An incredible miracle in Serbia (Part 11- last part)
11 Αυγούστου 2010
I confess my sins and take Holy Communion
A few days later, I travelled to the Zitsa monastery again to confess my sins and take Holy Communion. Earlier, I gave it a long thought as to which church I should go to, but I thought it was best to go where it all happened.
When I reached the monastery, I asked a nun to inform Bishop Basil that I wished to confess and take Holy Communion and felt the need to do it in his presence. I briefly described the experiences I had and that this was the reason I was asking the Bishop to see me. After a short wait, I was given permission to enter the Bishop’s office.
When I entered he had been waiting for me standing up: I bowed and said:
“May we have the Lord’s help”. He replied: “The Lord has helped you my child!” Then I kissed the Cross and his hand and said: “Your eminence, give me your blessing”. “May the Lord bless you, my child”, he replied.
He knew that I felt uneasy and with a calm voice he urged me to sit down. He asked me where I came from and I replied that I was born in Zakouta but that I was living to Kragouyievats since I was young.
On this he smiled politely and said: “You have been born in my province”. During our talk he asked me if I had a family, where I was working and towards the end of our acquaintance he urged me to describe everything that I had experienced to him without emotion. I gave an account of what had happened from the beginning to the end. As I was talking he was listening to me and looking at me carefully. From time to time he was crossing himself, was thanking the Lord for his mercy and his gift and was muttering quite stunned:
“Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy!” and “My Lord, great is Thy power, Thy mercy and Thy status”. When he heard everything, he told me that according to all these, my soul had been taken out of my body and that I had died temporarily while all these were happening.
“Let me now ask you if you are spiritually ready to confess”, the Bishop said to me. As soon as I confirmed this, he asked me to kiss the Cross and the icon and to kneel down. Then he took his stole, covered my head and said:
“Dousan, my son, you must now confess all your sins. You must not hide anything. I will listen to you, I will read the prayer of forgiveness and you will accept in you the Holy Communion, the Body and Blood of Christ and Christ will forgive you. Tell me about all the sins you have committed with deeds, with words, with your thoughts during your entire life up until this very moment. Do not be scared that I will tell anyone about them. Only the Lord and I who are taking your confession will know about them. We, who take the confession, have a duty to keep the secret”.
With these words I was completely liberated and gave a detailed and complete account of all of my sins. During my confession, I started crying and sighing; I was pleading to the Lord to forgive me and also to his Mother, since I was also swearing at her as I did to the Lord.
After I gave an account all of the sins that I knew about, the Bishop read the prayer of forgiveness on top of my head for a long time and many times he would ask me if I was repenting for all the sins that I had committed. From the bottom of my heart and through my tears I promised that I would keep myself away from every sin in the future. When he finished the prayer, he took off the stole from my head and I again kissed the Cross and the icon.
Then the Bishop anointed me with the Holy Chrism and began reading the prayer before the Holy Communion. I feel a different person, very different from the person I have been. When I had taken the Holy Communion, I felt indescribable joy and a lot lighter. What one goes through after a true and honest confession is impossible to describe. There is happiness, contentment, a feeling of being lighter; all these absorb and sweeten the soul. When I told him how I felt, he said to me:
“ Dousan, my son. This is a sign that the Lord has forgiven all of your sins. From now on, do not sin no more. What you have seen and heard is grand. I believe that nothing will persuade your heart to sin from now on and you are lucky”. Then I had accepted many counsels from him. He told me to remember death very often since whoever does this, commits fewer sins. He told me not to worry about the brief life which Saint Peter and Archangel Gabriel talked to me about, since they meant that life on earth is brief in comparison with eternal life. He pointed out that I may live another hundred years but I must pray to the Lord as if I am about to die tomorrow.
I am now completely happy that the Lord’ mercy has turned me back to the path of faith and that I am able to thank Him with the whole of my heart and soul for all His gifts, the reminders and the reprimands He directs at me in His Holy Providence!
I pray to the Lord that all those who learn about my spiritual rebirth be convinced as to its sincerity and that the path for the salvation of the soul is revealed to them, like it did to me.
Grace and peace from our Lord Jesus Christ be upon you! Amen!
EPILOGUE
When reading the blessed conclusion that this unique experience had for the Serb, war veteran, Dousan, I am amazed at how much God loves man! How much He cares about the lost drachma and the lost sheep! In my opinion, this love has no precedent, nor can it be compared to any other Love. It is beyond comparison. Look at what this love of the Lord devises so that no soul is lost! He even went as far as to show him Paradise and Hell in order to convince him to repent! So long as he repents! As the fathers of the Church say, we will stand without excuse in front of the Lord’s love.
Christ said once to his disciples: “You are witnesses to things, which Kings and Noble men and Prophets had been waiting to see for years and years and died without being able to see them”.
The same goes with us today. We are witnessing “events and miracles” and even secret and sealed mysteries of the other world being revealed to humble and sinners so that they are saved and that we return to the “path of salvation”. This love causes tears of emotion and of eternal gratitude to each one of us, just as it caused tears of repentance to Dousan, when he heard the cherubic hymn in the church: “We, who mystically represent the cherubim…”
It is reasonable that after all these, every Dousan (each one of us is a Dousan) will let out a cry like that which is found in the Gospel:” My Lord, I thank Thee for Thy love, to me a sinner. I thank Thee for such love only Thou can show. “I thank Thee that Thou hast hid these things from wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes”.( Luke 10,16-21) Like you have done to Dousan the sinner and to every Dousan….
The End
Source: John B. Soyia: “An incredible, modern Miracle: Alive in the other world”. 2010,
