Canonization from Below: Two Lives of the Matrona of Moscow. Antichrist: the last interview of Zinaida Zhdanova Zinaida Zhdanova life and miracles of the blessed
You are holding a book in your hands The Life and Miracles of the Blessed Elder Matrona", compiled by Zinaida Vladimirovna Zhdanova, in whose family the blessed old woman Matrona lived for a long time. This book is a living testimony of the ascetic life of a particularly revered Moscow saint, whose relics have been resting since 1998 in the monastery revived in the mid-nineties of the last century in honor of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos .
A native of the Tula province, deprived of the ability to see from birth, she possessed a fertile spiritual vision, the gift of clairvoyance. In the difficult years of the theomachic oppression for the Church, Matronushka became a national...
You are holding in your hands the book "The Life and Miracles of the Blessed Old Woman Matrona", compiled by Zinaida Vladimirovna Zhdanova, in whose family the blessed old woman Matrona lived for a long time. This book is a living testimony of the ascetic life of the especially revered Moscow saint, whose relics have rested since 1998 in the monastery in honor of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos, revived in the mid-nineties of the last century.
This monastery, which has again become a place of monastic deeds, a place of prayer, is especially dear to the believing heart because on May 2, 1999, with a large gathering of people, the rite of canonization of the blessed old woman Matrona, an ascetic of piety of the 20th century, took place within its walls. special light the blessed Lady of Christ shines among the great host of Russian saints who stand before the Throne of God.
A native of the Tula province, deprived of the ability to see from birth, she possessed a fertile spiritual vision, the gift of clairvoyance. In the difficult years of the theomachic oppression for the Church, Matronushka became a universal comforter, people went to her, seeking solutions to vital issues, consolation in sorrows, learning from her humility, patience and active Christian love.
In 1925 she moved to Moscow, where she lived until the end of her days. In this vast metropolitan city there were many unfortunate, lost, backslidden, spiritually sick people. Living here for about three decades, the blessed one performed that spiritual and prayer service, which averted many from death and led to salvation. She loved Moscow very much, she said that "this is a holy city, the heart of Russia." And today the stream of people flowing to the Intercession Convent does not dry out, with faith bringing their aspirations and prayers to the relics of the blessed old woman.
I hope that these reliable memories of the blessed old woman Matrona will help you in our difficult time to be filled with the spirit of faith and piety, in order to follow the path of spiritual salvation with Christian dignity. The life of the blessed old woman Matrona, filled with suffering and deprivation, spiritually makes her related to the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, whose contemporary she was. Let us place firm hope and hope in the intercession of the Queen of Heaven, to whose all-glorious Protection this monastery is dedicated.
The unquenchable light of the lamp in the Church of the Intercession in front of the shrine with the honest relics of the holy righteous blessed Matrona of Moscow kindles in our hearts the fire of the true faith of Christ.
“Among the pseudo-church books that should be labeled “Burn before reading,” and from which both the Orthodox people and the memory of the very ascetics to whom these books are dedicated, the most popular book “The Tale of the Life of the Blessed Elder Matrona” occupies the first place. ".
Review of the book "The Tale of the Life of the Blessed Elder Matrona"
“Among the pseudo-church books that should be labeled “Burn before reading,” and from which both the Orthodox people and the memory of the very ascetics to whom these books are dedicated, the most popular book “The Tale of the Life of the Blessed Elder Matrona” occupies the first place. ". The circulation is 100,000. From the pages of this book, the ascetic, who, in the opinion of the Synodal Commission for the Canonization of Saints, is worthy of glorification and veneration as a locally revered saint, appears rather as a sorceress. It is the distribution of this kind of books that blasphemes the memory of the saints, and not the criticism of this kind of apocrypha.
The book is successful, reading it, and you hear genuine colloquial intonations, grandmother's gossip. As a source of ethnography, according to folk beliefs, it is valuable and irreplaceable. But I am afraid that it was not published for ethnographers. And it reads more like an introduction to the world of Orthodoxy. But the Orthodoxy that emerges from the pages of this book is very strange. For the whole book of 126 pages, not a single quotation from the Gospel. Only on the last page is one saying of the Apostle Paul, and this is the only place in the entire Bible that was remembered by the compilers and narrators.
Even the name of Christ is practically absent in this book. Everyone associates their hopes and beliefs only with Matronushka. “When I die, go to my grave, I will always be there, do not look for anyone else. Do not look for anyone, otherwise you will be deceived. “Seeing all this, I once said: “Mother, it’s a pity that none of the people will know what miracles you work with God,” and she answered me: “How can they not find out? They will find out. You will write ... Cling everything and everything to my heel, and you will be saved, and do not tear yourself away from me, hold on tight ”“ And now I see a dream: I stand and watch my mother put on a general’s uniform, tsarist times, with aiguillettes, a striped ribbon through shoulder, and attaches many badges to his chest, and I ask: “Mother, what is this?” She replies: "These are regalia - my merits before God." I ask: “Where do you dress like that?” And she is dissatisfied: “Where to where? .. To the very God of Hosts to bow.”
I do not remember such an intonation in any of the saints of antiquity. No one called himself a "pillar of Russia." No one talked about their "merits", no one considered himself the last righteous person on earth. The Optina elder Macarius considered a person’s opinion about himself to be the criterion of his righteousness: “From this alone, that the stranger tells you: “Grace began to multiply in your house” (and you write that you don’t see or understand anything special), and threatens, saying that “if you don’t receive him, then don’t worry that he won’t walk,” and he also says that “the whole city is supported by his prayers,” one cannot believe his holiness; nowhere do we see in the lives of the saints or the righteous preaching about themselves like that, but on the contrary, they consider themselves dust and ashes and unworthy, and the grace of God acted through them.
But not only for this reason, a book with such maxims should be withdrawn from the Orthodox book trade. In essence, the view of the Matrona that is expressed in this book is not Orthodox. This is, rather, a biography of some magical healer and clairvoyant like Vanga, but not a Christian.
The religious life of the characters in this book revolves mainly around the "evil eye" and "damage". "They came to my mother different people, including the dark ones, after which she got sick, wilted and said: for the fight against them, she pays with illnesses. She told me that she became sedentary in this way: she was walking in the church after Communion and knew that a woman would come up to her and take away her walking. And so it was." “Mother said: “There are imaginary diseases, they are sent. God forbid picking up any of the things or money on the street. “During the days of demonstrations, Mother asked to close windows, vents, doors. Hordes of demons occupied all space, all air and embraced all people. It turns out window glass can stop demons. Live under a glass jar and you'll be saved... But don't rely on it. As warned Reverend Anthony Great: “If the demons were surrounded by the same bodies as we are, then they could say: we don’t find people hiding, they say, but we will harm those found. Then we could take cover and hide from them by locking the doors. But they are not; they can also enter locked doors” (St. Athanasius the Great, Life of Anthony, 28).
So what are these "sent diseases", what are these "evil eyes" and "damage"?
Since these words are not found in theological dictionaries and encyclopedias, as well as in serious theological works, they need special explanation. If these words did not come from the church language, then where did they come from? From paganism, from populism, from folklore. From the world of gossip and legends, whisperings and fairy tales, now, during the general interest in magic, they penetrate into the world of books.
