Late in my stay in Albania, sitting next to him one night as we drove along a narrow, winding mountain road, I asked if he could tell me about the prayer life that sustains him. “The roots must remain hidden”, he replied, but after a long silence, he began to answer my question. 
   “I always start with the Jesus Prayer – Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. This is how I use it when praying on my own behalf. But then I use it, only without the last phrase, to pray on behalf of others whom I have met today. In prayer, I often recall the eighth verse in the first chapter of the Book of Revelations, ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, the one who is and who was and who is to come, the almighty’. This reminds me to have no fear for the future. He is to come!”
   “I often recite a passage from St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians concerning the fruit of the Holy Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. [Gal 5:22-23] Notice that Paul says ‘fruit’ – not ‘fruits’. Communion with the Holy Spirit gives birth to all these qualities. There is a special music in the Greek text that I don’t hear in translations, but the meaning is always clear. Our life is to be a ray of the Holy Spirit, to be used by Him. It is not our own activity that is important but what He does through us.”
   “Prayer summarizes a longing. The problem is that so often we become ego-centered, lacking humility. Thus it is good to pray. ‘Oh Lord, deliver me from myself!’ – a cry of the heart. It is similar to the prayer, ‘Lord, I believe, please help my unbelief’.  Many times in my life there is no time for spontaneous prayers – only time to quickly go into what I call the ‘hut of prayer’ – very short prayers that I know by heart or to make a very simple request – ‘Show me how to love!’ Or, when you have to make a decision, ‘Lord, help me make the right estimation and come to the right judgement, to make the right action’. Then there is the very simple prayer, ‘Your will be done’.”
   “Often I pray, ‘Lord, illumine me so that I know your will, give me the humility to accept your will, and the strength to do your will’. I go back to these simple prayers again and again. Often it is necessary to pray for forgiveness”.
   “Many times the Psalms are my refuge. You realize that in the spontaneous arising of certain phrases from the Psalms you are hearing God speak to you. Perhaps you are reciting the psalm, ‘My soul, why are you so downcast…’ And then another phrase from the Psalms arises which is a response. It is an ancient Christian tradition that a bishop should know all the Psalms by heart. The Psalms provide a spiritual refuge. In each situation there is a psalm that can help you, in those critical moments when you have no place of retreat. Perhaps you remember the words, ‘Unless the Lord guards the house, they who guard it labor in vain’. You are reminded that your own efforts are not decisive.”
   “You also come to understand that your own suffering is a sharing in His suffering. It is a theme St. Paul sometimes writes about. You come to understand that the resurrection is not after the Cross but in the Cross. I know what it means to be a foreigner, to come from a suspected country. But this can be a blessing. It can help you to be more humble, to pray with more intensity, ‘Use me according to your will.’ Often in prayer we have no time to think what each word means. But prayer is not an analytical activity. It is in our intention, in our longing. You know you are far away from the ideal and you reach out in prayer. God does not need a detailed report about our efforts.  Sometimes the only prayer that is possible is the prayer of silence, silence and cries of the heart asking the Holy Spirit to visit us.”
   “I have a secret corner, a tiny chapel next to my apartment, a place for thinking, praying, appealing for strength, for overcoming frustration, so that I can try to understand God’s will, and then find the humility and strength to obey.”
   Archbishop Anastasios also spoke to me about “Theotokos spirituality”.
   “Theotokos simply means Mother of God or God-bearer. This is Mary, Christ’s mother. Think of her. She became the first and best disciple and sets the perfect example for anyone who is trying to follow her Divine Son. There are three main elements in her witness. She said to the archangel, ‘Be it done to me according to your word’. God’s will, not my own! She gives us this example and through it Christ enters our lives. She also said, ‘My soul magnifies the Lord’. We are asked to center our lives on the Lord, not ourselves. And she says, ‘Do whatever he tells you’. We learn from her another type of freedom – the freedom to be free of your own plans. We realize He becomes present in our lives, as he became present in hers, through obedience. It is the obedience of love, a gift of the Holy Spirit. In her silence, in her capacity to quietly consider events in her heart, we also learn much about prayer – face-to-face conversations with God in silence. Contemplating the Mother of God is a great help and is itself a form of prayer.”
   The day I left Albania, there was time for one last conversation with the archbishop before Father Luke Veronis took me to the airport. I reminded him that he had been reluctant at first to make his home in Albania. This made him laugh.
   “People look at the difficulties of life here-and say to me, ‘How can you stand it? It is so ugly!’ But for me it is so beautiful! It is God’s blessing to be here – not the blessing I imagined but the one I received.”
   “My origins are not with the humble people, but I learn from them to become more simple, more true, more honest, more ready to forgive and let go of past injuries. Humility is not an achievement but a development, a contiguous dynamism in our life. So often you meet here in Albania persons who absorb every word, every gesture. Their faces are like desert, so ready to absorb every single drop of rain. It is a surprising Providence to be sent to serve such people, people you never knew, never expected to meet, and yet who receive you with such confidence. Thank God I was sent to live among such people, to be helped by them.”
   “People sometimes ask me about my expectations, but I don’t know about the future! You can only do your job with humility. I am not the savior of Albania, only a candle in front of the icon of the Savior.”
  

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