Blessed
Matrona (Matrona Dimitrievna Nikonova) was born in 1881 in the village of
Sebino of Epiphansky district (now Kimovsky district) of Tula region. The
village is only 20 km away from the famous Kulikovo field, where the Russian
army defeated the Mongols in 1380.
Her
parents, Dimitry and Natalia, were devout, honest and hardworking people. They
were poor. They had four children: two brothers, Ivan and Mikhail, and two
sisters, Maria and Matrona. Matrona was the youngest. When she was born, her
parents were no longer young.
As the
Nikonovs were a poor family, a fourth child would be a real burden. Because of
the desperate circumstances the mother wanted to get rid of the child.
Murdering a child in the mother’s womb was out of the question in a patriarchal
peasant family. But there were a lot of asylums where illegitimate or very poor
children were raised at the government’s or benefactors’ expense.
Matrona’s
mother made up her mind to take the future child to Prince Golitsyn Asylum in a
neighbouring village but then had a prophetic dream. She saw her unborn
daughter as a white bird with a human face and closed eyes who came from above
and perched on her right hand. The God-fearing woman took the dream for a sign
and gave up the thought of sending the child away. The daughter was born blind,
but her mother loved her “poor child”.
The Holy
Scripture tells us that sometimes the All-knowing God pre-elects His servants
before their birth. Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before
thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a
prophet unto the nations (Jer. 1:5).
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| Matrona's family house in the village of Sebino. |
Having
chosen Matrona for a special ministry, the Lord from the very beginning gave
her a heavy cross that she bore throughout her life meekly and patiently.
At her
baptism the girl was given the name of St. Matrona of Constantinople, a Greek
ascetic of the fifth century, whose memory we celebrate on the 9th (22nd) of
November.
According
to St. Matrona’s relative, Pavel Ivanovich Prokhorov, who was there at the
baptism, when the priest immersed the child in the Baptismal font, everyone saw
a wispy column of aromatic smoke above the baby. By this God was showing that
He had chosen her. The priest, Fr. Vasily, who was revered by his parish as
righteous and blessed, was very much surprised: “I’ve baptised a lot of people
but I’ve never seen anything like that. This baby will be holy.” And he added:
“If the girl asks for anything, come to me directly, come without hesitation
and tell me what she needs.” He also added that Matrona would take up his place
and would even foretell his death. And it did happen so. One night Matrona told
her mother that Fr. Vasily had died. The surprised and frightened parents
rushed to the priest’s house. On their coming they saw that, indeed, he had
just passed away.
There was
a mark on St. Matrona’s body that showed that the girl was God’ chosen one. It
was a cross-shaped swelling on her chest. Once when St. Matrona was about six,
her mother reproached her for taking her cross off her neck. “Mummy, I’ve got a
cross of my own on my chest,” the girl replied. “Dear daughter, forgive me! Why
do I keep blaming you?” said Natalia coming to her senses.
On
another occasion, Natalia was complaining to a friend when Matrona was still a
baby: “I don’t know what I should do about the baby: the girl won’t take the
breast on Wednesdays and Fridays. During these days she sleeps all day and it’s
impossible to wake her up.”
Not only
was Matrona blind, she had no eyes at all. The recesses were covered by the
eyelids closed firmly together, just like the white bird that her mother saw in
a dream. But the Lord gave St. Matrona the gift of spiritual vision. When still
an infant, at nights she would miraculously get to the icon corner herself,
take the icons from the shelf, put them onto the table and play with them in
the quiet dark of the night.
Children
often teased and bullied Matrona. Girls whipped her with nettles knowing she
would never guess who was doing it. Sometimes they put her in a ditch and
watched her crawling out of it and walking home slowly. Finally she gave up
playing with other children and stayed at home most of the time.
At the
age of seven or eight Matrona displayed the gifts of prophesy and of healing
the infirm. The Nikonovs’ house was near the Church of Dormition of the Mother
of God. A beautiful temple, it was the only church in the neighbourhood of
seven or eight villages. Matrona’s parents were pious and liked going to church
together. Matrona also grew up in church. First she attended the services
together with her mother, and later she came alone using every opportunity.
When the mother lost sight of the girl, she nearly always found her in the
church. Matrona had her own favorite place there—left of the entrance, at the
west wall. She stood there quietly during service. She knew the church singing
well and often joined in from where she was. She must have acquired the gift of
constant prayer in childhood.
When her
mother called her “a miserable child”, Matrona was surprised: “Am I miserable?
It is my brothers, Vanya and Misha, who are miserable.” She knew that God gave
her much more than He gave others.
