. That little warrior was illiterate, but he was very softhearted and had much philotimo and simplicity. He considered himself totally unworthy to become a monk because he thought that he wouldn’t be able to fulfill his monastic duties. So he found a small kalyvi [1] which had been used in the past for keeping animals. He completely covered the windows and door with rocks and ferns—all except for a small, round opening for squeezing in and out. He could only close the door from inside by using a raggedy old blanket he had found. He didn’t even light a fire. The birds’ nests were thus in better shape than his “nest,” and the dens of the forest animals were nicer than his den. But his soul had a joy that not even those who live in wealthy palaces had; for he was struggling for Christ, and Christ was with him—not only in his kalyvi, but within his spiritual house, in his body and his heart. Because of this he lived in Paradise. From time to time he would leave his little nest and visit the monastic cells where the fathers were doing work in the gardens. He would help, and they would give him a little bit of dry rusk and a few olives. But if they wouldn’t let him work he would refuse these blessings. He always felt that he should repay them for the blessings with double the work. Of course, only God knew his spiritual life; for he lived in obscurity, in a simple way and unobtrusively. From one incident in his life which became known to me, however, one is able to learn a great deal: once he passed by one of the monasteries and asked when Great Lent started—even though for him the whole year was basically Great Lent. Afterwards he went and shut himself up in his nest. About three months passed without him realizing it. Then one day he left and went to a monastery to ask if it was Pascha yet. He went in for the service, communed at Divine Liturgy, and afterwards went with the fathers to trapeza. At trapeza he saw the red eggs—for it was the Apodosis[2] of Pascha—and he was taken aback. He asked a brother, “My goodness, is it already Pascha?” “What do you mean Pascha?” answered the brother. “Tomorrow is Ascension!” In other words, he had fasted all of Great Lent plus the forty days until Ascension! In this same way he struggled until the hour of his death. A hunter found him two months after he had died, and informed the police and a doctor. The doctor told me, “Not only did he not smell, but on the contrary, he exuded a heavenly fragrance.”

Translation by Fr. Luke Hartung from the book Family Life [in Greek], by Elder Paisios the Athonite, published by the Sacred Hesychastirion of St. John the Evangelist, Souroti, Greece (2002).