IOANNIS K.

KORNARAKIS

TARSO

Everybody thought she was a sick and mad woman

and not only that! Her words were never in vain.
Yet, her speech needed interpretation. You would
ask her one thing and she would answer another
making you think that her answer was irrelevant.
However, this was the real answer to what she was
asked and also to what she perceived from the past,
the present and even the future

The fool in Christ (1910 - 1989)

..: 1994

ISBN: 978-960-6677-10-6

IOANNIS K. KORNARAKIS

TARSO

The fool in Christ

(1910 - 1989)

ATHOS
PUBLICATIONS

CONTENTS
Preface of the second edition ............................................11
Preface of the first edition .................................................13
1. A part of the ascetic desert in the Attic land ............23
2. Tarso, the Fool in Christ .............................................29
3. The synaxarion of blessed Tarso ................................39
1. Her Life ..................................................................41
2. Her Ecclesiastic and Mystical Life .......................58
3. The Last Events of her Earthly Life.
Her Repose ............................................................75
4. After her Repose and before her Burial .............82
5. The Death of Tarsos Cell.....................................84
6. The Fragrance of Tarsos Relics ..........................87
7. Among the Saints ..................................................92
4. The meaning of being a fool in Christ .......................97
5. Blessed Tarsos ascetic character .............................121
6. The spiritual image of the foolishness in Christ
of blessed Tarso .........................................................147

Tarso, the fool in Christ!

7. The crossresurrectional life of blessed Tarso

in her baptismal outset ..............................................159
8. Blessed Tarsos special gifts ......................................167
1. The view of the garden of Paradise
in Gods Kingdom................................................169
2. The gifts of insight and foresight .......................177
3. The therapeutic healing ......................................201
4. Miraculous events in Tarsos charismatic
life .........................................................................207
9. Blessed Tarso, the apostle of evangelic
foolishness! .................................................................217
Photographic index ....................................................231

10

2.
TARSO, THE FOOL IN CHRIST

In 1971, at the peak of her ascetic struggles

30

arso, a fourteen-year old girl, was called by

the grace of the Holy Spirit to fight for the
salvation of her soul, like all men, since God
desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge
of the truth.5
God desires all men to be saved. That is why, with
the parable of those invited to supper, He places much
emphasis on this invitation by ordering his servants to
call the invited again and again and even force them
(compel them to come) so as to overcome the indifference and slothfulness of those who will show their
desire to come to the supper but do not.

5. Tim. 2:4.

31

Tarso, the fool in Christ!

Surely, God under no circumstances forces man to

be saved against his own will. He only saves those who
really want to be saved and show this desire when they
willingly struggle hard to live according to His saving
commandments. Saint Maximos the Confessor says
that the Holy Spirit prepares for deification6 those who
have undertaken this way of life.
*
Tarsos desire for her salvation, through her ascetic
life, at a certain charismatic period of her life, had been
the blessed opening of her soul for the entry of the Holy
Spirit and the theory which prepared her for deification. Thus, even in Tarsos case, the patristic saying that
our salvation depends on our will was confirmed.
It is true that even a good Christian, consciously in
the Church, may think that someone who has attained
spiritual perfection, for example, a truly holy man, is destined by God from his mothers womb to attain sanctification. Certainly, what scares such a Christian and leads
him to such thoughts is the holy mans achievements (in
relation to his own seeming weakness) and his almost
superhuman efforts to subject himself to a hard ascetic
life and an endless war against his passions.
6. C. Laga C. Steel, Maximi Confessoris Questiones ad Thalassium, CCSG7,
Turnhout Brepols 1980, p. 69, 21 and on (PG 90, 280-281 A).

32

Chapter 2. Tarso, the fool in Christ

In such a case, which concerns our defence for our

weakness to become saints, we invent the saving excuse of the sinful man, not for our repentance, but
to use it as justification for our inability to take up a
struggle to live an authentic spiritual life.
We are sinful! How can we compare ourselves
with the saints?
The blessed Tarso thought otherwise. She started
her ascetic life having decided her own death. When
she was not talking foolishly, she often used to say,
I was brought to this place by a hearse, right here
from underneath, and she pointed to the earth.
Thus, all her life was an endless self-stripping. She
was dead to the pleasures and pains of this world. And
it was this self-stripping of every human aspect of her
personal life that rightly made those who had met her
think, Truly! Who can reach Tarsos standards? She
is Gods chosen!
However, all men have been given the same charismatic call for their salvation since God is love, goodness
and righteousness. If He seems to have given more to
someone, by no means has He given less to another due
to His partiality, since God is without partiality.7
At this point, we face the problem of mans freedom
and his right to choose his own way of salvation, ie,
7. 1 Pet. 1:17.