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| Church in St. Matrona's native village of Sebino. |
Matrona
acquired spiritual discernment, vision, wonderworking and healing at an early
age. Her family and neighbours noticed that she knew not only about people’s
sins and crimes but their thoughts as well. She saw the coming of dangers and
social catastrophes. Her prayer healed the sick and comforted the suffering. Soon
people started coming to her for comfort, advice and healing. They would come
on foot or bring their ill relatives on carts to the Nikonov’s house from all
around the village and even from remote places. The girl would heal them all.
Visitors left food and gifts for Matrona’s family. So, instead of being a
burden, she became a breadwinner for her family.
As we
already said, Matrona’s parents would often go to church together. Once, on a
feast day, Matrona’s mother invited her husband to join her for the service as
usual. But he did not go. He decided to pray and sing at home. Matrona stayed
with him, too. Throughout the service Natalia was thinking about her husband
and felt sorry that he hadn’t come with her. When Natalia was back home after
the Liturgy, Matrona said: “You haven’t been to church, Mother.” Natalia was
surprised: “Don’t you know I am just back and taking off my coat?” “Father was
in church, but you were not.” Matrona saw that even though her mother attended
the service her heart was not praying.
Once in
autumn Matrona was sitting near the house. Her mother asked her why she would
not come in, as it was cold outside. “I cannot be in the house, I’m exposed to
fire and pierced with a garden fork.” Natalia was puzzled: “There’s no one in
the house”. Matrona explained: “You can’t understand, Mum. Satan is tempting
me.”
Once
Matrona said to Natalia: “Mum, get ready for my wedding.” The mother told the
priest about it, and he came and gave the girl Holy Communion. He always came
to Matrona’s house to give the girl Holy Communion when she asked. A few days
later there came lots and lots of carts and people asked for Matronushka. She
prayed for them and healed many. Mother was very surprised and asked: “What’s
that, Matrushenka?” “I told you I would have a wedding,” she replied.
Xenia
Ivanovna Sifarova, a relative of Matrona’s cousin, related: “Matrona says to
her mother: “I’m leaving now. Tomorrow there’ll be a fire, but your house won’t
suffer.” As she said, fire broke out in the morning, nearly the whole village
burned down. But then the wind changed and Natalia’s house remained untouched.
When St.
Matrona was still young, God granted her a chance to be a pilgrim. The daughter
of a local estate owner, a devout kind girl, Lydia Yankova, took Matrona with
her on pilgrimages: to the Kiev Caves Lavra, the Holy Trinity St. Sergius
Lavra, St. Petersburg, and other holy places in Russia. Once Matrona met Holy
Righteous John of Kronstadt. After the Liturgy in Andreevsky Cathedral, St.
John asked the people to make way for the fourteen-year-old Matrona and said
loudly: “Matronushka, come, come to me. Here is my replacement, the eighth
pillar of Russia.”
Matronushka
never explained the meaning of these words, but her family believed that Fr.
John had foreseen her special ministry to Russia and the Russian people during
the years of persecution of the Church.
Some time
later, when Matrona was a little over sixteen, she was deprived of the ability
to walk: all of a sudden she could not walk any more. The eldress however
pointed out the spiritual reason for this disability. It was in church after
Holy Communion. St. Matrona knew that a woman would come and take away her
physical strength. It all happened as she expected. “I did not try to avoid it.
It was the will of God”, she said. So, to the end of her days she could only
sit. Her sitting in various houses and flats where she found temporary shelter
lasted fifty years. She never complained about her disability but humbly
carried this heavy cross that God entrusted her.
While
still a child, Matrona foresaw the revolution in Russia. “Churches will be
robbed and destroyed, and people will be persecuted.” She showed vividly the
way the land would be re-distributed and how people would grab it greedily
trying to get more and more—only to leave everything behind and flee. “Then no
one would need it”, she said. Before the revolution Matrona advised an estate
owner whose name was Yankov to sell everything and go abroad. If he had taken
the advice of the blessed saint, he wouldn’t have witnessed the robbing of his
property. He would have avoided premature death and would have saved his
daughter painful wanderings.
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| The icon, "The Search of the Lost," ordered by Matrona for her village church. It is now kept in the Dormition Monastery near Tula. |
A
neighbour of Matrona’s, Yevgenia Ivanovna Kalachkova, narrates: Before the
revolution a rich lady bought a house in Sebino. She came to Matrona and said
that she wanted to build a bell-tower. Matrona replied: “What you have planned
is not going to happen.” The lady was surprised: “Why won’t it? I’ve got
everything: the money and materials.” But the bell-tower was never built.
Once at
Matrona’s request, an icon was painted for the church of Dormition. Here is how
it happened. Matrona asked her mother to tell the priest that in his library,
on a shelf, there was a book with a picture of the icon “Search of the Lost”.
The priest was surprised. However the picture was found, and Matrona told her
mother that she was going to have this icon painted. Matrona said that she saw
the icon in her dreams: “The Mother of God wants to come to our church.”