Since we learn nothing about "corruption" from books on theology and the history of church thought, we must turn to historians who have studied folk beliefs. N. Kostomarov writes about this popular belief in the following way: “Under the name of damage, in a broad sense, it generally meant harm to human health from malevolence or malevolence with the participation of evil spirits; but in a narrow sense, these primarily included those nervous diseases that, with the suddenness and exceptional horror of seizures, shake the imagination, tuned to mysterious interpretations ... Corruption was communicated through various objects, by means of wind and the removal of a trace. In the same way, the sorcerers sent their malevolence through the sweep of various things that the one to whom the evil intention was addressed could accidentally touch. They not only believed, but even avoided doubting that the causes of such phenomena should be sought exclusively in the influence of evil spirits, and not in ordinary nature. Very often there were raging and hysterics. They are called hysterics because they clicked on someone, that is, they indicated that such and such spoiled them. The most gloomy and at the same time the most intricate stories circulated orally and in writing about such demoniacs. In one of the collections of the XVII century. There is a story about a priestly daughter who, on the first night of her marriage, was subjected to the power of demons, because her husband carelessly went out, leaving the door open and unshadowed by the sign of the cross. The demons dragged her to the swamp, tormented and tormented her. She became pregnant and gave birth to monsters, like snakes that sucked her until she bled ... The appearance of hysterics in cities was a true punishment for the whole society; their instructions were often taken and prosecuted. At one clique of a possessed woman, they took the person accused by her and subjected them to torture; sometimes feigned hysterics served as a tool for greedy governors and clerks; the latter deliberately incited them to accuse the rich masters in order to find fault and rob the latter later. And if someone, maddened by the sufferings of torture, tells himself that he is really a sorcerer, he was burned in a log house. Meanwhile, the government, having received news of the spread of corruption and the appearance of hysterics in some region, sent messenger detectives there to find and bring out sorcerers and sorcerers; universal evil doubled. Often an ordinary illness of a person served as the beginning of a case of witchcraft. A sick imagination looked for the causes of the disease and immediately attacked the idea that the disease comes from the adversary. The dryness of the heart languishes, I don’t feel like eating or drinking, the white light is not nice - it’s true, they let it in, maybe from under the wind or from a trace, or maybe they gave a potion of a feline poison that the enchantress collected on the night of Kupala. The family thought of who could cause trouble. They had the right to point to the sorcerer and ask for an investigation; but you only need to be suspected of witchcraft - it is not far from torture. The most insignificant fact, if it could not be explained, is sufficient to accuse a person of witchcraft ... During the war, they were afraid that foreign sovereigns would not send sorceresses to spoil the sovereign's family. The fear that dashing people would not cause damage to the king and the royal family had no boundaries. As soon as the empress or one of the royal children happened to fall ill, they now suspected that they had been spoiled, jinxed or thinned out on them. If any dispute arose between spouses in the domestic royal life, they looked for reasons for this in witchcraft and corruption. The illness of the royal baby was attributed to the evil eye and corruption.
“In the old days, not a single case could do without accusations of sorcery,” writes A. Afanasiev, a researcher of Russian folklore. “And until now (Afanasiev’s works were published in the 1860s), the common people think that all the crippled, the weak and the sick are mutilated by sorcerers and evil spirits; any bodily suffering and any anxious feeling are attributed to the corruption of “unkind people”, their envious thoughts, slander and evil eye and are called pretense of longing; nervous diseases - hysteria, hiccups and epilepsy, as well as hernia, dryness and stabbing are recognized by the villagers for the action of evil spirits sent to a person for a period or forever by a vengeful sorcerer. The patients themselves, sharing the same conviction, cry out during their attacks the names of their enemies, suspected of sending the disease, and accuse them of this imaginary crime.
And even the direct opposition of church preachers to this belief was interpreted in its favor. So when in XIX century the priest tried to explain to the peasants that the woman they suspected was in no way to blame for the “spoilage”, that is, that many hysterical hysterics divorced in the village, the peasants decided that the sorceress also spoiled the priest, who once went into her hut and drank at her tea. “There were various rumors and stories about how, during the service, the priest forgets to go out with the Gifts, cannot bear the cross, since he himself is “spoiled”. All this turned out to be a game of the imagination, devoid of any foundation, and shows what a high degree of nervous excitement the entire population reached, almost falling into mass hallucinations.
The famous researcher of the Russian language and folk culture V. Dal bitterly writes about the same superstition: the regret of the people surrounding the hysteria and often supplying her with money out of compassion ... As long as there is only one hysteria in the village, you can keep silent, because it happens to be a woman with epilepsy, but as soon as another and a third appear, it is necessary to gather them all together on Saturday before the holiday and carve with rods. A two-time experience convinced me of the excellent effect of this remedy: it will take off like a hand. ”
The official and ecclesiastical attitude to these beliefs was twofold. Of course, sorcery was considered a sin. But was the effectiveness of these charms recognized?
On the one hand, even the cross-kissing notes of loyalty to Tsar Boris Godunov contained a promise “to the sovereign, the queen and their children not to give dashing potions and roots, and not to spoil them, and not to send their people with witchcraft and with any dashing potion and with root and don’t spoil them, sovereigns, on the trail with any witch’s dream, don’t send any dashing down the wind with witchcraft, and don’t take out the trace. Voivode Prince Mikhail Vorotynsky was accused of being connected with witches. When the bound prince was brought to Ivan the Terrible, the tsar asked him: “Behold, your servant testifies to you, who you wanted to charm me and got you whispering women against me.” “Don’t learn, king,” answered the famous warrior, “and don’t learn from your forefathers to enchant and believe in demonism, but praise God alone.”
On the other hand, church punishments for sorcerers were too soft. For those sins for which they were burned in Europe in the Middle Ages, in Rus' they only imposed penances. According to the historian, to the great honor of our clergy, it must be said that their sorcerers got off much cheaper than those of the West. In that same 16th century, when bonfires were burning in Europe, on which hundreds of witches were burning alive, our shepherds forced their sinners only to beat penitential bows... For our patriarchs, metropolitans and other representatives of the higher clergy, sorcerers, witches were people who were mistaken, superstitious, who had to be reasoned with and persuaded to repentance, but for the Western European pope, prelate, bishop they were directly a fiend that was subject to extermination. The softness of these penances attracts attention. So, in the patriarchal charter on the foundation of the Lviv Brotherhood in 1586, it is prescribed for sorcery "penance for 40 days of bowing, 100 per day." If the publisher of this letter believed that witchcraft is effective and can really harm a person and even destroy his life and health, or, even worse, lead to the infusion of a demon into an innocent person, then the penance would have to be significantly stricter and, at a minimum, equate to penance for murder.
In the synodal era, the church and state attitude to beliefs in "spoilage" becomes more definite.
The Spiritual Regulation obliges bishops: “The bishop of the priesthood and other people will ask: “Are superstitions being made somewhere? Are clicks not acquired?
With reference to the Rules, Empress Anna Ioannovna gave the appropriate decree to the Synod: “On this November 15th day (1737) in the decree received by Her Imperial Majesty for the signing of Her Imperial Majesty’s own hands, the Holy Synod in the decree, which took place this November 14th, announced: de memory to be not only a court, but also other spiritual and worldly rank subjects of Her Imperial Majesty, careful to the solid content of faith and the Law of God and dogma church people, which in the past years appeared in the Russian Empire from some who do not know the law and rules at all and the true path to the salvation of the soul of self-invented to wavering and confusion common people various superstitions, among which there were Indian hysterics; but all such idle superstitious people then, upon taking them to the investigation, confessed to those impudences contrary to the law and conscience and were severely punished for that, and henceforth, in all of Her Imperial Majesty the Empire, not only by decrees of the predecessors of Her I.V., diligently warn such superstitious people, wherever someone sometimes appears, are ordered to be seized and punished ... and each bishop in his diocese carefully observes and watches about the hysterics, so as not to allow them to superstitious pranks; and for the best of that supervision, it was instructed the bishops in all cities to establish from the spiritual rank of clergy deans who would, as soon as something that was subject to superstition appeared among the people, immediately announced it to them.
