According to my calculations two months had passed. On the following day I don’t know why I was taken to the medical office. There they took my blood pressure then they threw at my feet all my belongings, they gave me my coat and took me to a truck handcuffed. In a cage!
They didn’t say anything, only asked me to sign some papers written in their language. Because of my fear I was always forced to sign. The truck started the ride to the unknown. I burst into tears. I don’t remember to have ever cried that much in my life. I was nit crying for myself, I didn’t counted myself, I cried for my family, for my wife and children. I was thinking of them all the time and I cannot express in words what I lived.
All of a sudden somewhere between sleep and wakefulness or rather in a delirium I heard a voice saying to me in Greek:
`Do not worry my child, this s a trial from God. Pray, have faith and this will go away!`
`Who are you? I asked sadly. Turning my head I saw on the right an old monk, that one who was on the yellow cover of the book written by Athanasios Rakovalis.`
`Elder Paisios`, he said.
`Prayer and faith in God`, he repeated to me and vanished.
I was sobbing and I was feeling indeed that time was vanishing so I don’t remember how much it took that truck ride.
Excerpt from the book Testimony of the religious conversion of a former convinct – Father Paisios my saint and teacher, Egumenița Publishing 2016
