(From - A Monks's Life)
FATHER LAZARUS OF SAINT ANTHONY’S MONASTERY
IN THE EGYPTIAN DESERT
This is a story of an Australian academic atheist who found faith in the reality
of God through the direct intervention of the Theotokos, the Mother of God. Since we are in
the midst of the Great and Holy Lent when we chant the Akathist Hymn to the Holy Mother
of God, I thought it would appropriate for me to share this wonderful real life story. It is
about the direct intervention of the Holy Mother of God in the life of an atheist from
Australia who was born into a Christian family. His father was a Methodist and his mother
was a Roman Catholic. As a young man he attended Church School at the Methodist Church
and up until his early teenage years he had a semblance of faith. He was a sickly young man
and was often bullied by his peers. He felt very isolated from the world because of his health
problems and because of his dislike for worldly pursuits. By the age of sixteen he had lost all
faith in the reality of God. One of the reasons that he felt isolated from the world was the
fact that he did not receive any consolation from faith, from the Church or from people
during his developmental struggles. He suffered a lot during his teenage years. In fact, he
appears to have innate monastic tendencies for he had no desire for parties, worldly pursuits
and frivolous things that young people of his age did. He felt very much alone even from God
because he had abandoned any faith in the reality of God.
As he grew up, he found that some people were good but he also found that most
people were not good. In discovering this, he then understood that being religious did not
make a big difference in the way people lived. Many people who went to Church were still
living bad lives. He also noticed that other people who did not go to Church were kind,
generous and understanding people. Because of these observations, he had no way to
connect faith and Church with personal good human behavior. He came to regard religion as
simply hypocrisy. His intellectual pursuits reinforced this thinking of his. He read Sigmund
Freud and Karl Marx. These two men looked at religion as pure fantasy. Because of these
influences he became an unbelieving rationalist. He also thought the laws of nature were
inviolable. He says that he was always searching while living in the world. He saw that
people generally were searching for material wealth because they thought that this would
bring them peace. People searched for this peace in the Eastern Religions of Buddhism and
Hinduism as he did. They also searched for this peace in drugs, wealth, sex and parties. How
does one find this peace for the soul? Most human beings look for this peace in various
places in life and when they seem to find it, it appears to be simply a mirage; it is further
He says that he began to read a lot and he arrived at a point that he thought was a
reasonable position to explain the purpose of life. Marx and Freud were his guides in life. He
developed his own complete philosophy of life that explained the material origin of man in
the material world. He believed that everything in existence begins and ends in this world.
Remember now that he was an academic and he was teaching at a university in Australia. At
one point he was working in a hospital during the summer months. As part of his job, he
would transfer the dead patients to the hospital morgue. Seeing firsthand the dead and cold
corpses convinced him that there was nothing more beyond physical death and there was no
God. In spite of these thoughts he visited many Churches simply to look at the architecture
and the art in the Churches. But beyond this, he believed that Christianity was a bad thing
and was responsible for many wars. But now that he has faith, he says there is a difference
between the Church and Christianity and the reason he chose the Coptic Orthodox Christian
Church is because it has very little blood on its hands in comparison to other Christian
When the mother of monk Lazarus died it left a huge hole in his life. It suddenly hit
him that he had no mother, no connection with his existence without his mother. He felt that
there was no origin to his being. The reason for his life disappeared with the death of his
mother. The person who gave birth to him had been cut away from him; it had been taken
away from him. With his mother’s death, he felt more lost in the world than ever before. For
twelve months after his mother’s death he was very angry with the world and at religion. At
one point while he was grieving, he went back to the hospital where his mother died. He
wanted to relive the last moments of his mother’s death and to contemplate the mystery of
death. There seemed nothing there but darkness and blackness and he had no way to
understand it. The hospital was a Roman Catholic Hospital attached to a convent. The nuns
at the hospital did not allow him to go to the room for it was occupied. He then went to the
hospital library and found a book about an American monk Thomas Merton. The title of the
book was “The Seven Story Mountain.” It was a biography of Thomas Merton. After reading
the book, he was startled to find that the life of Thomas Merton was a mirror image of his
own life. He too was a philosopher. He too was politically left wing. His mother also died
and left him alone and he finally found peace for himself in a Roman Catholic Monastery.