Matrona’s mother was very worried how they would pay for it. Matrona blessed
the women of Sebino to collect money for the icon in neighbouring villages.
Among the
sponsors there were two men, one of whom gave a rouble with an uneasy heart,
and the other gave a kopeck for a joke. The money was finally brought to
Matrona. She took it and started checking coins one by one. Having found the
rouble and the kopeck, she removed them saying: “Give them their money back,
Mum. It spoils the rest of the money.”
When the
necessary sum was collected, they invited a painter from the town of Epiphan.
His name remained unknown. Matrona asked him whether he was able to paint the
icon. He answered that it was his usual business. Matrona told him to have
confession and receive Holy Communion. Then she asked him again whether he was
sure he would be able to do it. The painter said ‘yes’ and started working.
After a long time he came to Matrona and said he could not do it at all. She
said to him: “Go and repent of all your sins.” She knew that he had one serious
sin, which he had not confessed. He was struck that she knew about it. Then he
went to a priest, had confession, received Holy Communion again and asked
Matrona to forgive him. She answered: “Go and paint the icon of the Heavenly
Queen. Now you will do it.”
The
remaining money raised was spent on another copy of the icon of the Mother of
God “Search of the Lost” that was ordered to be painted in Bogoroditsk. When it
was ready, a procession carried the icon from Bogoroditsk to the church in
Sebino. Matrona went to meet the icon when it was four kilometers away. She was
led there. All of a sudden she said: “Don’t go any further, they are nearly
here.” The blind woman was speaking as if she could see: “In half an hour
they’ll be here and they’ll bring the icon.” Indeed, in half an hour the
procession arrived. After a moleben the
procession went on to Sebino. Matrona was holding on to the icon on the way
back. “Search of the Lost” became the main locally venerated icon there. It
soon got famous for many miracles. Whenever there was a drought, the icon was
taken to the center of the village and people prayed for rain. No sooner had
they come home than it would rain.
All
through her life, icons surrounded Matrona. In the room where she lived for a
particularly long time there were three icon corners, with icons and icon lamps
from the floor to the ceiling. A woman who worked at a Moscow church and often
visited Matrona, remembers St. Matrona saying to her: “I know all the icons in
your church, where each of them stands.”
It was
surprising that Matrona, unlike a blind-born person, had a very good idea of
the world around her. Once a woman close to her, Zinaida Vladimirovna Zhdanova,
said she was sorry for Matrona’s blindness: “It is such a pity, Matushka, that
you can’t see the beauty of the world!” Matrona replied: “Once God opened my
eyes and showed me His creation. I saw the sun and the stars in the sky, and
the beauty of the earth: the mountains, rivers, the green grass, flowers,
birds…”
There is
another piece of striking evidence of the gift of spiritual vision that the
Blessed Eldress had. Z.V.Zhdanova narrates: “ Matushka was illiterate, but knew
everything. In 1946 I had a diploma project on the architectural ensemble of
the Admiralty. I was a student of the Institute of Architecture in Moscow. My
supervisor harassed me for no reason at all. For the five months that I had
worked at the diploma we had not had a single meeting because he had decided to
fail my project. A fortnight before the viva he said: “Tomorrow a committee
will come and see that your work is unsatisfactory.” I came back home in tears:
my father was in prison and Mother was my dependant. My only hope was to get
the diploma and start working. Matushka listened to me and said: “Come, you’ll
do it. We’ll have tea in the evening and talk.” I could hardly wait till
evening. Matrona said: “We’re now going to Italy, to Florence, to Rome, we’ll
have a look at the works of great masters…” And she started naming the streets
and buildings! Then she made a pause: “Here is Pitti Palazzo, and here’s another
palace with arches. You should copy this: the first three levels with big
bricks and two arches for entrance.” I was struck by her knowledge. In the
morning I rushed to the Institute. I quickly did the necessary corrections and
at 10 a.m. the committee came. They looked at my project and said: “It looks
great! Congratulations!”
In the
neighbourhood, 4 km away from Sebino, there lived a man who could not walk.
Matrona said: “Let him crawl to me. Let him start in the morning. By three
he’ll have crawled.” He crawled all the way there and went back home on foot.
Once,
during the Easter week, three women came to Matrona. Matrona was sitting by the
window. She gave a prosphora to one of
them, some water to another, and a red egg to the third. She told the third
woman to eat the egg behind the village. When they came out of the village, the
woman broke the egg and to her horror found a mouse in there. The women got
frightened and hurried back. When they were coming to the house, Matrona said:
“It’s disgusting to eat a mouse, is it not?” “Matronushka, how can I possibly
eat it?” “And how did you dare to sell the milk from a container with a mouse
in it to people, particularly to orphans and widows who did not have a cow?
There was a mouse in the milk, you took it out and sold the milk.”
