Who Was Fr. Panteleimon? - Eulogy for Fr. Panteleimon’s 40th Day of Repose (June 2nd, 2025)

Who was, who is, Schema-Archimandrite Panteleimon, known for so long to so many as Fr. Seraphim? Although I spent over a decade at his side as his unworthy cell-attendant, I still do not fully comprehend who he was and who he is. I took him for granted. I did not truly know him.

Fr. Panteleimon confessed to our whole Brotherhood that he never truly knew who our heavenly patron, St. Panteleimon, was, despite being under his protection for 40 years. This came as a shock to me, and I think also to many others as well. Who loved St. Panteleimon more than him? Who prayed his Akathist daily for so many years like him? Who constantly lit candles before his icon and asked his intercessions for all those who confided their sorrows, struggles, sins, and shortcomings to him?

No one! How, despite all this, could he honestly confess that he never truly knew who St. Panteleimon was? The answer is that he never knew him as fully as he did in his last days. He explained to us that he always knew that our Church teaches that icons are windows into heaven, but that he never knew the meaning of these words until his last days—beginning in the hospital when he began to decline and had a newfound spiritual understanding of who St. Panteleimon is through the simple, worn, slightly tattered image of the saint on one of our many Akathist booklets.

Isn’t this how it always is? The holy miracle-working and myrrh-streaming icons of the Hawaiian Iveron Mother of God—who just graced us with her presence—and the Softener of Evil Hearts Mother of God, and many others like these, began as simple copied prints. There also exists a simple icon of St. Nicholas which was found in the “rejects” bin of a monastery icon production shop which someone was blessed to take, place a relic in, and ended up having the icon stream myrrh which smells exactly like that which pours forth from the very relics of St. Nicholas himself. The Mother of God is so humble! The Saints are so humble!

Fr. Panteleimon told us that it is not the gold and glitter that makes the icons, but the beautiful, well-crafted, and faithfully painted images of the Lord, His Mother, and the Saints which is of importance.

I endearingly remember him telling the whole Sweigart clan: “Sell everything you have—except your children!—and purchase the most beautiful icon of the All-Comely One, Our Lord Jesus Christ, His Mother, and your patron Saints.” At another time he explained that prayer is not complicated nor in need of many words. Simply stand—hours if you can—gazing at well-crafted and faithful icons of the Lord, His Mother, and the Saints, and you will learn everything. This is truly the Faith of the Church, which chants every year on the Feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, “let us cling to the Holy Icon of Christ, and we shall not go astray!”

Let us also follow this holy tradition which has so vividly been transmitted to us by our dearly beloved Fr. Panteleimon. But let me now return to him. Who was, who is, he? Many of us remember our many conversations over the years with him. We remember his hospitality, his self-sacrifice, his simple friendship, his love of flowers and plants, his tender-heartedness for little puppies and kittens—or, in the case of his cat, a very large one. We remember his simple piety, his down-to-earth wisdom, his cheerfulness, his prayers.

He was not an eloquent orator or theologian. But his words had power despite their simplicity. This power derived from his powerful and child-like faith in Christ and His Saints. He constantly exhorted us: “Keep your eyes fixed on Christ;” and, “Lazarus was four days dead, but Christ raised him from the dead—He can do the same for you!” These words seemed so simple and, sometimes—God save us!—too obvious to be helpful. But that was because we did not possess his simple faith.

I experienced many times, as I think many here also did, that the power of Fr. Panteleimon’s spiritual fatherhood resided not in eloquence, not in miracles, not in prophecy, but in the spiritual gift of pure, simple, whole-hearted, child-like faith, which poured forth powerful, encouraging, and comforting words. Yes, along with wisdom, knowledge, prophecy, miracle-working, and many other gifts, St. Paul reckons the gift of faith amongst these. Maybe we do not fully appreciate the simplicity of faith. Maybe we want more spiritual fireworks, more glamor, more show, more manifest signs. But let us not spurn the simple gift of faith which possesses its own wisdom, knowledge, and power.