On May 13, 1773, the Synod issued a decree forbidding the clergy to sing prayers and read the word of God over hysterics and other depraved people, about whom “nothing else should be considered as direct pretense and deceit and superstition.”
Art. 937 of the Code of Punishment of the Russian Empire read: “The so-called hysterics who slander someone, claiming that he has harmed them as if through sorcery, are subjected to this malicious deception: imprisonment for a period of 4 to 8 -mi months. This provision of the law was not completely inactive. So, in 1861, the Yekaterinoslav Criminal Chamber found the priest Dontsov guilty of disseminating superstitious ideas about "damage" and hysteria.
However, not only some representatives of the clergy continued to talk about "corruption". It would be strange if this popular conviction did not at all seep into the pages of church books.
Deacon Andrew
Fragment from the book: Occultism in Orthodoxy. M., 1998.
ZINAIDA VLADIMIROVNA ZHDANOVA, the only author of the book about MOTHER MATRONA, gave the last interview in her life on 11.06.2007. She greeted me with the words: THE ANTICHRIST APPEARED TO ME IN A DREAM TODAY AND SAID THAT I AM HERE BECAUSE OF MY BOOKS ABOUT MOTHER." I TOLD HER IMMEDIATELY "CORRECTLY, BECAUSE OF THE FALSIFICATION OF ALL EDITIONS OF BOOKS ABOUT MOTHER MATRON. I AM THE ANTICHRIST". Z.V. ZHDANOVA waved her hands - " YES YOU.." - I realized that the conversation would not work and said that I "JOKED". To my question "WHO IS THE ANTICHRIST?" Z.V. Zhdanova " WELL, THIS IS SUCH A MAN, A REGULAR MAN ..." (didn't add anything else). I MADE A REQUEST TO ZINAIDA VLADIMIROVNA TO LEAVE ONLY ONE BOOK ABOUT MOTHER MATRON - THE 1st EDITION OF ST. GOLUTVINSKY MONASTERY 1997, ABOUT WHICH Z.V. .2006 - "THE MOST CORRECT BOOK ABOUT M. MATRON" SHE AGREED TO THE RIGHTNESS OF MY PROPOSAL, BUT SAID THAT IT WOULD NOT DO ANYTHING FOR THE REASON OF DEPENDENCE ON THE MANAGEMENT OF THE POKROVSKY MONASTERY (Moscow, Taganskaya St., 58, travel from the Taganskaya metro station , Proletarian, Roman to Abelmanovskaya Zastava) AND ADDED " THERE I HAVE A BROTHER SERGEY... AND I CAN'T ". TO MY QUESTION "WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID?", - " I'M AFRAID TO GO THERE AGAIN (Z.V. Zhdanova was arrested in 1949 and spent many years in prison) IN THE TIME OF ME, THE CENTURY-OLD OLD PEOPLE WAS DRAWED FOR INTERROGATION! ". As subsequent events showed, after the hospital where our meeting took place, Zinaida Vladimirovna was imprisoned in the Intercession Monastery and I could no longer meet with her no matter how I tried - she was no longer even at the services in the Church of the Intercession Monastery, where she was kept locked up. The servants of the monastery began to spread about her as if she was "CRAZY" - this was given to me by the monk Khariton (Evstigneev) on July 11, 2007 Orthodox courses Trinity Sergius Lavra. I had to apply to the police and the prosecutor's office with a statement about the deprivation of liberty and initiation of a criminal case. Prior to the death of Z.V. Zhdanova (died on 10/17/2007), the abbess of the monastery Ig. with a request to protect them from the harassment of Zamorin (me) ... During the interview, she asked me three times to read the TRUTH about HITLER published by me in the train schedule books (available on the website http://zamorin.ru/index42-2.htm) - the last third time at parting and every time she said " EVERYTHING CORRECT ". During the first reading, THE TRUTH about HITLER Z.V. ZHDANOVA RECOGNITIONED: ZINAIDA ZHDANOVA WITNESS - SAW THE MEETING OF MOTHER MATRONA WITH HITLER IN MOSCOW in the autumn of 1941: " I PULLED OFF THE CURTAIN ... I LOOKED AND COULD NOT UNDERSTAND - BECAUSE HITLER SHOULD BE THERE!... IN THE MORNING MOTHER RECURED ME:WHY DID YOU LOOK? YES, THIS NIGHT WAS HITLER TALKING TO HIM. AFTER THIS MEETING, HITLER WILL OUT OF THE WAR, ACCEPT ORTHODOXY, AND THEY WILL WEDD WITH EVA... THEY LIVED IN ARGENTINA AND WERE PARISIONERS OF THE TEMPLE OF THE SHMCH. ZINAIDS. HAVE EDUCATED 12 ORPHANS, MOSTLY RUSSIAN (Z.V. Zhdanova emphasized this). THEY COME FROM ARGENTINA, LOOKED FOR ME, BUT I COULD NOT (THE TWICE I TALKED ABOUT THIS AND ADDED THE SECOND TIME)... SICK.ZV Zhdanova refused my request to name her book about Mother Matrona "RUSSIAN GOSPEL" - she thought all night and told me about it the next day 06/12/2007. 06/11/2007 Z.V. Zhdanova conveyed the words of Mother Matrona about Hitler, these words - word for word, like a long-learned lesson, she repeated to me five times: HITLER IS THE SCORP OF GOD TO TURN RUSSIA INTO ORTHODOXY Z.V. Zhdanova explained how she understands these words: " PEOPLE LIVED - SATISFIED WITH EVERYTHING - DRINKING, EATING, KAKALI AND FORGOTTEN ABOUT GOD. THAT'S WHY GOD SENT HITLER TO TURN THE PEOPLE INTO ORTHODOXY. "THE TRUTH ABOUT HITLER WAS PUT BY ME IN PROOF BASIC THEOREM OF GOD IN THIS LIFE THERE IS ONE WAY - DIVINE. FOR THOSE WHO HAVE CHOSEN THE PATH OF LIFE AND NEGLECTED DEATH, GOD HAS APPOINTED ONE SINGLE FAITH - ORTHODOXY. ATAS - American telegraph of agencies of the Soviet Union SEND THIS NEWS IN WIDE WORLD - ATAS
Blessed Matrona (Matrona Dimitrievna Nikonova) was born in 1881 in the village of Sebino, Epifansky district (now Kimovsky district), Tula province. This village is located about twenty kilometers from the famous Kulikovo field. Her parents - Dimitry and Natalia, peasants - were pious people, honestly worked, lived poorly. There were four children in the family: two brothers - Ivan and Mikhail, and two sisters - Maria and Matrona. The matron was the youngest. When she was born, her parents were no longer young.
With the need in which the Nikonovs lived, the fourth child could become, above all, an extra mouth. Therefore, due to poverty, even before the birth of the last child, the mother decided to get rid of him. The murder of a baby in the womb in a patriarchal peasant family was out of the question. But there were many shelters where illegitimate and unsecured children were brought up at public expense or at the expense of philanthropists.
Matrona's mother decided to give her unborn child to the orphanage of Prince Golitsyn in the neighboring village of Buchalki, but she saw prophetic dream. The unborn daughter appeared to Natalia in a dream in the form of a white bird with a human face and closed eyes, and sat on her right hand. Taking the dream as a sign, the God-fearing woman gave up the idea of giving the child to an orphanage. The daughter was born blind, but the mother loved her "unfortunate child."
Holy Scripture testifies that the Omniscient God sometimes chooses servants for Himself even before they are born. Thus, the Lord says to the holy prophet Jeremiah: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you came out of the womb, I sanctified you” (Jer. 1, 5). The Lord, having chosen Matrona for special service, from the very beginning laid on her a heavy cross, which she carried with humility and patience all her life.