After reading the book, Monk Lazarus thought that if Thomas Merton found peace in a
Monastery, he also would find peace there. So he then called a Roman Catholic Monastery
and asked if he could become a monk there. The person from the Monastery asked him a
number of questions. He was asked which Church he belonged to. Lazarus responded that
he did not belong to any Church. He was asked which priest had recommended him to the
Monastery. His response was that he had no spiritual father and no priest had recommended
his to the Monastery. At that point, the person from the Monastery hung up on him possibly
thinking that he was a fraud. Lazarus did not give up. He was determined to find a Monastery
and so he looked up another Monastery in the local phone book. He found a Monastery
listed as a Serbian Orthodox Monastery. He called and asked the person who answered the
phone if he could come and visit the Monastery. He found out later that the person who
answered the phone was a Bishop. The Bishop responded to him “come and see.” Of course,
these words are from the New Testament in reference to John the Baptist and Jesus Christ.
John the Baptist had sent someone to Jesus asking Him if He was the promised one. His
response was “come and see.”
Lazarus went to the Serbian Orthodox Monastery on a Saturday. Saturday in the
Orthodox Church is when the Orthodox Church commemorates the deceased members of the
Church. When Lazarus arrived at the Monastery, the faithful were filing out of the Church
after the Divine Liturgy. The faithful were then going to the Monastery cemetery. Lazarus
met the Bishop and asked if he could ride in the car with him to the cemetery. The Bishop
indicated to him that he should ride with another couple in their car. It just happened that
this couple had a young daughter who had been killed in an automobile accident near the
Monastery. The couple was very bitter with God about this for they believed that God had
stolen their daughter from them. They were as bitter as I was with the loss of my mother.
We complained to one another that God was the cause of our misery. After we finished with
the service at the cemetery the faithful returned to the Monastery Church for a memorial
service. When Lazarus entered the Church he saw a large icon of the Virgin Mary on the wall
of the Church. Lazarus says that he had seen icons before but he looked upon them simply as
art. He said he had no personal experience with icons. He had no intimate acquaintance with
Mary the Theotokos as the Mother of God. He says that he had no understanding of Mary in
the Orthodox Church. He knew that the Roman Catholics called her the Virgin Mary but she
didn’t mean much to him.
After we entered the Church he noticed that the people were making μετάνοιες
(genuflections), bowing down to the icon of the Theotokos. He says I was astonished at
seeing the people doing this. I was astonished because I always believed that a man does not
bow down to anyone or anything. I had learned that a handshake should be enough in
greeting another human being. I had not been prepared for μετάνοιες. I did not feel easy
with what the people were doing but I wanted to be polite and so I followed their example. I
said ok let me do what they are doing. So I made the first μετάνοια. Ι had to bend my knees
and bow down putting my forehead on the floor. As I was doing this, I could see the big icon
of Mary on the wall in front of me. This particular icon was well-known throughout Australia
because it had performed miraculous cures. One of the miracles happened to the wife of a
Greek Orthodox priest. At this point, I was not concerned about the icon. I was concerned
about making the μετάνοια properly and joining in with the other faithful. As I said before, I
then had to put my forehead on the floor. When I was in that position, I would ask you to
consider that when making a μετάνοια what position is the body in. You are in a half circle.
You are bent over in much the same way as a fetus is in the womb of his mother. I felt that I
was in a kind of fetal position. It felt like I was becoming small, weak and helpless. All these
emotions overwhelmed me as I made the μετάνοια. Μετάνοια is a physical action. You are
weak; you are small and you are as if you are nothing. It is a statement that says that I am
not worthy to even lift up my eyes and look at you.
Μετάνοιες is a very eloquent statement of humility. So when I was bending down like
this suddenly all of the sadness of my mother’s death started to overflow within me and I
started to cry. I was saying within myself: “I lost my mother, I am sad, I need a mother.” I
was pouring out my feelings about being motherless. At this point I stood up. When I stood
up I thought that would be the end of it. Then I realized that the Orthodox Christians do
everything in threes. Knowing this, I thought that the second μετάνοια would be much
easier. I proceeded to make the second μετάνοια and then the third μετάνοια and then
repeated the same prayer that I said the first time. This time when I complained about being
motherless, I heard a voice behind my head saying: “I will be your mother.” I clearly heard
the voice. It was a beautiful soft voice but it was clear. I thought that maybe one of the
Serbian women was speaking to me who heard me crying and had come over to comfort me.
