I have been with Axia for five years, since the beginning, and this year has truly been a monumental year of firsts. We received a capacity-building grant from Leadership Education at Duke Divinity that has already started allowing us to scale up with staff in a small but significant way so that we can expand our reach. We held our first in-person retreat, Healing Beauty, and we witnessed the power of bringing women together, even for just one day, to pray, walk and learn together. Even better, in August 2024, I was lucky enough to be the lead from Axia for our first effort to go on pilgrimage together. At the Athens airport, twelve Orthodox Christian women from all over the world embraced each other and started their journey towards strengthening faith, fostering sisterhood and celebrating, worshiping and drawing closer to a newly canonized and relatively little-known saint: Mother Gavrilia!
Renewal came easy with the blue seas of the Aegean as our backdrop and the smell of rich coffee greeting us each morning. Poustinia Pilgrimage's founder, Jennifer Rich, shared writings of Saint Gavrilia and Metropolitan Kallistos Ware. You won’t be surprised to hear that this led us to heartful discussions and thoughtful community prayer. Every day we also enjoyed a delicious Mediterranean lunch before setting out on different adventures.
Patmos is home to at least three ancient monasteries where we visited and met nuns who kindly shared stories of their monastic life, giving us a glimpse of the selflessness of these holy women. I was honored to lead a contemplative walk down the footpaths to St John’s cave to prepare us for the weightiness of the morning services and forgiveness that comes from Holy Communion. We energized our bodies after those dusty trails by swimming in the glistening Aegean sea. In the afternoon, we centered our thoughts by hand-making paper and assembling the resulting pages into prayer journals. I found that community Orthodox living transcends the routines of secular life, allowing us to open up and feel unconditional love and support.
All these shared moments prepared us for our longest excursion: a visit to the final resting place of St. Gavrilia. During our penultimate morning gathering, we prayed for her intercessions and wrapped ourselves in her words. Here are some of them:
“Where you go, what you do, how you live, whether you help others, is of less significance. Only one thing is important: the Quality and Quantity of the love you give to all - to all, without discrimination.”
“Little, simple things are of great value.”
“We must love people and accept them in our hearts as God presents them to us.”
And with these words, we jammed ourselves into a series of taxis and headed to the port. Even though we were headed to a place of healing and inspiration, while we waited for our ferry, we found ourselves in a crowd of smokers, people shouting, and fellow travelers heaving huge bags around. I realized we were entering a different realm. We were leaving our newly formed routines and comforts to embark on what I had assumed would be a quick, simple, easy round trip to the peaceful tiny island of Leros… says the American who doesn’t speak Greek and is new to Greek culture!
We knew the church on Leros–an hour’s sail from Patmos– would only be open from 3-5pm. Ferries between the two islands run only once a day, late in the afternoon. No matter what, we were going to be tight on time to get to that church. And we would have no second chance as this was nearly the end of the trip–which was centered on St. Gavrilia. My heartrate continued to escalate as I was afraid that, despite assurances, the church would be unexpectedly closed or not true to its already limited hours. Other thoughts crowded my mind…How would the Greek afternoon ‘siesta’ impact our timing? Would the cabs we had reserved be there to get us up to the church? Would such a small island even be home to enough cabs to shepherd us there? I was afraid we would have made so much effort only to come up empty. How would I console my fellow pilgrims? I took some deep breaths and made the sign of the cross. Then I remembered … part of the process of making a pilgrimage is pushing through discomfort and anxiety. Pilgrimage is supposed to be hard. Struggling to get to a sacred place is part of the process! It magnifies the reward.
Our cabs arrived late but I was relieved that they arrived at all. But as we drew close to the church where St Gavrilia lies, I freaked out on seeing the very steep and formidable path we all would have to walk to gain entrance. The Church of the Panagia of Castle, where St. Gavrilia’s relics lie, sits on top of a mountain at the end of a long, winding, uneven stone staircase! My first thought: You have got to be kidding! Can all twelve of us make it? It’s a stony path: will someone twist an ankle or have an asthma attack? I suddenly felt exhausted from the day, I was carrying liters of water and sugar gummies for dehydration, and the sun was beating down. I thought: how can this be worth it?
But this is where the magic happens. What seemed very difficult became something of a collaborative effort. We made it to the top because each of us pilgrims found ourselves helping one another. We waited, we took breaks, we held each other’s arms, and slowly and contemplatively put one foot in front of the other. I suddenly realized we had no need to rush. St. Gavrilia is known to wait for everyone. Everyone slowed down and I got the sense that we each somehow entered a quiet place in our hearts. The ascent suddenly took on the visceral feel of walking into the clouds, into someplace expansive and rare. We found ourselves walking with reverence, respect, focus and silence. I could feel that the experience created a bond that is hard to express. The unexpected challenge of climbing that steep staircase allowed each of us to go deeper into the present moment, as we assembled at the doors of her church.
The church itself was small, dark, unassuming, and quiet. We didn’t see her immediately. We had to walk through the Church and into an annex, where we found her tucked into a corner (reminding me of my favorite of her quotes: “Beware of fame. God does not want it.”).
Candles illuminated our movements as we walked softly toward her glass-topped coffin.
I suddenly felt St. Gavrilia’s spirit pouring into each of us. I felt like we had somehow landed on a really soft pillow. I felt like I could relax into her graciousness. We had read all about her no-nonsense ways–challenging the close-minded and setting high expectations for those who doubt themselves–and now I suddenly felt like the reality of her personhood came clear to me in that moment. I could see the exhilaration in some of my fellow pilgrims’ faces, I could see tears. I could see how touched they were by the experience of being in her presence.
But that’s not all. As we were about to leave, a woman introduced herself as one of St. Gavrilia’s friends. I stopped in my tracks! This was a person who had actually had the privilege of knowing a saint, being the friend of a SAINT? What a gift! She knelt down alongside the coffin. Then she shared the story of her personal struggle she had been going through when she first met St. Gavrilia. She added nuance to our understanding of the saint’s unending kindness. She told us how she would open her door to you if you just rang her doorbell, as if she was expecting you. She told us about the cookies and tea she would put out during your time in her small living room. She would never rush you if you were seeking solace or guidance. She would also never give up on you either. She made time to heal, whether through touch (she was a podiatrist and so tended to her patients’ feet) or by being a steady listening presence. She emanated love and lived out her own saying, “Love is a bomb that shatters all evil.”
That long, tall staircase was no longer a problem. We nearly skipped down back to the taxis and made our way to a lovely taverna for dinner out in the center of the main square, where music and dancing mirrored our feelings. We sailed back to Patmos late that night under moonlit skies.
The next day would be our last, and we caught the ferry back to Athens. I felt like we had all been awed by that trek to Leros. Everyone seemed a bit sad to be leaving a place where it was so easy to experience Christ’s love through St. Gavrilia. We left as a sisterhood, made holy by our connections to each other and our connection to this new saint who is always waiting for us. I promise you she is waiting for you, too, whether you meet her at that church near Patmos, or in prayer in your own home.
Jen Nahas is Axia's Treasurer Secretary, a founding Board Member and REI guide certified in both spiritual accompaniment and outdoor meditative walks, Jen’s adventurers all prepared her for the Camino de Santiago, one of the many pilgrimages she has sauntered.