There are two or three confessors who have a low piety and their mind is a bit damaged and they puzzle the world. They categorize all the people as demonized. They don`t listen anyone. `I am a priest` they say, `I am in control`. If you hear about such cases tell people to be careful with such priests because they do harm to the Church. Tell them: Find a good confessor and go to him to find benefit. Those men began to use my name and even my photo to give to the world the impression they are in relationship with me.
Of course some people of this kind have mitigating circumstances because they are reckless. But there are others who are mean and present the vinegar as wine. One was previously an accountant; he worked somewhere and now he roams all over Northern Greece and presents himself as my disciple. He says that I gave him the gift of clairvoyance and four or five more charismas and he cheats the world in this way and gathers money.
`Is he a cleric? `
`No, he is a layman. He saw me once in Daphne and hid not to see him because he is my `true` disciple. He drinks, he smells of brandy some see him drunk and they worry.
How many swindlers there are who exploit the pain of the world and make business. Someone told a widow: One of your husband`s hands did not decay because his soul needs prayer.`
`What to do now?` asked the poor woman. `I will give him money to pray for the soul of my man.`
After he took her enough money after a while he told her: `See he escaped from danger, now he is better.` And she gave him money after money until he took half of her fortune so that her husband may find rest
There are some deluded who make the sign of the cross on the sick, they whisper something and apparently they cure them. The men deceive themselves and they don`t go to confess, they don`t call the priest to make them the holy unction or read them a prayer, but they go to such men. They also waste a lot of money. I was told that in a village there were two deluded who had a good collaboration. The devil gave for example to one of the men from their village a severe headache or a waist pain and then went to one of the two crooks and told him: `Someone has a headache for this reason. When any opportunity the crook told to the men: `I know you have a headache` and revealed him the reason immediately. `It is true, what a revelation` that one said. `Now what do I have to do to get rid of it?` `Go to that man` and sent him to the other crook. You see what the devil contrived to keep the men into deceit? He put two crroks to collaborate one to find the diagnostic and the other one apparently to cure to keep the world far from the Church.
Excerpt from Ascetic struggle– Pious Paisios the Athonite, Evanghelismos Publishing.