I looked to the right and to the left to see if any woman was nearby but there was no one. I
was all alone. I repeated the words of my sadness and the voice came to me again; “I will be
your mother.” On hearing the voice again, this time I was determined to find out where it
was coming from. I lifted up my eyes and looked at the icon of the Holy Mother who was in
front of me. And then when I lifted up my eyes to look at the Holy Mother she moved out of
the icon and seemed to stand in front of me. She appeared to me from the waist up and she
was holding Jesus. She appeared as a real presence in front of me. She bent toward me and
looked at me right in my eyes. She smiled and said: “I will be your mother” for the third
time. When she smiled at me she appeared so loving that she took all the pain out of me.
She gave me a sense of hope and faith. At that very moment I was made new again, I was
reborn by her love. It was an electrifying experience that just filled me up with her presence.
And then she started to give off a bright light that was so bright that I had to lower my eyes.
As I stood up the Holy Mother moved back into the icon and appeared as she was before but
her presence was very real to me. I saw and felt her love. That encounter made me
dependent upon her for the rest of my life. When I stood up I knew my life was now
dedicated only to her. All my pain, all my doubts, all my fears, all my needs for help were
I left that Church knowing now that I had a mother who is beautiful, sweet, kind, and
generous. All this knowledge about her I got through her love for me. Every time I see her
it is the same thing all over again. I have seen her several times since then. The encounter
was so powerful that I could not bring myself to leave the Church. I couldn’t even leave
the Monastery. I had to stay near her. I then told the Bishop that I did not want to leave
the Monastery. I then abandoned everything in my life. I did not go back to work at the
university. I abandoned everything in the world for her. My whole monastic commitment fell
on me that day with that encounter with the love of the Theotokos. This is how I became a
Christian. Where else in the world would I find a loving mother?
Transliterated from the video by:
+Fr. Constantine (Charles) J. Simones, Waterford, CT, USA,
cjsimones300@gmail.com
FATHER LAZARUS OF SAINT ANTHONY’S MONASTERY
IN THE EGYPTIAN DESERT
This is a story of an Australian academic atheist who found faith in the reality
of God through the direct intervention of the Theotokos, the Mother of God. Since we are in
the midst of the Great and Holy Lent when we chant the Akathist Hymn to the Holy Mother
of God, I thought it would appropriate for me to share this wonderful real life story. It is
about the direct intervention of the Holy Mother of God in the life of an atheist from
Australia who was born into a Christian family. His father was a Methodist and his mother
was a Roman Catholic. As a young man he attended Church School at the Methodist Church
and up until his early teenage years he had a semblance of faith. He was a sickly young man
and was often bullied by his peers. He felt very isolated from the world because of his health
problems and because of his dislike for worldly pursuits. By the age of sixteen he had lost all
faith in the reality of God. One of the reasons that he felt isolated from the world was the
fact that he did not receive any consolation from faith, from the Church or from people
during his developmental struggles. He suffered a lot during his teenage years. In fact, he
appears to have innate monastic tendencies for he had no desire for parties, worldly pursuits
and frivolous things that young people of his age did. He felt very much alone even from God
because he had abandoned any faith in the reality of God.
As he grew up, he found that some people were good but he also found that most
people were not good. In discovering this, he then understood that being religious did not
make a big difference in the way people lived. Many people who went to Church were still
living bad lives. He also noticed that other people who did not go to Church were kind,
generous and understanding people. Because of these observations, he had no way to
connect faith and Church with personal good human behavior. He came to regard religion as
simply hypocrisy. His intellectual pursuits reinforced this thinking of his. He read Sigmund
Freud and Karl Marx. These two men looked at religion as pure fantasy. Because of these
influences he became an unbelieving rationalist. He also thought the laws of nature were
inviolable. He says that he was always searching while living in the world. He saw that
people generally were searching for material wealth because they thought that this would
bring them peace. People searched for this peace in the Eastern Religions of Buddhism and
Hinduism as he did. They also searched for this peace in drugs, wealth, sex and parties. How
does one find this peace for the soul? Most human beings look for this peace in various
places in life and when they seem to find it, it appears to be simply a mirage; it is further
He says that he began to read a lot and he arrived at a point that he thought was a
reasonable position to explain the purpose of life. Marx and Freud were his guides in life. He
developed his own complete philosophy of life that explained the material origin of man in
the material world. He believed that everything in existence begins and ends in this world.