33

Tarso, the fool in Christ!

his own measures of spiritual askesis8 in order for him

to use his own9 specific and personal gift10 for his own
salvation.
*
Referring to this topic, Saint Maximos the Confessor
comments, Due to the fact that mens temperaments,
dispositions and possibilities of salvation vary very greatly, God, being good, has shown many paths leading to
his kingdom to those who desire it. Thus, anyone who is
godly inspired, may choose the most suitable road (his
own measures) and so, through a life-long (conscious)
struggle, he ends up in Gods all glorious kingdom.11
With this in mind, Saint Maximos clarifies this even
more by saying that all men have received from God
their own talents of salvation, namely, their own measures of struggling effort, although they follow their
own personal road12 towards Gods kingdom. When
this is fulfilled, all people will have reached their own
measures of perfection in Jesus Christ. For this rea8. But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and
another in that (1 Cor. 7:7).
9. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of
all... (1 Cor. 12:7).
10. Comp. The parable of the talents (Matt. 25:14 and on).
11. Epistles, 12, PG 91, 504 D.
12. But as God has distributed to each one, as the Lord has called each
one, so let him walk (1 Cor. 7:17).

34

Chapter 2. Tarso, the fool in Christ

son, Saint Maximos words are very clear, Each one

who puts up a good fight according to his own measures,
when he reaches his own mansion in Gods kingdom, will
have already reached perfection, even though someone
else may be at a higher rank of spiritual stature (that is to
say, the outcome of his spiritual struggle).13
What are, then, our own measures? Do we know
them or do we not desire to know them, as we are burdened by our unconscious slothfulness?
In any case, through Gods grace, Tarso foresaw her
own measures and so chose her own way to Gods kingdom, the way of foolishness in Christ!
Quite naturally, her close relatives were unable to
perceive such a high objective which seemed unfitting
for such a well-educated and exceptionally beautiful
girl!
In such and similar cases, when a young person pursuits to follow the monastic life, the relatives easiest
and most persuasive reaction is their conviction that
the child has gone mad. Consequently, Tarso needs
psychiatric... help!
*

13. Each one in his own order, let him be perfect according to his own
mansion (Ad Thalassium, I., C. Laga C. Steel p. 85, 40 and on [PG
90, 289 A]) see 1 Cor. 15:23.

35

Tarso, the fool in Christ!

Those who are not acquainted with what foolishness

in Christ is all about, usually see only the peculiar exterior foolish behaviour and think.
The child has lost its common sense! It can not be!
She is not the person we knew. She has lost her mind!
Yet, a christian fool in Christ is in no way a fool or
mad! Neither is he stupid, a maniac nor insane! He is
more reasonable than the sensible ones; he is levelheaded!
A disciple, who left his elder to become a fool in
Christ without his elders blessing, was told by his charismatic elder from Mount Athos,
My child, to become a fool in Christ you must be
reasonable so as to have your reward. When you and I are
mad (i.e we have no brains), how can we become fools
since we are already so?14
Truly! The blessed Tarso was not crazy! She was
more sensible than many nuns of the Convent who believed her to be mad and showed contempt for her and
avoided her. She was a fool in Christ, with her entire
soul, body, heart and mind, devoted to her Saviour,
Christ, and faithful to the patristic saying, Let us wholly
give ourselves over to the Lord so that we may receive all
his help.15
14. Elder Cherubim Agiovasiliotis in Agyra Elpidos (Holy Mon. Ierapytnis and Sitias) 8 (2002), p. 33.
15. Maximi Confessoris, Ascetic Homily, PG 90, 958 B.

36

Chapter 2. Tarso, the fool in Christ

In this entire dedication to Christ, her mind was

constantly enlightened by Christs light as the psalmist
confirms, For you will light my lamp; The Lord my God
will enlighten my darkness.16

16. Ps. 18, 18:29.

37

Andreas, the fool in Christ, having warred bravely

against the demons, through his spiritual struggle, saw
the following dream one night, ...when the crowd of the
demons had vanished, ashamed and humiliated, there appeared this brilliant young man (the Lord) and presented
the blessed Andreas with the precious crowns and having
kissed him, He said, from this day forward you will be my
friend and my brother; continue your spiritual struggle
naked, become a fool for my sake and I will endow you
with many goods in my Kingdom.
(Life of Saint Andreas, the fool in Christ,
by presbyter Nikiforos of Constantinople, PG III 636 D)

Saint Andreas, the fool in Christ

38