Gheorghios Krasanakis
Professor at the University from Crete
Once when a professor asked abba Paisios if the children should fast, he gave him the following answer:
The small children must not fast. On the fasting days, when you have dinner you tell them: You see that we, your parents, eat fasting food, while you don’t. We didn’t give you this kind of food because you’re in the growth phase.
This is a very wise and correct answer from the pedagogical point of view. Because when the child grows up, he will say: I have to fast now like my parents because I’ve already grown up.
Abba Paisios believed in the power of familial education. He said:
The value of life is one: the family. If the family falls apart, the whole world will fall apart.
You should show love beyond your family. If you’re retired give a little of your time and money for helping the unprotected children of a broken family. When the family falls apart, everything deteriorates, the clergy, the monasticism, all the others.
At the question “What should be done when the parents don’t agree about the Christian education of their children?”he gave the following answer:
The car has a brake and gears. It doesn’t work solely with the brake or with the gears. The same goes with the parents one may push and the other one may brake. And if there is no balance of the conflicting powers in the family, everything will fall apart.
