“The elder’s overflowing love also embraced wildlife. The animals felt it and they would approach him and eat out of his hand. He said, “I’ll say to Christ, ‘Christ have mercy on me a brute.’ But he will ask me, ‘Did you have mercy on the brutes, the animals?’ What will I have to say?” In fact he did have mercy on them and he loved them as creatures of God. “These poor things don’t have another paradise to look forward to.””
Elder Paisios
~Elder Paisios of Mount Athos