George Vitkovic

George Vitkovic was a Serbian schemamonk, born in 1920, a disciple of the elder Joseph the Hesychast and a struggler at Old Rossikon on the Holy Mountain. He is venerated by the faithful, without a synodal canonization.

Constantly ill and in complete poverty, he kept his spiritual joy and greeted guests with the Paschal Christ is risen, saying that monks are children of the Resurrection and cannot live without Paschal joy. While in the world he studied at the St Sergius Theological Institute in Paris and was visited by such abundant grace that he left all and became a monk. On Athos he no longer felt it, and thought of returning to Paris. In 1959 he came to Elder Joseph, then living in the cell of the Annunciation at New Skete, and told him his trouble. The elder answered, slowly and with pauses so that George, who did not know Greek well, could understand, that grace had not left but now works as energy, not as sensation, to lead him to obedience and his own ascetic struggle; George then stayed in his brotherhood and no longer thought of France.

He settled in a small hut left by a monk of the brotherhood, also called Joseph, the Younger, later confessor of Vatopaidi. Father Joseph said there was much to learn from George: he had fiery zeal, strict attention to himself and carefully kept the monastic rule. Father Ephraim, now archimandrite in Arizona, recalled that the brethren loved him for his open character, ascetic spirit and obedience. He had unusual physical strength: he could carry three sacks of cement at once from the landing to the cell up a steep slope, and smiled out of great kindness.