Man of God

For an Eastern Orthodox Christian, who knows Saint Nectarios from the incessant testimonies of miracles he still provides nowadays, or biographical books translated into many different languages, or children's comic books, or the overwhelming number of testimonies on the Internet about the miraculous actions of the Saint in the people’s lives… …The release of Man of God raises the question: who is this film for? But after watching it, the answer seems obvious: to everyone! - for those of us who know that all the events related by the film are real, historically accurate - so much so that one can regret that other significant events (of his childhood for example) are not remembered here… - for those of us who have just heard the November 9 chants commemorating Saint Nectarios, and have never really tried to distinguish him from the myriad of contemporary saints who are celebrated in the name of God throughout the year… - for those of us who have never heard of this contemporary saint, only discovering through the Internet that thousands and thousands of pilgrims visit his tomb, located in the monastery he founded in Aegina, where they receive many blessings… - for those of us who only went to the movies for the cheap "Spring Movie" tickets and discovered the tremendous dimension of patience and kindness of a man and wondered how such a man could exist in our times… - for those of us who appreciated that in the age of biopics and hit series, a female director put so much dedication into offering a delicate poetic tribute to the Saint, which erased the sometimes-awkward filming with the universal language of the heart… Because that's where the film rings true: in its remarkably delicate approach - the only way to faithfully render the intimacy of a monument among saints like Saint Nectarios. And even if my friend Thomas does not want to comment on the film before, he leaves next month for Aegina for the Easter holidays, all my French friends were happy that such a film could be seen in France too, because it paves the way for distribution of this kind of films outside the Easter Orthodox countries. And, even though some of my Eastern Orthodox friends think that the joy of living in Christ has not been fully expressed, they were happy to be able to show their Western friends the eternal existence of holiness in the Eastern Orthodox Church.