Remember now that he was an academic and he was teaching at a university in Australia. At
one point he was working in a hospital during the summer months. As part of his job, he
would transfer the dead patients to the hospital morgue. Seeing firsthand the dead and cold
corpses convinced him that there was nothing more beyond physical death and there was no
God. In spite of these thoughts he visited many Churches simply to look at the architecture
and the art in the Churches. But beyond this, he believed that Christianity was a bad thing
and was responsible for many wars. But now that he has faith, he says there is a difference
between the Church and Christianity and the reason he chose the Coptic Orthodox Christian
Church is because it has very little blood on its hands in comparison to other Christian
When the mother of monk Lazarus died it left a huge hole in his life. It suddenly hit
him that he had no mother, no connection with his existence without his mother. He felt that
there was no origin to his being. The reason for his life disappeared with the death of his
mother. The person who gave birth to him had been cut away from him; it had been taken
away from him. With his mother’s death, he felt more lost in the world than ever before. For
twelve months after his mother’s death he was very angry with the world and at religion. At
one point while he was grieving, he went back to the hospital where his mother died. He
wanted to relive the last moments of his mother’s death and to contemplate the mystery of
death. There seemed nothing there but darkness and blackness and he had no way to
understand it. The hospital was a Roman Catholic Hospital attached to a convent. The nuns
at the hospital did not allow him to go to the room for it was occupied. He then went to the
hospital library and found a book about an American monk Thomas Merton. The title of the
book was “The Seven Story Mountain.” It was a biography of Thomas Merton. After reading
the book, he was startled to find that the life of Thomas Merton was a mirror image of his
own life. He too was a philosopher. He too was politically left wing. His mother also died
and left him alone and he finally found peace for himself in a Roman Catholic Monastery.
After reading the book, Monk Lazarus thought that if Thomas Merton found peace in a
Monastery, he also would find peace there. So he then called a Roman Catholic Monastery
and asked if he could become a monk there. The person from the Monastery asked him a
number of questions. He was asked which Church he belonged to. Lazarus responded that
he did not belong to any Church. He was asked which priest had recommended him to the
Monastery. His response was that he had no spiritual father and no priest had recommended
his to the Monastery. At that point, the person from the Monastery hung up on him possibly
thinking that he was a fraud. Lazarus did not give up. He was determined to find a Monastery
and so he looked up another Monastery in the local phone book. He found a Monastery
listed as a Serbian Orthodox Monastery. He called and asked the person who answered the
phone if he could come and visit the Monastery. He found out later that the person who
answered the phone was a Bishop. The Bishop responded to him “come and see.” Of course,
these words are from the New Testament in reference to John the Baptist and Jesus Christ.
John the Baptist had sent someone to Jesus asking Him if He was the promised one. His
response was “come and see.”
Lazarus went to the Serbian Orthodox Monastery on a Saturday. Saturday in the
Orthodox Church is when the Orthodox Church commemorates the deceased members of the
Church. When Lazarus arrived at the Monastery, the faithful were filing out of the Church
after the Divine Liturgy. The faithful were then going to the Monastery cemetery. Lazarus
met the Bishop and asked if he could ride in the car with him to the cemetery. The Bishop
indicated to him that he should ride with another couple in their car. It just happened that
this couple had a young daughter who had been killed in an automobile accident near the
Monastery. The couple was very bitter with God about this for they believed that God had
stolen their daughter from them. They were as bitter as I was with the loss of my mother.
We complained to one another that God was the cause of our misery. After we finished with
the service at the cemetery the faithful returned to the Monastery Church for a memorial
service. When Lazarus entered the Church he saw a large icon of the Virgin Mary on the wall
of the Church. Lazarus says that he had seen icons before but he looked upon them simply as
art. He said he had no personal experience with icons. He had no intimate acquaintance with
Mary the Theotokos as the Mother of God. He says that he had no understanding of Mary in
the Orthodox Church. He knew that the Roman Catholics called her the Virgin Mary but she
didn’t mean much to him.