Truly, I never knew who our dear Fr. Panteleimon was. Truly, I still do not fully comprehend who he was and is. But I am slowly learning. This is because he did not fully become who he truly was until his last months of earthly life; because he is still invisibly becoming who he is; because we individually need time to fully reflect on his life, words, and deeds which are stored up in our memory, mind, heart, and soul; and because we collectively need to share these with each other for mutual edification.

Fr. Panteleimon planted seeds throughout his life. He therefore reaped great spiritual fruit at the end of it. He gradually expanded his heart throughout his life. He therefore received a greatly manifest increase of his heart’s capacity at the end of it. He sought grace. He received grace.

Forgive my boldness. I remember when the remains of our founder, Fr. Kallistos, were transferred here. Some desired to open his coffin to see if he was incorrupt. I told Fr. Panteleimon. He said: “I knew Fr. Kallistos. He was a good and pious man. But I never considered him a Saint.” 

Forgive my boldness. If people asked me about Fr. Seraphim—if he had reposed several months prior to when he actually reposed—I would respond the same: He was a good and pious man, but I never considered him a Saint.

I’m still processing how I would exactly respond now, having seen the man he became in his final days. The most I can formulate is that in his final days his inner man was revealed to me more than I had ever known and there were graces there that I had never conceived of before. And I believe that all who shared my experience will attest to the same.

I remember visiting him the first time in the hospital after he was admitted and preliminarily diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumor. I was shocked, dismayed, and full of grief at the change I saw in a man I knew for 15 years. Physically and cognitively he had declined, and was declining, in just a matter of days. This was not the man I knew. It was sad.

But this was only a part of the story. Yes, this was indeed not the man I knew. Yes, I felt I was losing him very quickly. The outward man was perishing before my very eyes. But that was not all. St. Paul indeed expresses: “Though the outward man is perishing, the inward man is being renewed day by day.” Exactly! That is what I saw. That was my comfort!

While Fr. Panteleimon started to have vision loss, memory lapses, the inability to even stand, etc., he spiritually became more and more who he always was. Who was, who is, Fr. Panteleimon? Again, I ask.

He was a man of self-sacrifice. I asked him what his earliest memory was. He explained that it was about when he gave his favorite toy truck to a little boy because he saw that he liked it. He confessed that he remembered that later he regretted this and asked himself why he did it, missing his favorite truck. Nonetheless, he parted with it!

He was a man of piety. I asked him what an early significant memory which stood out in his mind was. He said that as a little boy—despite his family not being religious, spiritual, or even regular church-goers—he used to go to All Saints Catholic Church, almost every day. He would go there, sit, and simply enjoy the peace, quiet, and other-worldliness he felt there.

He was a pure soul from the beginning. He gradually became who he always was. His self-sacrifice was manifest to all his spiritual children. I remember that when I was a novice and later on, if I was having a spiritual crisis, he would spend his whole afternoon counseling and comforting me. I believe many others have experienced this too.

His piety was manifest to all of us. Like his patron, St. Seraphim, he was constantly lighting candles for everyone who asked his prayers. He loved the services so much that despite his physical inabilities, even until his last days, he still dreamed of serving the Divine Liturgy with his brothers.

His faith was child-like, pure, and simple. At the end of his days, he was tangibly transformed into an even more child-like, pure, and simple person. He expressed the same child-like joy both when I asked him if he wanted me to chant the supplicatory canon to the Theotokos and on another occasion when I simply told him that we indeed had ice cream for him in the freezer. His response to both was, “oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!”

Moreover, when the priests brought us Holy Communion to his cell, his exclamation was the same, “oh boy!” But, significantly, this time it was said with heartfelt tears of unworthiness, inexpressible gratitude, knowledge of God’s great mercy, and profound humility. He deeply wept whenever we sang the hymn “Thy Bridal Chamber,” confessing that he indeed had no wedding garment, but that he had tears, and that that counts for something.

These are the distinguishing characteristics of our dearly beloved Fr. Panteleimon. He was truly transfigured before our eyes. He became to an exponentially higher degree who he always was.

