Elder Vassilios Ibiritis (Gontikakis), Lightning...translated

Stelios Koukos

A year since he fell asleep

I don't know with what expectations the first invitation of Father Vassiliou (Gontikakis), then abbot of the Stavronikita Monastery and later of the Iberon Monastery, to the student events of the "Free Dialogue" at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in the spring of 1980. However, this must have been his first speech in a university auditorium. Be that as it may, the appearance and presence of the Saint priest in the university area was a lightning bolt for everyone.

It remains unknown, and how the heterogeneous audience that overwhelmed the auditorium of the Polytechnic School was formed. Perhaps it was due to the extraordinary and new-found brilliance of Athos as a "refuge" for young people who, in the midst of the wider post-political, revolutionary upsurge, were "abandoning" the world in order to surround themselves without many pretenses in the humble shape of the monk. And especially, of Agioreitis.

Meanwhile, the humble shape of the monk, slowly began to be surrounded by the appreciation of the wider society and of course the Church. Something that was not the case a few years ago. We could say that the prevailing opinion in society...