At baptism, the girl was named Matrona in honor of the Monk Matrona of Constantinople, a Greek ascetic of the 5th century, whose memory is celebrated on November 9 (22).
The fact that the girl was chosen by God was evidenced by the fact that during baptism, when the priest lowered the child into the font, those present saw a column of fragrant light smoke above the baby. This was told by a relative of the blessed Pavel Ivanovich Prokhorov, who was present at the baptism. The priest, Father Vasily, whom the parishioners revered as righteous and blessed, was incredibly surprised: “I have baptized a lot, but this is the first time I see this, and this baby will be holy.” Father Vasily also told Natalia: “If a girl asks for something, you will definitely contact me directly, go and say directly what you need.”
He added that Matrona would take his place and predict even his death. And so it happened later. One night, Matronushka suddenly told her mother that Father Vasily had died. The surprised and frightened parents ran to the priest's house. When they arrived, it turned out that he really had just died.
They also talk about the external, bodily sign of God's chosenness of the baby - on the girl's chest there was a bulge in the shape of a cross, a miraculous pectoral cross. Later, when she was already six years old, her mother somehow began to scold her: “Why are you taking off your cross?” “Mommy, I have my own cross on my chest,” the girl answered. “Dear daughter,” Natalia came to her senses, “forgive me! And I scold you all ... "
A friend of Natalia later said that when Matrona was still a baby, her mother complained: “What should I do? The girl does not breastfeed on Wednesday and Friday, she sleeps for days on these days, it is impossible to wake her up.
The matron was not just blind, she had no eyes at all. The eye sockets were closed with tightly closed eyelids, like those of that white bird that her mother had seen in a dream. But the Lord gave her spiritual sight. Even in infancy, at night, when her parents were sleeping, she made her way to the holy corner, in some incomprehensible way removed icons from the shelf, put them on the table and played with them in the silence of the night.
Children often teased Matronushka, even mocked her: the girls lashed with nettles, knowing that she would not see who exactly offended her. They put her in a hole and watched with curiosity as she groped her way out of there and wandered home. Therefore, she stopped playing with children early and almost always stayed at home.
From the age of seven or eight, Matronushka had the gift of predicting and curing the sick.
The Nikonovs' house was located near the Church of the Assumption Mother of God. The temple is beautiful, one for seven or eight surrounding villages. Matrona's parents were distinguished by deep piety and loved to attend divine services together. Matronushka literally grew up in the temple, went to services first with her mother, then alone, whenever possible. Not knowing where her daughter was, her mother usually found her in the church. She had her usual place - on the left, behind front door, at the western wall, where she stood motionless during the service. She knew church hymns well and often sang along with the choristers. Apparently, even in her childhood, Matrona acquired the gift of unceasing prayer.
When her mother, pitying her, said to Matronushka: “You are my unfortunate child!” - she was surprised: “Am I unhappy? You have an unfortunate Vanya and Misha. She understood that she was given much more from God than others.
The gift of spiritual reasoning, insight, wonderworking and healing Matrona was marked by God from an early age. Relatives began to notice that she knew not only human sins, crimes, but also thoughts. She felt the approach of danger, foresaw natural and social disasters. Through her prayer, people received healing from illnesses and consolation in sorrows. Visitors started coming and going to her. People were going to the Nikonovs' hut, wagons, carts with patients from the surrounding villages and villages, from the whole county, from other counties and even provinces. They brought bedridden patients, whom the girl raised to their feet. Wanting to thank Matrona, they left food and gifts for her parents. So the girl, instead of becoming a burden for the family, became her main breadwinner.
Matrona's parents loved to go to church together. Once on a holiday, Matrona's mother dresses and calls her husband with her. But he refused and did not go. At home, he read prayers, sang, Matrona was also at home. The mother, being in the temple, kept thinking about her husband: “Here, I didn’t go.” And everyone was worried. The liturgy ended, Natalia came home, and Matrona said to her: “You, mother, were not in the temple.” “How was it not? I just got here and I'm undressing!" And the girl remarks: “Here, the father was in the temple, but you were not there.” With spiritual vision, she saw that her mother was in the temple only bodily.
One autumn, Matronushka was sitting on a mound. Her mother says to her: "Why are you sitting, it's cold, go to the hut." The matron replies: “I can’t sit at home, they set fire to me, they prick me with pitchforks.” The mother is perplexed: "There is no one there." And Matrona explains to her: “You, mother, don’t understand, Satan is tempting me!”
One day, Matrona says to her mother: “Mom, get ready, I will have a wedding soon.” The mother told the priest, he came and gave communion to the girl (he always gave her communion at home at her request). And suddenly, after a few days, carts go and go to the Nikonovs' house, people go with their troubles and sorrows, they bring the sick, and for some reason everyone asks Matronushka. She read prayers over them and healed many. Her mother asks: “Matryushenka, what is this?” And she replies: “I told you that there will be a wedding.”
Ksenia Ivanovna Sifarova, a relative of Blessed Matrona's brother, told how Matrona once said to her mother: "I will leave now, and tomorrow there will be a fire, but you will not burn." And indeed, in the morning a fire started, almost the entire village burned down, then the wind threw the fire to the other side of the village, and the mother's house remained intact.
In adolescence, she had the opportunity to travel. The daughter of a local landowner, the pious and kind maiden Lidia Yankova, took Matrona with her on pilgrimages: Kiev Pechersk Lavra, the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, to St. Petersburg, other cities and holy places of Russia. A legend has come down to us about the meeting of Matronushka with the holy righteous John of Kronstadt, who, at the end of the service in the Andreevsky Cathedral of Kronstadt, asked the people to make way for the 14-year-old Matrona approaching the salt and said publicly: “Matronushka, come, come to me. Here comes my shift – the eighth pillar of Russia.” The mother did not explain the meaning of these words to anyone, but her relatives guessed that Father John foresaw a special service for Matronushka to Russia and the Russian people during the time of persecution of the Church.
A little time passed, and in the seventeenth year, Matrona lost the ability to walk: her legs suddenly became paralyzed. Mother herself pointed to the spiritual cause of the illness. She walked through the temple after communion and knew that a woman would come up to her and take away her ability to walk. And so it happened. “I didn’t avoid it – that was the will of God.”
Until the end of her days, she was "sitting". And her sitting - in different houses and apartments where she found shelter - continued for another fifty years. She never grumbled because of her illness, but humbly carried this heavy cross given to her by God.
Even at an early age, Matrona predicted a revolution, how "they would rob, destroy churches and drive everyone in a row." Figuratively, she showed how they would divide the land, seize allotments with greed, just to grab something extra for themselves, and then everyone would leave the land and run in all directions. Nobody needs the land.
Matrona advised the landowner from their village Sebino Yankov before the revolution to sell everything and go abroad. If he had listened to the blessed one, he would not have seen the plunder of his estate and avoided an early, premature death, and his daughter would have wandered.
Matrona's fellow villager, Yevgenia Ivanovna Kalachkova, said that just before the revolution, a lady bought a house in Sebino, came to Matrona and said: "I want to build a bell tower." “What you planned to do will not come true,” Matrona replies. The lady was surprised: “How can it not come true when I have everything - both money and materials?” So nothing happened with the construction of the bell tower.
For the Church of the Assumption of the Mother of God, at the insistence of Matrona (who had already gained fame in the area and whose request was perceived as a blessing), the icon of the Mother of God "Searching for the Lost" was painted. Here's how it happened.
