Visit to the Holy Unmercenaries Residential Care Home for Adults with Special Needs, December 2025

“...their Angels do always behold the face of

My Father Which is in Heaven....”

Tuesday, December 10, 2025 (Old Style)

On Tuesday, December 10, 2025  (Old Style), with the blessing and participation of His Eminence, Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Phyle, a second visit was made, by the Grace of God, to the Holy Unmercenaries Residential Care Home for Adults with Special Needs in Pallini, a suburb of Athens.

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Having accepted our Metropolis’ request to visit the facility, the Board of Directors welcomed our Most Reverend Shepherd and a group of twenty people, who were granted the blessing of venerating our Coming Christ in the persons of the “least brethren” residing there.

The Director and the Social Worker received the “pilgrims” and guided them into the reception hall, where the caregivers and residents awaited them.

The non-profit Association of Parents and Guardians of People with Mental Retardation was founded in 1983 by a nucleus of thirty-eight families united by a common concern for the future of their children with severe mental retardation: where would they live; who would care for them when their relatives were no longer present; what influence could they have over their living conditions? These concerns moved the families to take the initiative to establish their own residential care facility where their children would have a permanent home with the best possible security and care, in a dignified and humane environment. After many hard and persistent efforts, they achieved their goal.

The Care Home began operating on September 1, 1997. Its operating permit designates it as a home for disabled persons with an IQ lower than 30. 

Today, forty-three residents live there, the eldest being seventy-six years old. The Board of Directors is made up of the residents’ relatives and remains committed to ensuring the highest standard of care.

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Our "least brethren," together with their loving caregivers and the visitors, then enjoyed Christmas

carols and other traditional songs for the season, sung with heartfelt enthusiasm and accompanied on the lyre by young members of our “Hellenic Orthodox Heritage” choir, under the direction of Hieromonk Dionysios Agiokyprianites.

Once again, it was evident on the faces and in the movements of our least brethren how gladdening and beneficial our presence and our companionship are, as well as the songs and the instrumental melodies. It was, of course, also a breath of refreshment for the heroic caregivers, some of whom even “joined in the dance” with residents and visitors…

This second visit concluded with our Most Reverend Shepherd’s expression of thanks to our Lord for this experience, together with a promise of a return visit and the distribution of gifts and greetings to those present.

The gracious hosts had also prepared refreshments for the visitors and small gifts for the carolers.

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May our prayers accompany both our brethren with disabilities and their self-sacrificing attendants, whose patience and smiles put our self-love and impatience to shame.

And may we recognize, in the faces of our least brethren, the Great Visitor, the One Who comes in utmost humility to minister to the salvation of us who are spiritually disabled.

The pilgrims returned to their homes with feelings of gratitude for this renewed experience, during which they were granted to sense that, within the love of God, we are all children, and that in the company of the Angels the “last” are first.