"The Great Watch". The cell notes of Hieromonk Jerome.
Once
he [the monk Paisius] came to me for confession and said: “Father! I
have a great desire to become a martyr, bless me to go to Thessaloniki
or to Smyrna to be tormented for Christ, I really want this, my heart
burns day and night, everything draws me to lay down my life for
Christ.” Hearing this from him, I was surprised and asked him: “Where
did such a strange thought come to you from? What is this for?” “So
that,” he answered, “Firstly, by these means I can sooner be saved, and
secondly, I will be forever in the rank of martyrs who are most
glorified in the Kingdom of God. That’s why I want to be a martyr.” I
told him a lot from the Scriptures regarding this; I tried to convince
him that every Christian, especially a monk, should be ready, if
necessary, to sacrifice his life for God, and this is Christian
selflessness. But we are forbidden to go into temptations without
permission, but, on the contrary, we are commanded to pray so that we
are not led into temptation. “And you,” I continued, “you needlessly
dare to do such a terrible thing. Your desire is correct, but bringing
it into practice is not God-pleasing and it is very dangerous for your
salvation because of the weakness of our nature. Remember the example of
Peter the Apostle, and besides him, there were many unfortunate
examples of people who dared for such a great thing without a high
calling and could not stand the torment and fell away from Christ. It
can easily happen to you.” But he was little convinced by my
exhortations. After our conversation with him, the thought of martyrdom
bothered him for more than a year, and he himself did not understand
that it was not the love of God that attracted him to martyrdom, but his
love for himself, in order to become famous and in order to surpass
others. And this idea was born in him from a misunderstanding of the
essence of selflessness. But, when I invited him to make sure by his own
experience in small and even insignificant matters of the difficulty of
selflessness, or of cutting off his own will, then he was quite
convinced that cutting off his will is a true torment.