One day, Matrona asked her mother to tell the priest that in his library, in such and such a row, there is a book with the image of the icon "Search for the Lost." The father was very surprised. They found an icon, and Matronushka said: “Mom, I will write out such an icon.” The mother was sad - how to pay for her? Then Matrona says to her mother: “Mom, I keep dreaming of the icon “Search for the Lost.” Mother of God to ask us to church. Matronushka blessed the women to collect money for the icon in all the villages. Among other donors, one man gave a ruble reluctantly, and his brother gave one kopeck for a laugh. When the money was brought to Matronushka, she went through it, found this ruble and a kopeck, and said to her mother: “Mom, give it to them, they ruin all my money.”
When they collected the necessary amount, they ordered an icon from an artist from Epifan. His name remains unknown. The matron asked him if he could paint such an icon. He replied that it was business as usual for him. The matron told him to repent of his sins, confess and partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. Then she asked: “Do you know for sure that you will paint this icon?” The artist answered in the affirmative and began to paint.
A lot of time passed, finally he came to Matrona and said that nothing was working out for him. And she answers him: “Go, repent of your sins” (with spiritual vision, she saw that there was still a sin that he did not confess). He was shocked how she knew this. Then he again went to the priest, repented, took communion again, asked Matrona for forgiveness. She told him: “Go, now you will paint an icon of the Queen of Heaven.” * The icon was painted around 1915. All her life Matrona did not part with her. Now this icon of the Mother of God is located in Moscow, in Pokrovsky convent. .
With the money collected from the villages, with the blessing of Matrona, another icon of the Mother of God “Search for the Lost” was ordered in Bogoroditsk ** It is located in the Holy Dormition Monastery of the Tula diocese, in the city of Novomoskovsk. .
When she was ready, she was carried in procession with banners from Bogoroditsk to the very church in Sebino. The matron went to meet the icon four kilometers away, she was led by the arms. Suddenly she said: "Do not go further, now it will be soon, they are already coming, they are close." Blind from birth, she spoke as if she were sighted: “In half an hour they will come and bring the icon.” Indeed, in half an hour it appeared procession. A prayer service was served, and the procession went to Sebino. The matron either held on to the icon, or was led by the arms next to her. This image of the Mother of God "Seeking the Lost" became the main local shrine and became famous for many miracles. When there was a drought, they took him out to the meadow in the middle of the village and served a prayer service. After him, people did not have time to reach their homes, as it began to rain.
Throughout her life, the blessed Matrona was surrounded by icons. In the room where she subsequently lived for a particularly long time, there were as many as three red corners, and in them - icons from top to bottom, with lamps burning in front of them. One woman who worked in the Church of the Deposition of the Robe in Moscow often went to Matrona and later recalled how she told her: “I know all the icons in your church, which one stands where.”
People were also surprised that Matrona also had the usual, like sighted people, idea of the world around her. To the sympathetic appeal of a person close to her, Zinaida Vladimirovna Zhdanova: “It’s a pity, mother, that you don’t see the beauty of the world!” - she somehow answered: “God once opened my eyes to me and showed the world and His creation. And I saw the sun, and the stars in the sky, and everything on earth, the beauty of the earth: mountains, rivers, green grass, flowers, birds ... "
But there is even more amazing evidence of the clairvoyance of the blessed one. Z.V. Zhdanova recalls: “Mother was completely illiterate, but she knew everything. In 1946, I had to defend my graduation project "Ministry of navy"(I was then studying at an architectural institute in Moscow). My supervisor, for no reason at all, pursued me all the time. For five months, he never consulted me, deciding to "flunk" my diploma. Two weeks before the defense, he announced to me: “Tomorrow the commission will come and approve the failure of your work!” I came home all in tears: my father is in prison, there is no one to help, my mother is dependent on me, there was only one hope - to defend myself and work.
Mother listened to me and said: "Nothing, nothing, you will defend yourself! In the evening we will drink tea, we'll talk!" I could hardly wait for the evening, and now my mother says: "We will go with you to Italy, to Florence, to Rome, we will see the creations of the great masters ..." And she began to list the streets, buildings! She stopped: "Here is the Pitti Palace, here is another palace with arches, do the same as there - the three lower floors of the building with large masonry and two entry arches." I was blown away by her conduct. In the morning I ran to the institute, put tracing paper on the project and made all the corrections with brown ink. The commission arrived at ten o'clock. They looked at my project and they say: “Well, the project turned out, it looks great - defend yourself!”
Many people came for help to Matrona. Four kilometers from Sebino lived a man whose legs could not walk. The matron said: “Let him come to me in the morning, crawl. By three o'clock it will crawl, it will crawl." He crawled these four kilometers, and from there he walked on his own feet, healed.
Once, women from the village of Orlovka came to Matrona during the Easter week. Matrona received, sitting by the window. She gave prosphora to one, water to another, a red egg to the third, and told her to eat this egg when she went outside the gardens, to the threshing floor. This woman put an egg in her bosom, and they went. When they went outside the threshing floor, the woman, as Matrona told her, broke an egg, and there was a mouse. They all got scared and decided to go back. They went to the window, and Matrona said: “What, is there a nasty mouse?” - “Matronushka, how can you eat it?” - “But how did you sell milk to people, especially to orphans, widows, the poor who do not have a cow? The mouse was in milk, you pulled it out, and gave milk to people.” The woman says: “Matronushka, but they didn’t see the mouse and didn’t know, but I threw it out of there.” - “But God knows that you sold milk from a mouse!”
Many people came to Matrona with their illnesses and sorrows. Having intercession before God, she helped many.
A.F. Vybornova, whose father was baptized along with Matrona, tells the details of one of these healings. “My mother comes from the village of Ustye, and she had a brother there. One day he gets up - neither his arms nor his legs move, they become like whips. And he did not believe in the healing abilities of Matrona. My brother's daughter went to the village of Sebino for her mother: "Godmother, let's go soon, it's bad with my father, he became like a fool: he lowered his hands, his eyes do not look, his tongue barely moves." Then my mother harnessed the horse and she and her father went to Ustye. We came to my brother, and he looked at his mother and barely uttered "se-stra." She gathered her brother and brought him to our village. She left him at home, and she herself went to Matryusha to ask if she could bring him. She comes, and Matryusha says to her: “Well, your brother said that I can’t do anything, but he himself has become like a whip.” And she hasn't seen him yet! Then she said: "Bring him to me, I'll help." I read prayers over him, gave him water, and he was attacked by sleep. He fell asleep like a log and in the morning got up quite healthy. “Thank your sister, her faith healed you,” Matrona said to her brother.”
The help that Matrona gave to the sick, not only had nothing to do with conspiracies, divination, the so-called folk healing, extrasensory perception, magic and other witchcraft actions, during which the “healer” is associated with dark force, but had a fundamentally different, Christian nature. That is why the righteous Matrona was so hated by sorcerers and various occultists, as evidenced by people who knew her closely during the Moscow period of her life. First of all, Matrona prayed for people. Being a servant of God, richly endowed from above with spiritual gifts, she asked the Lord for miraculous help to those who were ill. Story Orthodox Church knows many examples when not only clergy or ascetic monks, but also the righteous who lived in the world healed those in need of help with prayer.
The matron read prayers over the water and gave it to those who came to her.
Those who drank water and sprinkled it got rid of various misfortunes. The content of these prayers is unknown, but, of course, there could be no question of the consecration of water according to the order established by the Church, to which only clergy have a canonical right. But it is also known that not only holy water has beneficial healing properties, but also the water of some reservoirs, springs, wells, marked by the presence and prayer life near them of holy people, the appearance of miraculous icons.
In 1925, Matrona moved to Moscow, where she would live until the end of her days. In this vast metropolitan city there were many unfortunate, lost, backslidden, spiritually sick people with a poisoned mind. Living for about three decades in Moscow, she performed that spiritual and prayer service, which averted many from death and led to salvation.
