THE LIFE OF A HOLY ELDER NAMED CHRISTOPHER, A ROMAN
When we were in Alexandria, we visited Abba Theodoulos, who was at the Church of Saint Sophia, ‘holy wisdom', by the Lighthouse. He told us, “It was in the community of our saintly father Theodosios (which is in the wilderness of the city of Christ our God) that I renounced the world. There I met a great elder named Christopher, a Roman by race. One day I prostrated myself before him and said: ‘Of your charity, abba, tell me how you have spent your life from youth up.’ As I persisted in my request and because he knew I was making it for the benefit of my soul, he told me:
“When I renounced the world, child, I was full of ardor for the monastic way of life. By day I would carefully observe the rule of prayer; and at night I would go to pray in the cave where the saintly Theodosios and the other holy fathers were buried. As I went down into the cave, I would make a hundred prostrations to God at each step; there were eighteen steps. Having gone down all the steps, I would stay there until they struck the wooden signal for matins, at which time I would come back up for the regular office.
After ten years spent in that way, with fastings, continence, and physical labor, one night I came as usual to go down into the cave. After I had performed my prostrations on each step, as I was about to set foot on the floor of the cave, I fell into a trance. I saw the entire floor of the cave covered with lamps, some of which were lit and some were not. I also saw two men, wearing mantles and clothed in white, who tended those lamps. I asked them why they had set those lamps out in such a way that we could not go down and pray. They replied: ‘These are the lamps of the fathers.’ I spoke to them again: “Why are some of them lit while others are not?” Again, they answered me: ‘Those who wished to do so lit their own lamps.’
Then I said to them: ‘Of your charity, tell me: is my lamp lit or not?’ ‘Pray,’ they said, ‘and we will light it.’ ‘Pray? I immediately retorted, ‘and what have I been doing until now?’ With these words, I returned to my senses and, when I turned around, there was not a person to be seen. Then I said to myself: ‘Christopher, if you want to be saved, then greater effort is required.’
At dawn, I left the monastery and went to Mount Sinai. I had nothing with me but the clothes I stood up in. After I had spent fifty years of monastic endeavor there, a voice came to me saying: ‘Christopher, Christopher, go back to your community in which you fought the good fight, so that you may die with your fathers.’ And a little while after he told me this, his holy soul went joyfully to rest in the Lord.
Again, the same Abba Theodoulos told us about this Abba Christopher. According to him, the elder said: ‘One day I went up from the monastery to the Holy City to venerate the Holy Cross. After I had performed my devotions, as I was coming out of the ante-chamber of the Holy Cross, I saw a brother standing at the door, neither going in nor coming out. I also saw two ugly crows flying in his face and brushing their wings against his eyes, effectively preventing him from entering the shrine. Knowing them to be demons, I said to him: “Tell me, brother, why do you hesitate in the doorway itself and not go in?” He said: “Forgive me, abba; I have conflicting emotions, sir. One urges me to enter and to venerate the honorable Cross, but the other says: ‘No; make an excuse and make your devotions some other time.’”
When I heard this, I took him by the hand and led him into the shrine; the crows immediately fled from him. I got him to venerate the Holy Cross and the Holy Sepulchre of Christ our God, then I dismissed him in peace. The elder told me these things because he could see that I was much distracted by my duties and he perceived that I was neglecting my prayers.