After we entered the Church he noticed that the people were making μετάνοιες
(genuflections), bowing down to the icon of the Theotokos. He says I was astonished at
seeing the people doing this. I was astonished because I always believed that a man does not
bow down to anyone or anything. I had learned that a handshake should be enough in
greeting another human being. I had not been prepared for μετάνοιες. I did not feel easy
with what the people were doing but I wanted to be polite and so I followed their example. I
said ok let me do what they are doing. So I made the first μετάνοια. Ι had to bend my knees
and bow down putting my forehead on the floor. As I was doing this, I could see the big icon
of Mary on the wall in front of me. This particular icon was well-known throughout Australia
because it had performed miraculous cures. One of the miracles happened to the wife of a
Greek Orthodox priest. At this point, I was not concerned about the icon. I was concerned
about making the μετάνοια properly and joining in with the other faithful. As I said before, I
then had to put my forehead on the floor. When I was in that position, I would ask you to
consider that when making a μετάνοια what position is the body in. You are in a half circle.
You are bent over in much the same way as a fetus is in the womb of his mother. I felt that I
was in a kind of fetal position. It felt like I was becoming small, weak and helpless. All these
emotions overwhelmed me as I made the μετάνοια. Μετάνοια is a physical action. You are
weak; you are small and you are as if you are nothing. It is a statement that says that I am
not worthy to even lift up my eyes and look at you.
Μετάνοιες is a very eloquent statement of humility. So when I was bending down like
this suddenly all of the sadness of my mother’s death started to overflow within me and I
started to cry. I was saying within myself: “I lost my mother, I am sad, I need a mother.” I
was pouring out my feelings about being motherless. At this point I stood up. When I stood
up I thought that would be the end of it. Then I realized that the Orthodox Christians do
everything in threes. Knowing this, I thought that the second μετάνοια would be much
easier. I proceeded to make the second μετάνοια and then the third μετάνοια and then
repeated the same prayer that I said the first time. This time when I complained about being
motherless, I heard a voice behind my head saying: “I will be your mother.” I clearly heard
the voice. It was a beautiful soft voice but it was clear. I thought that maybe one of the
Serbian women was speaking to me who heard me crying and had come over to comfort me.
I looked to the right and to the left to see if any woman was nearby but there was no one. I
was all alone. I repeated the words of my sadness and the voice came to me again; “I will be
your mother.” On hearing the voice again, this time I was determined to find out where it
was coming from. I lifted up my eyes and looked at the icon of the Holy Mother who was in
front of me. And then when I lifted up my eyes to look at the Holy Mother she moved out of
the icon and seemed to stand in front of me. She appeared to me from the waist up and she
was holding Jesus. She appeared as a real presence in front of me. She bent toward me and
looked at me right in my eyes. She smiled and said: “I will be your mother” for the third
time. When she smiled at me she appeared so loving that she took all the pain out of me.
She gave me a sense of hope and faith. At that very moment I was made new again, I was
reborn by her love. It was an electrifying experience that just filled me up with her presence.
And then she started to give off a bright light that was so bright that I had to lower my eyes.
As I stood up the Holy Mother moved back into the icon and appeared as she was before but
her presence was very real to me. I saw and felt her love. That encounter made me
dependent upon her for the rest of my life. When I stood up I knew my life was now
dedicated only to her. All my pain, all my doubts, all my fears, all my needs for help were
I left that Church knowing now that I had a mother who is beautiful, sweet, kind, and
generous. All this knowledge about her I got through her love for me. Every time I see her
it is the same thing all over again. I have seen her several times since then. The encounter
was so powerful that I could not bring myself to leave the Church. I couldn’t even leave
the Monastery. I had to stay near her. I then told the Bishop that I did not want to leave
the Monastery. I then abandoned everything in my life. I did not go back to work at the
university. I abandoned everything in the world for her. My whole monastic commitment fell
on me that day with that encounter with the love of the Theotokos. This is how I became a
Christian. Where else in the world would I find a loving mother?
Transliterated from the video by:
+Fr. Constantine (Charles) J. Simones, Waterford, CT, USA,
cjsimones300@gmail.com
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