Father John Kalaides, the Icon of the Holy Trinity, and How He Blessed and Did Miracles for People

Fr. John Kalaides leading the procession holding the miraculous icon of the Holy Trinity in Serres, 1977.

The daughter of our Holy Father John Kalaides, Theodora, wrote the following regarding her father in honor of the feast of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Trinity:
   
"My father's favorite icon was the icon of the Holy Trinity! He always had such an icon of the Holy Trinity in the pocket of his anteri [inner cassock].
 
There is a monastery in Toumpa of Serres, where for thirty years Father went by train and kept vigil in front of the icon and in the morning every time they gave him this miraculous icon to carry for the procession. He told me with tears in his eyes: 'My child, there are so many priests and they always give me, the least one, to hold the icon!" He was very happy with this honor that the Good God gave him. His whole life was a Pentecost!

A copy of the icon of the Holy Trinity that Fr. John would carry in his pocket.

Whenever people came to receive his blessing or to ask for help for something that was tormenting them, he would begin his prayer with: "Blessed are You O Christ our God..." [Apolytikion of Pentecost], and then say "O Theotokos and Virgin, Rejoice, you who are full of grace..." and then the Apolytikion of Saints Raphael, Nicholas and Irene. Then he prayed, crossing the forehead and hands of the approacher with oil from the vigil lamp, saying: 'For such and such good thing my Lord that this person does for me and for such and such good thing, grant my God what they ask!' He begged with tears in his eyes and broken voice from the pain of the other, without the people who came saying anything to him! He knew through Divine Grace the works and life of the one who came to him! This is how the miracles happened and the good God, through the intercessions of Father, gave them health or a child they asked for, before they told him, and he would do the sign of the cross over the tumor of cancer that they had not even told him about and the evil disappeared, and many children were born to childless couples! It was the joy of God to have him by your side, because he was a man of God, but also yours, who accepted you as you are and loved you and corrected you with his love and prayer! Send him my God to help us all now and our families!"

Fr. John Kalaides and Archimandrite Damianos Kiorpes

The abbot of the Monastery of the Holy Trinity in Toumpa of Serres, Archimandrite Damianos Kiorpes, had great reverence for the holy Father John Kalaides, whom he knew from his many visits to the Monastery. There he carried, as we mentioned earlier, the miraculous icon of the Holy Trinity in the processions that took place every year, on the feast the Holy Spirit.

Father Damianos wrote the following about Father John Kalaides in his own handwritten letter, upon request for the book written about him:

Fr. John Kalaides carrying the miraculous icon of the Holy Trinity in Serres in procession.

"The four-day celebration of the Sacred Monastery of the Holy Trinity attracts multitudes of pilgrims to its grace! Father John Kalaides, from the first years he was vicar in Neochori Sintikis, came with great reverence and great faith to venerate the miraculous icon of the Holy Trinity and to participate in the sacred services. I cannot forget his all-night struggle in the temple! He would not rest! All night long with his priestly stole on, and his well-known little Gospel, he chanted the Supplicatory Canon whenever groups of pilgrims wished him to do so! This continued throughout the night and in the morning he participated in the Hierarchical Divine Liturgy, and then in the procession he always carried the icon of the Holy Trinity in his hands!

His struggle, his humble attitude, his all-night toil, were for him his minimal offering to the Holy Trinity, for Whom he everywhere and always chanted Their praise from the depths of his soul!"

Sources 1, 2, 3: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.