“Matronushka, they never saw the mouse.” “But God saw it!”
A.F.
Vybornova tells about the healing of her uncle. “My mother is from Ustye
village, where her brother still lives. Once he woke up and found out that he
could not move his arms and legs. They softened and became lifeless like ropes.
He had never believed in Matrona’s healing power. His daughter came to my
mother for help: “Come, Godmother, Father is very unwell, he has become like an
idiot: the arms are hanging loose, his glance is not sensible and he can hardly
move his tongue.” My mother and father went to him on a cart. The moment he saw
her, he pronounced ‘sis-ter’ with great difficulty. She took him to Sebino. In
Sebino, she left him in her house and went to Matrona to ask for permission to
take him to her. Matrona said: “Your brother said that I could not do anything
and look what’s become of him.” She said this before she saw him! And then she
added: “Take him here, I’ll help you.” She prayed over him, gave him some water
and he fell asleep. After a very deep sleep he woke up healthy. Matrona said to
him: “Thank your sister, her faith has healed you”.
Matrona’s
helping had nothing to do with witchcraft, the so-called “extrasensory
abilities” or magic, when someone gets in touch with the powers of darkness.
Her helping had an absolutely different source and was of Christian nature.
That is why witches and occultists hated Matrona. People who got to know
Matrona in Moscow give evidence of that. First of all, Matrona prayed for
people. She had spiritual gifts in abundance and when she asked God for help,
she was persistent in her prayer and people were healed. The history of the
Orthodox Church has many examples when not only priests or ascetics but also
righteous lay people could heal the sick.
Matrona
read prayers over water and gave it to people. Those who drank the water or
washed their faces with it got relief. We do not know what prayers Matrona
read. Of course, it could not be the blessing of the water, which only priests
can do. But we know that not only water blessed in church but also that taken
from springs, rivers and wells can have the healing power because of the holy
people who lived and prayed near it.
In 1925
Matrona moved to Moscow, where she stayed until her death. In the huge capital
there were lots of miserable, spiritually infirm people who maybe even had lost
their faith or burdened their souls with multitude of sins and who therefore
needed her support. Having lived in Moscow for about three decades, Matrona
ministered to people and stopped many from perishing and directed them to
salvation.
Matrona
loved Moscow very much, saying that it was a holy city, the heart of Russia.
Both Matrona’s brothers, Michael and Ivan, became Communists. Michael became a
village activist. It went without saying that having a blessed sister near, who
was receiving many people daily and taught them to hold on to the Orthodox
faith, was unbearable to the brothers. They were afraid of persecution. Matrona
felt pity and compassion for them and her parents (Matrona’s mother died in
1945) and left them for Moscow.
At that
moment, her lengthy wanderings started. She was moving from one family of
friends or relatives to another, living in flats, houses and basements. Almost
everywhere Matrona lived without local registration. On a few occasions she escaped
imprisonment only by a miracle. As we said, it was now a new period of her
zealous life. She became a homeless wanderer. Together with her lived her
helpers who took care of her. But sometimes she had to live with people who
were hostile towards her. The housing situation in Moscow was difficult and
one’s place, if any, was not a matter of choice.
 |
| Zinaida Zhdanova. |
Z. V.
Zhdanova tells about the hardships of Matrona’s life: “I came to Sokolniki to
visit Matushka. She lived in a small clapboard house that was let to her for a
while. It was late autumn. I came in and found myself in a cloud of thick and
wet steam, which came from an iron stove. I came up to Matushka. She was lying
in bed facing the wall. Her hair had frozen to it. We could hardly tear the
hair off the wall. I was horrified: “What’s this, Matushka? You know that I
live together with my mother. My brother is at the front and my father is in
prison. We have two rooms in a warm house, 48 square meters, with a separate
entrance. Why didn’t you ask us to host you?” Matushka sighed and said: “God
did not allow me so that you wouldn’t regret it afterwards.”
Before
the war Matrona lived at a priest’s, Fr.Vasily’s, the husband of her care-giver
Pelagia. Then St. Matrona lived in Pyatnitskaya Street, in a summer shed in
Sokolniki, in Vishnyakov Lane in the basement at her niece’s, at Nikitskye
Gates, in Petrovsko-Razumovskoye, in Sergiev Posad (then Zagorsk) at her
nephew’s, and in Tsaritsyno. Her longest stay was on the Arbat. Here lived E.M.
Zhdanova with her daughter Zinaida. They came from Matrona’s native village.
They occupied a room of 48 square meters in an old wooden house. It was that
room where icons occupied three walls, from the floor to the ceiling. Old icon
lamps were hanging in front of the icons. The room was decorated with heavy,
expensive curtains. Before the revolution of 1917 the house belonged to
Zhdanova’s husband, who was from a rich noble family.