The blessed one loved Moscow very much, saying that "this is a holy city, the heart of Russia." Both brothers Matrona, Mikhail and Ivan, joined the party, Mikhail became a rural activist. It is clear that the presence in their house of the blessed one, who received the people all day long, taught by deed and example to preserve the Orthodox faith, became unbearable for the brothers. They feared reprisals. Pitying them, as well as the elderly parents (Matrona's mother died in 1945), mother moved to Moscow. Wanderings began among relatives and friends, in houses, apartments, basements. Almost everywhere Matrona lived without a residence permit, several times miraculously escaped arrest. With her lived and looked after her novices - khozhalki.
It was a new period of her ascetic life. She becomes a homeless wanderer. Sometimes she had to live with people who were hostile to her. With housing in Moscow it was difficult, there was no choice.
Z.V. Zhdanova told what hardships the blessed one sometimes had to endure: “I came to Sokolniki, where my mother often lived in a small plywood house, given to her for a while. It was deep autumn. I entered the house, and in the house there was a thick, damp and dank steam, an iron stove-potbelly stove was being heated. I went up to my mother, and she was lying on the bed facing the wall, she could not turn to me, her hair was frozen to the wall, it was barely torn off. I said in horror: “Mother, how is it? eight square meters, separate entrance; why didn’t you ask to join us?” Mother sighed heavily and said: “God did not order that you would not regret it later.”
Before the war, Matrona lived on Ulyanovsk Street with the priest Vasily, the husband of her novice Pelageya, while he was at large. She lived on Pyatnitskaya Street, in Sokolniki (in a summer plywood building), in Vishnyakovskiy Lane (in the basement of her niece), she also lived at the Nikitsky Gate, in Petrovsky-Razumovsky, visited her nephew in Sergiev Posad (Zagorsk), in Tsaritsyno. For the longest time (from 1942 to 1949), she lived on the Arbat, in Starokonyushenny Lane. Here, in an old wooden mansion, in a 48-meter room, lived a fellow villager of Matrona, E.M. Zhdanova with her daughter Zinaida. It was in this room that three corners were occupied by icons, from top to bottom. Ancient lamps hung in front of the icons, heavy expensive curtains hung on the windows (before the revolution, the house belonged to Zhdanova's husband, who came from a rich and noble family).
They say that Matrona left some places in a hurry, foreseeing impending troubles in her spirit, always on the eve of the arrival of the police, as she lived without a residence permit. Times were hard, and people were afraid to prescribe it. Thus, she saved not only herself from repression, but also the owners who sheltered her.
Many times they wanted to arrest Matrona. Many of her neighbors were arrested and imprisoned (or exiled). Zinaida Zhdanova was convicted as a member of the church-monarchist group.
Ksenia Ivanovna Sifarova said that Matrona's nephew Ivan lived in Zagorsk. And suddenly she mentally summons him to her. He came to his boss and said: “I want to ask you to take time off, I just can’t, I have to go to my aunt.” He arrived not knowing what the matter was. And Matrona says to him: “Come on, come on, take me to Zagorsk, to your mother-in-law.” They had just left when the police arrived. It happened many times: they only want to arrest her, but she leaves the day before.
Anna Filippovna Vybornova recalls such a case. Once a policeman came to pick up Matrona, and she told him: “Go, go quickly, you have misfortune in your house! And the blind will not go anywhere from you, I sit on the bed, I don’t go anywhere.” He obeyed. I went home, and his wife got burned from the kerosene gas. But he managed to take her to the hospital. He comes to work the next day, and they ask him: “Well, did you take the blind woman away?” And he replies: “I will never take the blind. If the blind woman had not told me, I would have lost my wife, otherwise I still managed to take her to the hospital.
Living in Moscow, Matrona visited her village - either they would call her on some business, or she would miss her home, her mother.
Outwardly, her life flowed monotonously: during the day - receiving people, at night - prayer. Like the ancient ascetics, she never really went to bed, but dozed, lying on her side, on her fist. So the years passed.
Once in 1939 or 1940, Matrona said: “Now you are all swearing, dividing, but the war is about to begin. Of course, many people will die, but our Russian people will win.”
At the beginning of 1941, cousin Z.V. Zhdanova Olga Noskova asked her mother for advice on whether to go on vacation (they gave her a ticket, but she did not want to go on vacation in the winter). Mother said: “We need to go on vacation now, then there will be no holidays for a long, long time. There will be a war. Victory will be ours. The enemy will not touch Moscow, it will only burn a little. There is no need to leave Moscow.”
When the war began, mother asked everyone who came to her to bring willow branches. She broke them into sticks of the same length, peeled them from the bark and prayed. Her neighbors recalled that her fingers were in wounds. The matron could be spiritually present in various places; for her spiritual gaze, space did not exist. She often said that she was invisible at the fronts, helping our soldiers. She told everyone that the Germans would not enter Tula. Her prophecy came true.
On the day, Matronushka received up to forty people. People came with their troubles, mental and physical pain. She refused to help anyone, except for those who came with a crafty intention. Others saw in the mother a folk healer who was able to remove damage or the evil eye, but after talking with her they understood that in front of them god man, and turned to the Church, to her saving sacraments. Helping her people was disinterested, she did not take anything from anyone.
Mother always read her prayers loudly. Those who knew her closely say that these prayers were well-known, read in the temple and at home: “Our Father”, “Let God rise again”, the ninetieth psalm, “Lord Almighty, God of hosts and all flesh” (from morning prayers). She emphasized that it was not herself who helped, but God through her prayers: “What, Matronushka is God, or what? God help!” - she answers Ksenia Gavrilovna Potapova to a request to help her.
Healing the sick, mother demanded from them faith in God and the correction of sinful lives. So, she asks one visitor if she believes that the Lord is able to heal her. Another, who fell ill with epilepsy, orders not to miss a single Sunday service, at each to confess and partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. She blesses those who live in a civil marriage without fail to get married in the Church. Everyone must wear a pectoral cross.
What did people come to mother with? With the usual troubles: an incurable disease, loss, husband's departure from the family, unhappy love, job loss, persecution by superiors ... worldly needs and questions. Whether to get married? Should I change my place of residence or work? There were no less sick people, obsessed with various ailments: someone suddenly fell ill, someone for no apparent reason began to bark, someone had cramped arms and legs, someone was haunted by hallucinations. Among the people, such people are called "spoiled" sorcerers, healers, sorcerers. These are people who, as the people say, were “made”, who were subjected to a special demonic influence.
One day, four men brought an old woman to Matrona. She waved her arms like a windmill. When her mother reprimanded her, she became weak and healed.
Praskovya Sergeevna Anosova, who often visited her brother in a psychiatric hospital, recalls: “Once, when we were going to him, a man and his wife were traveling with us - to discharge their daughter from the hospital. We drove back together again. Suddenly this girl (she was 18 years old) began to bark. I say to her mother: "I feel sorry for you, we are going past Tsaritsyno, let's bring our daughter to Matronushka ..." The father of this girl; the general, at first, did not want to hear anything, said that all this was fiction. But his wife insisted, and we went to Matronushka ... And so they began to bring the girl to Matronushka, and she became like a stake, her hands were like sticks, then she began to spit on Matronushka, pulled herself out. The matron says: "Leave her, she won't do anything now." The girl was released. She fell, began to beat and spin on the floor, she began to vomit blood. And then this girl fell asleep and slept for three days. She was looked after. When she woke up and saw her mother, she asked: "Mom, where are we?" She answers her: “We, daughter, are with a perspicacious person ...” And she told her everything that had happened to her. And from that time on, the girl was completely healed.