His child-like purity and lovability also affected our dearly beloved Metropolitan Nicholas. He was able to visit and tonsure Fr. Panteleimon to the Great Schema on Holy Monday. On the next day, he came to say farewell. Multiple times he tried to say goodbye. But Fr. Panteleimon kept expressing his gratitude and calling himself a little unworthy bug. In return, Vladyka kept endearingly kissing him on his sweet humble head. He had to rip himself away and say goodbye so he could catch his airplane.

Fr. Panteleimon’s pure faith became further purified until it became that of a grace-seeing child.

His humble gratitude to God’s mercy, and even to the slightest good work done unto him by others, truly incarnated what St. Paisios of Mt. Athos calls philotimo—that is, the insuppressible desire, born of gratitude even for the smallest good done to oneself, to try to pay back one’s benefactor with the greatest goodness possible.

His compunctionate reception of God’s mercy became a mighty flame of reciprocating love and a gentle ever-flowing stream of pure tears.

His compassion, forgiveness, mercy, and unconditional love were experienced by all who confessed to him, all who laid their sorrows out before him, all who made reconciliation with him, even until his last days.

Although he was dying, he did not focus on himself. Not a trace of self-pity was seen. Only an outward outpouring of himself was seen by us all. He fully became the tender encouraging father and the motherly heart of compassion we always knew.

He sought not consolation, but consoled us. He did not pray for the Lord to take this disease from him, but constantly prayed for us. I saw him seemingly sleeping one night but constantly mouthing certain words and making the sign of the Cross in the air, with both the relic of St. Panteleimon and his priestly hand, blessing some unknown (to me) recipients of his nightly intercessions. Maybe he was praying for you, maybe for me, maybe for both, maybe for many. I saw incarnate within this man the saying of Solomon beloved of the Fathers, “I sleep, but my heart is awake!”

I saw incarnate within him the words of St. Paul, “it is far better to depart and be with Christ, but for your sake I remain; I am torn between the two!” Indeed, he himself said, “You know, this world and this life are good and beautiful, but what can be better than to be with the All-Comely Lamb at His Heavenly Banquet Table?”

I saw incarnate within him the words of St. Maximus: “If you have any trace of hatred whatsoever for any man for any reason whatsoever, you are completely estranged from God, for God is Love.” He himself indeed said, “all malice, all unforgiveness, all hatred, all judgment, all lack of love must go; they must be absolutely banished from your heart!”

How?! How, dear Father, do we do this? He explained that we must become like little children in order to enter this eternal kingdom of God Who is Love. Pray unceasingly! This is the answer! The Lord says in today’s Gospel (John 14:27-15:7), very fittingly for our present commemoration and occasion: “Abide in Me…. Without Me you can do nothing!”

Do we believe these words? Do we take them to heart? Let us imitate the simple faith of our beloved Fr. Panteleimon. Let us constantly seek to acquire a child-like faith in Christ, His Most Pure Mother, and All the Saints, unceasingly calling out their names in simple prayer.

God does not hide our salvation from us. God desires all to be saved. God desires that you and I be saved! What a blessing! What a mercy! What a thought! What a reality! The Uncreated God Who has always existed and has created everything including angels and us out of nothing desires that we be ever transformed into participants of His uncreated life.

Fr. Panteleimon frankly told me that if ever I think that the Mother of God has forsaken me or if I doubt that she loves me because of my sinfulness, this is utter blasphemy. How much more is this true regarding her Son Who is God, Who became incarnate in order to deify us in His most blessed life, together with His Father and the All-Holy Spirit?

Forgive me for taking so long a time to offer a lack of worthy words to fittingly honor our beloved Father. But I am relieved that this burden does not fall to me alone. It falls upon all of us to remember him, his life, his words, his deeds, his heart, his soul, and his prayers, especially those of his last days. It falls upon all of us to recall them, to cherish them, to share them, to further engrave them upon our hearts, to embody them, to multiply them, and to build upon them, to the glory of God!

May we all do so through his prayers, together with those of the Most Pure Mother of God, St. Panteleimon, and all the Saints. Amen!