Sometimes
Matrona would move out in a hurry, foreseeing the coming trouble. She did it
always a day before the militia came to arrest her as she lived without
registration. It was a hard time and people were afraid of registering her at
their addresses. So, not only did Matrona escape arrests, but also saved the
people she lived with.
However,
Matrona was nearly arrested many times. Some of those around her were
imprisoned or exiled. For example, Zinaida Zhdanova was sentenced as a member
of a religious monarchist group.
Once
Matrona called on her nephew Ivan in her prayer. Ivan lived in Zagorsk. Then he
came to his boss and asked for a day off: “I really need to visit Auntie.” He
came to her without knowing why. Matrona urged him to take her to his
mother-in-law. Right after they left, the militia came. Things like that
happened many times.
Once a
militiaman came to arrest Matrona but she said: “Go home quickly! It’s an
emergency. I am blind and can’t walk and won’t escape from you.” He believed
her and rushed for home. There he found his wife who was accidentally severely
burned. He was just in time to take her to hospital. The next day they asked
him at work: “Have you arrested the blind one?” He answered: “I’ll never arrest
her. But for her I would have lost my wife.”
While
living in Moscow Matrona paid visits to her village. Sometimes people wanted
her to support them. Sometimes she would come just because she missed her
mother.
Apparently,
her life was the same routine: ministering to people during the day, and
praying at night. Like the ancient ascetics, she never really slept comfortably
in bed. She normally had a short sleep lying on her side, her head resting on a
small fist. The years passed.
Around
1940 Matrona once admonished someone saying: “Now you are quarrelling, but war
is coming. Of course, many people will die, but the Russians will win.”
In the
beginning of 1941 a woman asked Matushka if she should go on holiday. She was
offered leave at work but did not want to have a break in winter. Matushka said
to her: “One should go on holiday now as there’ll be no holidays for a long,
long time. It will be war. We’ll win. Moscow won’t suffer from the enemy, but
will burn a little. There’ll be no need to flee from Moscow.”
When the
war began, Matushka asked people to bring her willow branches. She made sticks
of the same length, peeled off the bark and prayed. Her fingers were sore. As
we said, Matrona could visit different places spiritually and there was no
obstacle to her spiritual vision. She often said that she was at the front line
invisibly to help our soldiers. When the Germans were approaching Tula, she
told everyone that they would never take hold of it. Her prophecy came true.
Matronushka
saw up to forty people a day. They were bringing her their grief, sufferings,
physical and emotional pain. No one was refused help, apart from those who came
with a dishonest intention.
Some saw
in her a sort of healer able to relieve people from misfortunes caused by
evil-wishers. But after speaking to her they realised that she was a true
servant of God. Meetings with St. Matrona turned many towards the Church and
its sacraments. Matrona’s help was self-denying. She did not take anything from
the people she helped.
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| The house on Starokonushensky Lane, Moscow, where St. Matrona live from 1942-49. |
Matushka
always read prayers loudly. These were usual prayers we hear in church and say
at home: “Our Father”, “Let God arise”, Psalm 90, “O Lord Who upholdest all
things, God of hosts and all flesh.” Matrona stressed the fact that it was not
she who helped but God: “Do you think Matrona is God? Only God helps!”
Healing
the infirm, Matrona demanded that they should trust in God and change their
lives. For example, she asked a woman who visited her once whether she believed
that God had the power to heal her. On another occasion, St. Matrona told a
woman who suffered from epilepsy to attend every Sunday service and have
confession and Holy Communion every time she was in church. Those whose
marriage was not sanctified by the church were advised to go through a service
of marriage. Wearing a cross was a must.
People
came to Matrona with the usual needs and problems: an incurable disease, a
loss, someone’s husband abandoning the family, broken hearts, job problems, harassment
at work. They also asked for Matrona’s advice about getting married, moving or
changing job.
There
were also lots of infirm people: someone would fall ill, others would start
barking all of a sudden, some would get paralysed or develop hallucinations.
These sufferings were caused by witches, and were a result of demonical
influence.
Once four
men took an old woman to Matrona. The woman was waving her hands like a
windmill. When Matushka had read the prayers of exorcism, the woman became
quiet and got healed of her miserable condition.
A woman
that often visited her brother in a mental hospital met a family on the way
there. Their eighteen-year-old daughter was to be discharged from the hospital.
On their way back she started barking. The woman said to her mother: “I feel so
much for you. We are passing Tsaritsyno, let us take your daughter to
Matronushka”. The girl’s father, a general, wouldn’t hear of it, but the mother
insisted.
When the
girl was approaching Matrona, her body became stiff like a stick and she
started spitting at Matrona trying to get loose. “Leave her alone, she won’t
cause any harm now”, Matrona said. They let her go. She fell on the floor in
agony and vomited blood. Then she fell asleep and slept for three days. They
looked after her. When she woke up, she asked her mother: “Where are we,
Mummy?” “We are at a holy person’s house, daughter”. And she told her
everything. The girl was healed of her disease.