Z.V. Zhdanova says that in 1946 a woman who held a high position was brought to their apartment, where Matrona then lived. Her only son went mad, her husband died at the front, she herself, of course, was an atheist. She traveled with her sick son to Europe, but famous doctors could not help him. “I came to you out of desperation,” she said, “I have nowhere to go.” The matron asked: “If the Lord heals your son, will you believe in God?” The woman said, "I don't know how it is to believe." Then Matrona asked for water and in the presence of the unfortunate mother began to read a prayer loudly over the water. Then giving her this water, the blessed one said: “Go now to Kashchenko (a psychiatric hospital in Moscow. - Approx. ed.), arrange with the orderlies so that they hold him tightly when they take him out. He will fight, and you try to splash this water into his eyes and be sure to get into his mouth.
Zinaida Vladimirovna recalls: “After some time, my brother and I witnessed how this woman again came to Matrona. She thanked her mother on her knees, saying that now her son is healthy. And it was like that. She came to the hospital and did everything as her mother ordered. There was a hall where her son was taken out from one side of the barrier, and she approached from the other side. The bottle of water was in her pocket. The son fought and shouted: "Mom, throw away what you have in your pocket, don't torture me!" It struck her: how did he know? She quickly splashed water into his eyes, got into his mouth, suddenly he calmed down, his eyes became clear, and he said: "How good!" He was released soon after."
Often Matrona put her hands on her head and said: “Oh, oh, now I’ll cut your wings, fight, fight bye!” "Who are you?" - he will ask, and in a person he will suddenly buzz. Mother will say again: “Who are you?” - and buzz even more, and then she will pray and say: “Well, the mosquito fought, now that's enough!” And the man leaves healed.
Matrona also helped those who did not go well family life. Once a woman came to her and said that she was not married out of love and that she did not live well with her husband. The matron answers her: “And who is to blame? You are to blame. Because the Lord is our head, and the Lord is in male image, and we, women, must obey the man, you must keep the crown until the end of your life. It is your fault that you live badly with him ... ”This woman listened to the blessed one, and her family life improved.
“Mother Matrona fought all her life for every soul that came to her,” recalls Zinaida Zhdanova, “and won. She never complained, never complained about the difficulties of her feat. I can’t forgive myself that I never felt sorry for my mother, although I saw how difficult it was for her, how she rooted for each of us. The light of those days still warms. Lamps glowed in front of the icons in the house, mother's love and her silence enveloped the soul. There was holiness, joy, peace, blessed warmth in the house. There was a war, and we lived like in heaven.
What was the memory of Matrona to close people? With miniature, like children's, short arms and legs. Sitting cross-legged on a bed or chest. Fluffy straight hair. Strongly closed eyelids. Good bright face. Affectionate voice.
She consoled, calmed the sick, stroked their heads, made the sign of the cross, sometimes joked, sometimes severely rebuked and instructed. She was not strict, she was tolerant of human infirmities, compassionate, warm, sympathetic, always joyful, never complained about her illnesses and sufferings. Mother did not preach, did not teach. She gave specific advice on how to act in a given situation, prayed and blessed.
She was generally laconic, briefly answering questions coming. Some of her general instructions remain.
Mother taught not to judge others. She said, “Why judge other people? Think about yourself more. Each sheep will be hung by its own tail. What do you care about other ponytails? Matrona taught to surrender oneself to the will of God. Live with prayer. Often impose the sign of the cross on yourself and surrounding objects, thereby protecting yourself from evil forces. She advised me to partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ more often. “Protect yourself with the cross, prayer, holy water, frequent communion ... Let lamps burn in front of the icons.”
She also taught to love and forgive the old and the weak. “If the old, the sick, or those who have lost their minds say something unpleasant or offensive to you, then do not listen, but simply help them. It is necessary to help the sick with all diligence and they must be forgiven, no matter what they say or do.
Matronushka did not allow to attach importance to dreams: "Do not pay attention to them, dreams come from the evil one - upset a person, entangle them with thoughts."
Matrona warned not to run around the confessors in search of "elders" or "seers." Running around different fathers, she said, one can lose spiritual strength and the right direction of life.
Here are her words: "The world lies in evil and charm, and charm - the seduction of souls - will be obvious, beware." “If you go to an elder or a priest for advice, pray that the Lord will manage to give him the right advice.” She taught me not to be interested in priests and their lives. Those who wished for Christian perfection were advised not to stand out outwardly among people (with black clothes, etc.). She taught patience in sorrow. Z.V. She said to Zhdanova: “Go to the temple and don’t look at anyone, pray with your eyes closed or look at some image, icon.” There is also a similar instruction Reverend Seraphim Sarovsky and other holy fathers. In general, there was nothing in Matrona's instructions that would run counter to patristic teaching.
Mother said that putting on makeup, that is, using decorative cosmetics, is a great sin: a person spoils and distorts the image of human nature, complements what the Lord did not give, creates fake beauty, this leads to corruption.
About the girls who believed in God, Matrona said: “God will forgive you, girls, if you are devoted to God. Who dooms herself not to marry, she must hold on to the end. The Lord will give a crown for this.”
Matronushka said: “The enemy is approaching - you must definitely pray. Sudden death happens if you live without prayer. The gate sits on our left shoulder, and on the right - an angel, and everyone has their own book: our sins are written in one, good deeds in the other. Get baptized more often! The cross is the same lock as on the door. She instructed not to forget to baptize food. “By the power of the Honorable and Life-Giving Cross, save yourself and defend yourself!”
About sorcerers, mother said: “For someone who has voluntarily entered into an alliance with the power of evil, engaged in sorcery, there is no way out. You can’t turn to grandmas, they alone will survive, and they will hurt the soul. ”
Matushka often told her relatives that she was fighting with sorcerers, with evil power, invisibly fighting with them. Once a handsome old man came to her, with a beard, sedate, fell on his knees in front of her in tears and said: "My only son is dying." And mother leaned over to him and asked quietly; “And how did you do it to him? To death or not? He replied: "To death." And mother says: "Go, go away from me, there is no need for you to come to me." After he left, she said: “Sorcerers know God! If only you would pray as they do when they beg forgiveness from God for their evil!”
Mother honored the late priest Valentin Amfiteatrov. She said that he was great before God and that at his grave he helps those who suffer, she sent some of her visitors for sand from his grave.
The mass falling away of people from the Church, militant theomachism, the growth of alienation and malice between people, the rejection of the traditional faith by millions and the sinful life without repentance have led many to grave spiritual consequences. Matrona understood and felt this well.
During the days of demonstrations, mother asked everyone not to go out, to close windows, vents, doors - hordes of demons occupy all the space, all the air and cover all people. (Perhaps the blessed Matrona, who often spoke allegorically, wanted to recall the need to keep the “windows of the soul” closed from the spirits of malice - as the holy fathers call human feelings.)
Z.V. Zhdanova asked mother: “How did the Lord allow so many temples to be closed and destroyed?” (She meant the years after the revolution.) And mother answered: “It is the will of God, the number of churches has been reduced because there will be few believers and there will be no one to serve.” "Why isn't anyone fighting?" She: “The people under hypnosis, not their own, a terrible force has come into action ... This force exists in the air, penetrates everywhere. Previously, swamps and dense forests were the habitat of this force, because people went to temples, wore a cross, and houses were protected by images, lamps and consecration. Demons flew past such houses, and now people are inhabited by demons due to their unbelief and rejection of God.
Wanting to lift the veil over her spiritual life, some curious visitors tried to peep what Matrona was doing at night. One girl saw that she prayed and bowed all night...
