Elder Hadji – Georgis The Athonite 1809-1886

Elder Hadji-Georgis (1809–1886) was one of the greatest Elders of Mount Athos during the nineteenth century, and it is fitting that this biography of him was written by one of the greatest Athonite Elders of the twentieth century, Elder Paisios. “When I first came to the Holy Mountain,” Elder Paisios writes, “I would hear everyone talking with great reverence and admiration about Hadji-Georgis! The many things I heard about him prompted me to revere him even more.… ‘A great ascetic and strict faster,’ they would say. His name is even used as an epithet for those who are strict fasters: ‘He is a Hadji-Georgis,’ they would say.”

Elder Hadji-Georgis advised people with discernment. He consoled them and helped them with his heartfelt prayer, shedding divine grace to saddened souls. The holy Elder’s fame reached everywhere, and people flocked from many regions to be spiritually benefited. From morning until night he took the pain of the afflicted upon himself, and he warmed their hearts with his spiritual love.