Once an
important woman came to see Matrona. Her husband died during the war and her
only son had gone insane. It went without saying she was an atheist. She took
her son to Europe to be examined by famous doctors, but that was not
successful. “I have come to you in despair. I have no other place to go.”
Matrona asked her: “If the Lord heals your son, will you believe in God?” “I
don’t understand what it means—to believe.” Then Matrona asked for some water
and started reading a prayer loudly over the water, in the presence of the
woman. Then she gave her the water and said: “Go to the Kashchenko hospital and
tell the orderlies to hold your son tight when they take him out. He’ll have an
agony, but you should try to sprinkle the water into his eyes and mouth.”
After a
while the woman came to Matrona again. She knelt down before Matrona and
thanked her: her son was healed. She told her how it happened. She came to the
hospital and was approaching the barrier in the visitors’ hall when her son
came out. The small bottle with the water was in her pocket. Her son was
shivering all over and shouting out: “Mother, throw away what you have in your
pocket! Stop torturing me!” She was struck: how did he know? She sprinkled the
water onto his face. When it got to his mouth, he became calm suddenly, and
sense appeared in his eyes. “How wonderful!” he exclaimed. Soon he was discharged.
Often
Matrona put her hands onto the head of a sick person and said: “In a minute
I’ll cut your wings, but now you can fight a bit.” She would ask: “Who are
you?” Suddenly something would buzz inside the person. Matrona would repeat the
question, and the buzzing would get louder. Then she would pray saying: “The
mosquito has had enough.” And the person would become healthy again.
Matrona
also helped those who had problems in their family life. Once a woman came to
her and complained that she had not married for love and her relationship with
her husband left much to be desired. “Who’s to blame? You are to blame. Our
head is the Lord, and the Lord has an image of a Man. We, women, should obey
men. You should keep your wedding crown to the end of your days. So, it is you
who are to blame for the uneasy situation,” Matrona said. The woman took
Matrona’s advice and her married life changed for the better.
Zinaida
Zhdanova says about Matrona: “Matushka Matrona fought for every soul that came
to her and won. She never complained about the difficulties of her labour. I
cannot forgive myself for never feeling sorry for Matushka, though I saw that
she had a very hard time, sharing the burden of each of us. The light of those
days still warms me. Icon lamps were lit in the house, and Matushka’s love and
peace penetrated the soul. There was holiness, joy, peace and blessed warmth at
home. It was a war time, but we lived like in heaven.”
What was
she like, what image remained in the memory of those who knew her closely? She
had miniature hands and feet, like those of a child. We remember her sitting on
the bed or chest, with fluffy hair. Firmly closed eyelids. A kind face
radiating light. A gentle voice.
She
comforted the infirm, stroked them on the head, and blessed them with the sign
of the cross. Sometimes she would joke, and sometimes reproach strictly and
teach. But she wasn’t strict. She was tolerant to human weaknesses and was
compassionate, warm and sympathetic. She was always joyful and never complained
about her health and sufferings. Matushka did not preach. She gave some
practical advice about a particular situation, prayed and blessed people.
She was
not a person of many words and answered the questions laconically. Some of her
general advice remained:
Matushka
taught not to judge our neighbour. “Why judge other people? Think more of
yourself. Every sheep will be hung by its tail. What business do you have with
others’ tails? Think of yours.” Matushka taught people to leave their lives to
God’s will, to live with prayer, to cross oneself and everything around to
protect oneself from evil. She advised to have Holy Communion often. “Protect
yourselves with the sign of the cross, prayer, holy water, frequent
Communion…Light lamps before the icons.”
She also
taught to love and forgive the old and infirm. “If the old or infirm or someone
not in his right mind tells you something that hurts you, take no notice but
help them. You should help the infirm eagerly, doing your best, and should
forgive them whatever they say.”
Matrona
forbade believing dreams: “Take no notice of them, they can be from the evil
one, to upset a person, to make him think of empty things.”
Matrona
warned people not to spend time looking for elders. By asking many different
priests for advice in search of an elder one can lose spiritual strength and
the right direction in life.
Here are
her own words: “The world lies in evil, and delusion and temptation will be
open, not disguised. Take care not to fall.” “If you go to an elder or priest for
advice, pray that the Lord gives him wisdom to tell you the right thing.” She
taught not to be curious of priests and their lives. She told those who wanted
to reach Christian perfection not to stand out from the rest in appearance or
manner, for example, by wearing black or something like that.
She
taught to be patient. Once she said to Zinaida Zhdanova: “Go to church and
don’t watch anyone there. Pray with your eyes closed or look at some icon.” St.