While living with the Zhdanovs in Starokonyushenny Lane, Matronushka went to confession and communed with the priest Dimitry from the church on Krasnaya Presnya. Unceasing prayer helped the blessed Matrona to bear the cross of serving people, which was a real feat and martyrdom, the highest manifestation of love. Reprimanding the possessed, praying for everyone, sharing human sorrows, mother was so tired that by the end of the day she could not even talk to her relatives and only moaned softly, lying on her fist. The inner, spiritual life of the blessed one nevertheless remained a mystery even for people close to her, and will remain a mystery for others.
Not knowing the spiritual life of mother, nevertheless, people did not doubt her holiness, that she was a real ascetic. The feat of Matrona consisted in great patience, coming from purity of heart and ardent love for God. It is about this kind of patience that will save Christians in end times prophesied by the holy fathers of the Church. Like a true ascetic, the blessed one taught not with words, but with her whole life. Blind in body, she taught and continues to teach true spiritual vision. Having no opportunity to walk, she taught and teaches to follow the difficult path of salvation.
In her memoirs, Zinaida Vladimirovna Zhdanova writes: “Who was Matronushka? Mother was an embodied warrior angel, like a fiery sword, was in her hands to fight evil power. She healed with prayer, water... She was small, like a child, all the time reclining on her side, on her fist. So I slept, never really went to bed. When she received people, she sat down, cross-legged, two arms extended directly above the head of the person who came in the air, put her fingers on the head of the person kneeling in front of her, crossed herself, said the main thing that his soul needed, prayed.
She lived without her corner, property, supplies. Whoever invites, she lived with him. She lived on offerings that she herself could not dispose of. She was in obedience to the evil Pelageya, who ordered everything and distributed everything that was brought to her mother to her relatives. Without her knowledge, mother could neither drink nor eat:
Mother seemed to know all the events in advance. Every day of her life is a stream of sorrows and sorrows. coming people. Helping the sick, comforting and healing them. There were many healings through her prayers. He will take the head of the weeping with both hands, take pity, warm with his holiness, and the person leaves winged. And she, exhausted, only sighs and prays all night long. She had a hole in her forehead from her fingers, from the frequent sign of the cross. She was baptized slowly, diligently, her fingers were looking for a hole ... "
During the war, there were many cases when she answered those who came to their questions - whether she was alive or not. Someone will say - alive, wait. Someone - to sing and commemorate.
It can be assumed that those who sought spiritual advice and guidance also came to Matrona. Many Moscow priests and monks of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra knew about Mother. Due to the unknown fate of God, there was no attentive observer and student next to the mother, able to lift the veil over her spiritual work and write about it as an edification to posterity.
Often fellow countrymen from her native places went to her, then from all the surrounding villages they wrote notes to her, and she answered them. They came to her from two hundred and three hundred kilometers, and she knew the name of the person. There were both Muscovites and visitors from other cities who heard about the perspicacious mother. People of all ages: young, old, and middle-aged. Some she accepted and some she didn't. With some she spoke in parables, with others in plain language.
Zinaida once complained to her mother: “Mother, nerves ...” And she: “What nerves, there are no nerves in war and in prison ... You have to control yourself, endure.”
Mother instructed that it is necessary to be treated. The body is a house, given by God, it needs to be repaired. God created the world, medicinal herbs, and this cannot be neglected.
Mother sympathized with her loved ones: “How sorry I am for you, you will live to the end. Life will get worse and worse. Heavy. The time will come when they will put a cross and bread in front of you, and they will say - choose! “We will choose the cross,” they answered, “but how then will it be possible to live?” - “And we will pray, we will take zemlyanki, we will roll up balls, we will pray to God, we will eat and we will be full!”
Another time, she said, encouraging in a difficult situation, that there was no need to be afraid of anything, no matter how scary it was: “They carry a child in a sledge, and there is no care! The Lord will take care of everything!”
Matronushka often repeated: “If a people loses faith in God, then disasters befall them, and if they don’t repent, they perish and disappear from the face of the earth. How many peoples have disappeared, but Russia has existed and will continue to exist. Pray, ask, repent! The Lord will not leave you and will keep our land!”
Matronushka found her last earthly shelter at the Skhodnya station near Moscow (23 Kurgannaya Street), where she settled with a distant relative, leaving her room in Starokonyushenny Lane. And here, too, visitors came in a stream and carried their sorrows. Only before her death, mother, already quite weak, limited her intake. But people still went, and some she could not refuse to help. They say that the time of her death was revealed to her by the Lord three days in advance, and she made all the necessary orders. Mother asked to be buried in the Church of the Deposition of the Robe on Donskaya Street. (At that time, the priest Nikolai Golubtsov, beloved by the parishioners, served there. He knew and revered the blessed Matrona.) She ordered that wreaths and plastic flowers be brought to the funeral.
Before last days life, she confessed and communed with the priests who came to her. In her humility, she, like ordinary sinful people, was afraid of death and did not hide her fear from her loved ones. Before her death, a priest, Father Dimitri, came to confess, she was very worried about whether she had folded her hands correctly. Batiushka asks: “Are you really afraid of death too?” - "Afraid".
On May 2, 1952, she reposed. On May 3, at the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, a note was submitted for the repose of the newly deceased Blessed Matrona. Among many others, she attracted the attention of a serving hieromonk. "Who filed the note? he asked excitedly, “What, is she dead?” (Many inhabitants of the Lavra knew and revered Matrona well). The old woman and her daughter, who arrived from Moscow, confirmed that the mother had died the day before, and this evening the coffin with the body would be placed in the Moscow Church of the Deposition of the Robe on Donskoy. So the Lavra monks learned about the death of Matrona and were able to come to her burial. After the funeral, which was performed by Father Nikolai Golubtsov, all those present came up and kissed her hands.
On May 4, on the Sunday of the Myrrh-bearing Women, with a large gathering of people, the burial of the Blessed Matrona took place. At her request, she was buried at the Danilovsky cemetery in order to “hear the service” (one of the few functioning Moscow churches was located there). The funeral service and burial of the blessed one was the beginning of her glorification among the people as a servant of God.
The blessed one predicted: “After my death, few people will go to my grave, only those close to me, and when they die, my grave will be empty, except occasionally someone will come ... But after many years people will learn about me and go in droves for help in their sorrows and with requests to pray for them to the Lord God, and I will help everyone and hear everyone.
Even before her death, she said: “Everyone, everyone, come to me and tell me, as if alive, about your sorrows, I will see you, and hear, and help you.” And mother also said that everyone who entrusts himself and his life to her intercession to the Lord will be saved. “Everyone who turns to me for help, I will meet at their death, everyone.”
More than thirty years after the death of my mother, her grave at the Danilovsky cemetery became one of the holy places of Orthodox Moscow, where people from all over Russia and from abroad came with their troubles and illnesses.
Blessed Matrona was an orthodox person in the deep, traditional sense of the word. Compassion for people, coming from the fullness of a loving heart, prayer, the sign of the cross, fidelity to the holy statutes of the Orthodox Church - that was the focus of her intense spiritual life. The nature of her feat is rooted in the centuries-old traditions of folk piety. Therefore, the help that people receive by prayerfully turning to the righteous woman brings spiritual fruits: people are affirmed in Orthodox faith, become churched externally and internally, join the daily prayer life.
Matrona is known to tens of thousands of Orthodox people. Matronushka - so affectionately called her by many. She, just like during her earthly life, helps people. This is felt by all those who, with faith and love, ask her for intercession and intercession before the Lord, to whom the blessed old woman has great boldness.
Litiya at the grave of Blessed Matrona served His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II. Before the raising of the relics. March 4, 1998. Meeting of the relics of Blessed Matrona in the Intercession ConventThe sisters of the monastery on major and patronal holidays feed and distribute food free of chargeHis Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus' performs the rite of canonization of the Blessed MatronaCancer with the holy relics of Blessed Matrona rest in the Intercession Convent
