A gentle heart can calm even the wilderness.
(the Lord’s child)
Kyrikos
In the quiet paths of 20th-century Mount Athos, where the sea wind moves through pine like a whispered hymn, the monks remembered St. Paisios for a love that saw every creature as part of God’s great household. He believed the heart becomes whole only when it learns to embrace the world around it — people, animals, even the shy wanderers of the forest.
One evening, as he tended his small garden, a hungry bear pushed through the thicket — uncertain, thin, searching for food. Fear rose among the brothers, but St. Paisios stepped forward with that familiar gentleness that turned storms into stillness. He spoke softly, and the bear quieted. No growl. No charge. Just a bowed head, as though the wild itself recognized the peace in the saint’s voice.
From that day, the monks affectionately called the creature Kyrikos — the bear who understood holiness — returning now and then not as a threat, but as a living reminder of the elder’s teaching:
A gentle heart can calm even the wilderness.