Seraphim of Sarov gave the same advice, as well as some other holy fathers. All
in all, there was nothing in Matrona’s advice that contradicted the Holy
Fathers.
Matushka
considered using make-up a serious sin. By doing so women distort the image of
God in them by adding features that the Lord did not make. This creates false
beauty that leads to corruption.
St.
Matrona would say to those girls that first came to God: “God will forgive
everything of you virgins, if you are faithful to Him. Those who decide to
remain in chastity should be firm to the end. The Lord will give you a crown
for that.”
“When the
enemy approaches you, you should pray. A sudden death can occur if one does not
pray. The enemy sits on our left shoulder, and the angel—on the right. Each of
them has a book: sins are written down in one book, and good deeds in the
other. Cross yourself as frequently as possible! The cross is like a lock on
the door.” She also taught not to forget to bless the food: “Protect yourself
with the power of the Holy and Life-giving Cross.”
About
witches Matushka taught: “For those who voluntarily unite with the powers of
evil and practise witchcraft, there is no way out. One should never ask
‘healers’ for help. They heal one thing and harm the soul.”
Matushka
often told her close people that she was fighting with those practising
witchcraft, invisibly. Once a very noble-looking old man with a white beard
came to Matrona and knelt down before her in tears: “My only son is dying.”
Matushka bent to him and asked in a low voice: “How bad did you do it to him?
To death or not?” “To death.” “Go away from me, you shouldn’t have come to me.”
After he
left she said: “Wizards and witches know God. If only you could pray like them
when they ask God to forgive them for the evil they caused!”
Matushka
venerated the late priest Valentine Amphiteatrov. She said he was great in the
eyes of God and helped those who asked for his help at his grave. Sometimes she
sent her visitors to take some sand from his grave.
Massive
disbelief, aggressive attacks on the Christian faith, growing estrangement and
malice among people, rejection of the tradition by millions of people, and
sinful life without repentance had many tragic consequences. Matrona understood
it well.
On the
days of communist processions Matushka asked us not to go out and to shut the
windows and doors tightly because she said crowds of demons occupied the whole
space and all people. Maybe the Blessed Eldress, who often spoke in parables,
thus reminded us of the necessity to keep our senses—“the windows of the soul”
in the terminology of the Holy Fathers—shut against the evil spirits.
Zinaida
Zhdanova once asked Matushka, “Why did God let it happen that so many churches
were closed or destroyed?” Matushka answered: “There is God’s will in that, as
there’ll be few believers and ministers.” “Why is no one fighting against
that?” “The people are hypnotised; horrible powers have come… This power is in
the air, everywhere now, and it penetrates everything. Earlier it lived only
far away in the bogs and forests. People went to church, wore crosses and their
houses were protected by icons and lamps and were blessed. Demons could not
enter houses like that, but now they live even in people because humans are now
rejecting the faith and God.”
Some
people wanted to unveil the mystery of Matrona’s spiritual life and watched her
secretly during the night. St. Matrona would pray and prostrate whole nights
through.
While
living at the Zhdanovs’, Matronushka had confession and Holy Communion from Fr.
Dimitry, a priest in a church in Krasnaya Presnya. Constant prayer helped
Blessed Matrona to bear the cross of serving people, which was a real labour
and martyrdom, the highest expression of love. Praying for people possessed by
demons, as well as for everyone else, sharing people’s grief Matushka got so
tired that by the end of the day she couldn’t speak and only moaned quietly,
having laid her head on her tiny fist. As regards her inner life, it remained
secret even for her nearest and dearest.
Though no
one knew Matushka’s spiritual life, people did not doubt her holiness and asceticism.
Her ministry was in her great patience that came from her pure heart and ardent
love of God. It is this patience that will save the Christians of the last
times, as holy fathers of the Church prophesied. As a real ascetic, the Blessed
Eldress taught not only by her words, but also by her whole life. Apparently
blind, she taught people how to acquire spiritual vision. Unable to walk, she
taught and is teaching us even now how to walk on the hard path to salvation.
Zinaida
Zhdanova writes: “Who was Matronushka? Matushka was a warrior angel, as if she
had a sword of fire in her hands to fight the evil power. She healed people
with prayer and holy water… She was small as a child. She always half-lay on
her fist and half-sat. That was the only way she slept; she never lay
comfortably. When she received people she sat with her hands over the head of
the visitor. She would bless the person, say the most important thing and pray
for him.
She never
had a house of her own, nor did she possess anything. She lived in those houses
or flats where she was invited. When grateful visitors brought food to her, she
had no right of distributing it herself the way she thought best. She always
had to obey a woman called Pelagia who was unkind and who commanded in the
house, giving nearly all presented food to her relatives. Matushka could
neither eat nor drink without her consent.
Matushka
seemed to know everything ahead. Every day of her life was a stream of grief
and miseries of her visitors. She helped the infirm, comforted and healed them.
