Mary Kontogianni Ioannidou, the program producer for the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (maybe not currently), relates about her relationship with Elder Porphyrios:
Even if you have read nothing about God, in knowing such a man, you are assured not only that God exists but also that Christ is the only truth, “yesterday, today and forever.” Elder Porphyrios’ humility was something inconceivable in human terms, it allowed his spiritual children, to worry him and to grieve him. This happened without his love being diminished in the least.
He was always smiling, even when he reprimanded you. He had the smile of a child of the Kingdom of God. He had that childlikness which you only encounter in infants, together with a total purity that made him appear so transparent, like a very clear pool, in which you could see the reflection of our fallenness and our human plight.
I met him for the first time in 1981. I had heard a lot about him from my friends in Athens. As I entered his little hut, as we called it, I saw him lying on his bed with his eyes closed. I approached him. I knelt next to his bed. I kissed his hand, and he blessed me. I had prepared myself to talk to him about a whole host of problems that concerned me.
When he spoke to me, in spite of the fact that he was sick and very tired at that time, I understood it was not necessary for me to tell him anything. He already knew everything: what I thought, what I felt, what was happening in my soul, who I was, what I was, and how I wanted to be. From that moment, I became conscious of the fact that my life could no longer be the same…. because it had henceforth, through Elder Porphyrios, acquired a direct and personal experience of what God is. Going outside, even though our first encounter was only for a few minutes, I was filled with joy, delight, and feeling of praise for the Most High.
A few days later I met him again, for a lot longer this time. Returning to Cyprus, I said to my parents, “That man loves me much more than even you, my own parents. Now I understand how much God loves us all.”
He accepted you and loved you whoever you were, as you were. In his presence, even the greatest sin took on other dimensions. You were not shaken up. You were not overcome with despair and desperation. You only grieved because you had done one thing or the other because you did not put God’s word into action.
When you fell, he not only disallowed your despondency, but on the contrary, he helped you get up again, using it as a buttress for a new start, for a new spiritual conquest. Then he would show even greater love, even greater acceptance. He would take your hand into his and he began to teach you how to walk on God’s pathway.
Each person who met Elder Porphyrios, even if it was only once, could fill up whole pages with his personal experiences and feelings. Much more if he were able to publish the talks that he had with him on strictly personal issues.
Ref: Elder Porphyrios Testimonies and Experiences (Klitos Joannidis)
The Art of Orthodoxy 