The blessed elder remembered his labors in hard handicrafts, as well as the consolations of grace that delighted him. When she visited him, he said to himself with his characteristic youthful simplicity:

"Angels and Archangels, step aside, so that I may see the Lord – my Love!

From the sweetness of such thoughts he was all enveloped in flames.

In the first days of the elder's podvig, the spiritual podvig that he had begun, he was deprived of the patristic example and the instructions necessary for a novice. However, thanks to reading the lives of the Holy Fathers, the Elder received a fairly good preparation and overcame the first waves of thoughts and the excitement of battle, which happens when changing one's way of life. He skillfully resisted the violence of opposing passions. Deprived of spiritual help, which his simple elders could not give him, he repelled serious temptations, trampling the roads of Athos, reaching monasteries and cells, when he wore handicrafts or performed other necessary obediences.

Elder Ephraim of Katounaka Pure disposition, despite the lack of experience, is the cause of grace-filled Divine enlightenment. Speaking to us, the elder emphasized that Divine grace consoled and covered him only for his disposition to please God by fulfilling His will. And after a simple prayer caused by the circumstances, he received an immediate answer. "Lady of the world and our true Mother, will You allow me to fall into delusion and be exposed to danger, since I trust in You and pray to You?" Before the end of this little petition, an overshadowing from above and inexpressible joy descended upon him.

He himself told the following about this period of his life with the elders: "They were simpletons. Needlework, service and nothing more. When I arrived on the Holy Mountain, I was looking for something that I myself could not explain at first. You do needlework during the day, and spiritual work at night. But this did not give me completeness, did not satisfy me. I was looking for more, higher. Elder Nicephorus was good, but he could not teach me the path that he did not know, because he himself did not walk it."

There were more and more unanswered questions, especially after the spiritual states that he began to experience. Once, when his companion Father Procopius was reading the introductory psalm at vespers, the mind of Father Ephraim was captivated by the mountain, and he called all creation to the glorification of God. As soon as the psalm ended, he came to his senses again. Father Procopius pushed him to read "And now" in order to continue vespers with the reading of the kathisma of the Psalter.

Another time, when Elder Nicephorus was returning from Athens to the Holy Mountain, Father Ephraim saw the ship and the traveling elder with the clairvoyant eyes of his soul. He even read the name of the ship, the Semiramis.

But there were also higher fortunes. Divine grace raised him to heights that were difficult to reach for the eye, to other worlds. There he experienced the "ineffable." There was not a single human thought there. When he came to himself, he saw that he was in the same place where he had been, and he thought that on that day all his thoughts would perish (Psalm 145:4).31

But who could answer all his questions? Who could help him advance in the spiritual life?

"What I was looking for," said Father Ephraim, "I found in Elder Joseph. And so, when I met him, he said to me, "I was looking for you, and you were looking for me." The Elder gave me a rosary, a prayer: "Do not ascend to heaven alone! Just try it - you will immediately fall into delusion. And you must go to man: let him teach you how to avoid the wiles of the devil,32 teach you how to ascend to heaven. Elder Joseph was also taught. And Elder Kallinikos taught, and so did Father Daniel.33

Father and mother of the elder

At the age of 86, Mr. Yannis, the father of Elder Ephraim in the flesh, entered the brotherhood to become a monk. (This circumstance multiplied the elder's sorrows, because Father Nicephorus was also elderly, and it is known that old age usually has its own quirks.) For the rest of his life, Father Procopius was inseparable from the father of Elder Ephraim, who was tonsured Job.