Spiritual Fatherhood

Beyond the famous friendships, St. Iakovos Tsalikis was above all a spiritual father — to the monastic community he gathered at the revived Monastery of St. David and to the thousands of pilgrims who came to confess and to seek counsel. This file describes that fatherhood: the community he formed, the multitude he received, and the character of a guidance marked by gentleness, discernment, and the referral of every soul beyond himself to Christ.

Tradition: Greek Orthodox (20th-c. elder; glorified 2017)

The Community at St. David’s

When Iakovos entered the Monastery of Venerable David the Elder in the early 1950s, it was nearly empty, a house of a few aged monks (see Arrival at the Ruined Monastery (1951–52)). Over his decades there, and especially after he became abbot in 1975, the monastery revived not only in its buildings but as a living monastic community, drawing new brothers who came to live under him (monastery biography, in The Garden of the Holy Spirit; the growth of the community under Iakovos is standard; see Rebuilding and the Eldership). As abbot he was, in the proper monastic sense, the geron — the elder — of this community: its spiritual father, to whom the monks opened their thoughts and from whom they received their formation in the monastic life (on the elder–disciple relation, see Orthodoxy: Spiritual Direction).

His government of the community was of a piece with his character: he led by humility and example rather than by command, sharing the poverty and labor of the house, and forming his monks less by rule than by the pattern of his own life at the altar and in prayer (monastery biography; the formation-by-example is standard in the accounts). The monastic community he left behind was itself a principal witness to him after his death, and the guardian of his memory and relics (see The Relics and Reported Miracles).

The Thousands of Pilgrims

Iakovos’s fatherhood extended far beyond the walls of the monastery. In his last decades he became one of the most sought spiritual fathers in Greece, and the ruined monastery he had entered as a near-hermit became a place of mass pilgrimage: thousands came — “some for confession, others for prayers, and some just to see the Elder’s face” (Wikipedia summary of the monastery biography, followed to The Garden of the Holy Spirit, on the thousands of pilgrims and their purposes). He heard confessions in enormous numbers, becoming the spiritual father of a vast extended family of lay Christians who returned to him again and again, and who carried his counsel into their homes and parishes across Greece and beyond.

The demand was crushing, and the accounts note the physical cost to the elder — the long hours of confession, the endless stream of visitors, borne by a man already austere with himself and, in his last years, ill (see Repose (1991)). That he received them nonetheless, and received each as though he had all the time in the world, is one of the marks of his fatherhood most emphasized by those who came: the sense each pilgrim had of being personally known, personally cared for, by a father who was entirely present to him (monastery biography; the personal attentiveness to each pilgrim is standard).

The Character of His Fatherhood

Three features recur in the accounts of Iakovos as spiritual father.

Gentleness and consolation. His guidance was marked by tenderness rather than severity. He consoled the despairing, encouraged the fearful, and corrected gently, deflecting shame and taking blame upon himself rather than exposing the penitent (monastery biography; the consoling gentleness is standard; see Humility and Spiritual Warfare). His reported words are largely words of encouragement, of trust in God’s mercy, and of warning against despair and against judging others (see His Reported Words).

Discernment in service of the soul. The clairvoyance for which he was famous was exercised precisely here, in the fatherhood: he knew what troubled a soul before it was told, and used the knowledge to heal, not to display (see Clairvoyance and Counsel). The gift made his fatherhood peculiarly effective — people found themselves understood — but it was always, in the accounts, subordinated to the pastoral end.

Referral beyond himself. Iakovos, by every account, refused to become the terminus of the devotion offered him. He deflected veneration, attributed every good to God and to the saints, and directed the souls who came to him beyond himself — to repentance, to the sacraments, to Christ (monastery biography; the self-effacing referral is standard; on the humility that grounded it see Humility and Spiritual Warfare). This is the mark, in the Orthodox tradition, that distinguishes a true spiritual father from a guru: he did not bind souls to himself but freed them toward God.

A Fatherhood Rooted in the Liturgy

For Iakovos the fatherhood was not a separate ministry from his life at the altar but flowed from it. He was a spiritual father because he was first a priest and a man of prayer; the discernment he brought to confession and the consolation he offered the despairing had their source, in his own understanding and in his tradition’s, in the Liturgy that was the center of his life (see The Divine Liturgy of Elder Iakovos). The two great labors of his eldership — the monastic community within and the multitude of pilgrims without — were, in this sense, the overflow of the altar: a fatherhood born of the priesthood he had received in 1952 and exercised, daily and tearfully, until his death.

References

The Garden of the Holy Spirit: Saint Iakovos of Evia. Monastery of Venerable David the Elder, Rovies, Evia. (The monastic community; the thousands of pilgrims; the gentleness, discernment, and self-effacing referral of his fatherhood.)
“Iakovos of Evia.” Reference summary used to locate the great pilgrimage (“some for confession, others for prayers, and some just to see the Elder’s face”); followed to the monastery biography.
Bousias, Haralambos M. “Elder Iakovos Tsalikes, the Long-Range Star of Evia.” Trans. John Sanidopoulos. johnsanidopoulos.com, 20 November 2014. (The elder as confessor and father.)