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Elder Paisios was born in Cappadocia on July 25, 1924.
Almost immediately his family was forced to flee with the general exodus of
Greek refugees from Asia Minor. They settled in Eperos in Northwestern Greece.
He first visited Mt. Athos in 1949 after his time in the army.
He returned in 1950 and, after a
short time in the neighborhood of Karyes, settled in the Monastery of
Esphigmenou. In 1954 he was tonsured there as rasophoros monk with the name
Averkios. That same year he moved to the Monastery of Philotheou, which at that
time was still idiorhythmic. The elder observed in later years that one could
even live a more ordered and stricter ascetic life in an idiorhythmic monastery
than in a cenobium if one was under close supervision of a good spiritual
father. After two years he was tonsured to the small schema in Philotheou and
given the name Paisios.
In 1958 Fr. Paisios left the
Mountain and went to the Stomio Monastery of Konitsas north of Ioaninna. He stayed
there four four years and in 1962 went to Mt. Sinai where he lived in the Skete
of St. Epistime on Gebel Mugufa. In the two years that he stayed there he gave
himself to strict physical asceticism which he later said was the breaking of
his health. In 1964 he returned to Mt. Athos and lived in the Cell of the
Archangels in Iveron Skete. He was hospitalized in 1966 and while on the
mainland became acquainted with the nuns of the Hesychastirion of St. John the
Theologian, whom he helped greatly in years to come and where he died and was
buried.
In 1968 he went to Stavronikita
Monastery and was tonsured to the great and angelic schema by Papa-Tychon of
the Kelli of the Holy Cross. After Papa-Tychon's passing he left the kelli to
Geron Paisios and the elder remained there from 1968 to 1979.
In 1979 he moved to the kathisma of
Koutloumousiou Monastery known as Panagouda near Karyes. At his request the
kathisma was made a kelli and the elder was given an omologo/ life-lease. Many
of his monastic spiritual sons settled nearby in kellia or in kalyvia of
Koutloumousiou Skete, but the elder lived alone. Many, many pilgrims came to
visit him there. He finally died and was gathered to the Lord on July 12, 1994.
Within a year two books about him and recording his teaching had been published
in Greek.
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