“My son, tell me how you live?”
“Thank you, thank God!” – Replied the grandfather.
“Today is exactly a year since we received you here. Tomorrow your father will come and take you and I came to see what they could do to you and, with the hope of God, we will return you back to your parents.”
Indescribable joy flooded my grandfather’s soul. Again, he will be at home with his parents, with his brothers and sisters. Tears of joy flowed down his face.
“Do not cry, son. This is the will of God and God’s providence. They told me that the Spirit of God helped you to learn, read, write, add and subtract incredibly quickly”, – “the old Grace told him. But, son, let’s see if it was possible to expel the evil spirits from your body.”
And my grandfather is a child as a child. In fact, he did not even know why they left him in the church. He prayed with all his heart that evil spirits should leave his body, but He did not even fully know what it was. And now, happy to go home, he told the Bishop that he prayed every day and there are no more evil spirits in his body. Some inner feeling told him that these unknown evil spirits could spoil his departure home.
And then the lord asked:
“Can you tell us, do you see what is going to happen here with us and do you hear any of those present?”
Grandfather was delighted and at that moment thought: “Finally, I can tell him everything that I see and feel, but others have not allowed me to do this.”
And my grandfather began:
“I see, my Reverend Bishop, that soon these Turkish bandits will lose all power in our region. We will lose Shkoder (Shkodir, or Shkodra, Serb Skadar) is a city in Albania, located on the shore of Skadar Lake) and a lot of our land, and then the days will come when we will fight a lot. Death will be at every step and many innocent people will suffer”, – my grandfather said and for a moment he looked at the Grace, Reverend Mother, priests and sisters and on all faces he noticed an expression of surprise.
“He is possessed by demonic forces!” – Shouted the Bishop and began to be baptized.
After him the others began to be baptized.
“Do not be baptized, demonic force, you cannot deceive us!” – Again shouted the Grace to my grandfather, who, seeing that everyone was baptized, also began to be baptized.
When he realized that they were all opposed to him, grandfather was going to convince them with the words:
“Your Grace, by God I swear that sad what I saw.”
“Shut up, Satan!” – The Grace yelled again and began to show by his hands who and what should do.
The priests and all the others fled and began to follow orders. The bells rang. They lighted candles and ministers with censers began to illuminate the place where he stood. Two priests carried out a device and placed it in the middle of the yard. The sound of bells in the middle of the night foreshadowed the difficult moments that awaited my grandfather. Several priests approached the weak child, grabbed him on arms and put him in the same device.
“Your Grace, this device is for torture of adult people and his head and hands could be very easily pulled out,” – one of the priests explained to the Bishop.
“Knit his hands and head with chains and pass through holes so that I can punish him and, finally, drive out of his body all possible demonic forces,” – said the Bishop, crossing himself.
They quickly did as they were ordered, tied up my grandfather with chains and fixed him on this device. A prayer began and the bells stopped ringing. Grace began first and then all the others in the choir sang for him. In the end everything calmed down. Grace went to my grandfather. He took a stick with a thumb and a length of eighty centimeters from one priest and began to pray.
“O Lord our God, forgive your servant for all the sins that he consciously and unconsciously committed and help, the Lord, through your power, to expel all impure forces out of his body.”
My grandfather told me that he felt completely indifferent at that moment. He felt fear of the impending event. He could not understand it and see what would happen later on. From excitement nothing was revealed to him from his clairvoyance. He thought that the best was to give into the hands of fate. Then the branch of the hazel – tree whistled in the air and sank to its back. My grandfather squealed. Immediately it occurred to give the order the consciousness, which he trained to give with his grandfather and stop this torture. He tried, but there was a stronger blow and he yelped even harder. Then his grandfather’s words reached his consciousness: “If it happens sometime that you cannot influence the consciousness of the one who hurts you, then work on your own consciousness and it will eliminate the pain, no matter how strong it was.”
My grandfather executed a new order, but this time to himself. In a moment the pain stopped and no sound came from his mouth. Grace beat and beat him, but then stopped and ordered all to disperse. My grandfather was left for the night, covered with a blanket. Coming out from the strikes received, he first wanted to work on the master’s consciousness, so that he freed him and let him sleep inside, but then he remembered that his father would arrive in the morning and decided to spend the whole night there and show his father where and in whose hands he had left him. He did not know exactly when he fell asleep, but only when his own impact on consciousness ceased, he began to feel stronger and stronger the pain from the beatings received. Only a small puppy approached him five or six times during the period and licked him several times, thus showing that he had one real friend here. He decided to take it with him when he will go home. Then he was all clear. He realized that the demonic forces in his body, about which the Bishop spoke, in fact are his real strength, growing at each moment more and more. It seemed to him that this night he became a hundred times stronger.
A new day came at the monastery and everyone began to wake up. Morning Service began. Everyone prayed in the church and only my grandfather was in chains. The Morning Prayer ended and everyone went for breakfast. Only they finished breakfast, as a knock sounded at the gate of the monastery. My grandfather knew that his father had come. Everyone left the church and stood beside my grandfather. They waited for the arrival of the lord. Grandfather’s father stood as petrified. He looked from his grandfather to them all without saying a word.
The Grace comes out and slowly goes to my grandfather. When he approached, he turned to his great – grandfather:
“Brother Mitar, I must tell you that your child is possessed by demonic forces. We took him a year ago to our monastery, so that by fasting and prayers he reached purification, but all was in vain. Before all the servants of the monastery he blasphemed God and said such words and such visions that are available only to God’s prophets. When I tried to stop him, he swore by God’s name and again blasphemed God. As the Grace of this region and this monastery I took measures and began to cleanse his body with a rod that God sent from paradise to convert sinners and disobedient. Brother Mitar, I must tell you that I am obliged to repeat the cleansing that I used yesterday, because his body was cleansed twice and he cried out twice, and then the demonic forces protected him and he did not cry out even once, even though I hit him fifty times, and for forty strokes are allowed.”
Is it possible that they do not understand anything? Is it possible that this monster intends to beat me again? Will my father protect me? My grandfather told me that at that moment various thoughts appeared to him.
Great – grandfather stood and tears streamed down his face. Neither he nor any other of the common people dared to oppose the Grace. Then a huge fury began to boil in my grandfather: he would do what he learned from his grandfather! Everyone will hear a voice that no one speaks. And his father Mitar did not know about this ability, he thought that he owned only clairvoyance.
“Grace, Theodosius!” – Came out a voice that sounded like the old man’s whisper. “Grace, Theodosius!” – repeated the same voice again and all became