Her prayer healed many. She would take the head of the crying person into her
hands, comfort and warm him with her holiness, and he would leave as if on
wings. And she, exhausted, would only sigh and pray all night long. She had a
kind of dimple on her forehead as a result of crossing herself frequently. She
always did it very carefully taking her time, the fingers were searching for
the dimple…”
During
the war, many times she answered the question that many of her visitors were
worried by most: what happened to their relatives, particularly to those on the
front—were they alive, or not? To some she would say: “Wait for him, he’s
alive.” Some were told to pray for their loved ones as for the departed.
It is
very likely that those who wanted spiritual guidance asked Matrona to be their
teacher. Many priests in Moscow and monks in St. Sergius Holy Trinity Lavra
knew about Matushka. But Providence chose it so that Matrona had no disciples
who could witness her life to be able to tell future generations about it.
People
from her native village often visited her. She also received notes with
questions from those in her neighbourhood, and answered them. Some would come
for help from areas as remote as two hundred or three hundred kilometres away,
and she knew their names. There were Muscovites as well as visitors from other
cities that heard of Matushka’s gift of spiritual vision. They were people of
all ages: young, old and middle-aged. She would receive some, and reject
others. With some people she spoke plainly, with others—in parables.
Once
Zinaida complained about her nerves. Matushka answered: “There are no nerves at
war or in prison… One should be self-possessed and patient.”
Matushka
taught that one should not ignore medical treatment. The body is like a house
given by God so it sometimes needs repair. God created the world and, in it,
medical herbs, and one should not ignore them.
Matushka
felt sorry for her close ones: “I am so sorry for you, you’ll live to the last
times. Life will get worse and worse. The time will come when they put the
cross and the bread in front of you and ask you to make your choice.” “We’ll
choose the cross, but how shall we live?” “We’ll pray to God, take some soil,
form it into little balls, eat them and be no more hungry.”
On
another occasion she comforted a person and urged not to fear anything:
“Imagine a carefree child who is carried around in the sledge. The Lord will
sort out everything.”
Matronushka
often said: “If a nation loses faith in God, it faces scourges, and if it does
not repent, it disappears from the earth. How many peoples have disappeared,
but Russia existed and will exist. Pray, ask, repent! The Lord will not abandon
you and will keep our land!”
Matrona’s
last shelter on earth was in a place outside Moscow, Skhodnya, where she moved
from the city centre. Matrona’s distant relation lived there. Here, too, came a
stream of visitors bringing their suffering. Only before death, Matushka, who
had grown weak, wanted to limit the number of people she could see. But people
kept coming, and she could not refuse them help. They say that she knew the day
of her death from God three days in advance, and she made all the necessary
arrangements. Matushka asked for the burial service to be conducted in the
Church of Laying of the Robe in Donskaya Street. She asked not to bring
wreathes or artificial flowers to her funeral.
During
her last days, she had the sacraments of confession and Holy Communion from
priests that visited her. As anyone else, she was afraid of dying and did not
conceal her fear from her close ones. Right before her death, Fr. Dimitry came
to her to hear her confession. She was worried whether she put her arms on her
chest correctly before taking the Sacrament. He asked her in surprise: “Are you
afraid of dying?” “I am, indeed.”
On May
the 2nd, 1952 St. Matrona departed this life. On the next day, the name of
newly departed Blessed Matrona came on an intercession list to the St.
Sergius-Holy Trinity Lavra. The celebrating hieromonk noticed it and
immediately went out of the sanctuary and asked the people in worry: “Who
brought the note? Did she die?” No wonder he knew, her because many monks in
the Lavra venerated Matrona. An old woman and her daughter who came from Moscow
confirmed that Matushka had died the day before, saying where her body would be
placed the next morning for farewell. This is how the monks in the Lavra
learned about her death and were able to come to her funeral. After the burial
service that was celebrated by Fr.Nikolay Golubtsov, everyone came to kiss her
hands.
On May
the 4th, the Sunday of Myrrh-bearing women, was the day of Matrona’s funeral.
According to her wish she was buried in Danilov Cemetery so that “she could
hear the service”. Great numbers of Orthodox people started venerating St.
Matrona as a true servant of God immediately after her funeral.
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| St. Matrona's grave in the Danilov cemetery. |
Blessed
Matrona said: “After my death few people will come to my grave, only my
closest. When they die, my grave will be abandoned, and will bevisited only
occasionally… But many years later people will learn about me and will come in
crowds to ask for help in their troubles. They will ask me to pray for them to
the Lord, and I will hear and help everybody.”
Before
her death she said: “Come, come to me, all. Tell me about your troubles, as if
I were alive, and I will see you and hear you, and help you.” Matushka also
said that those who would seek her intercession before God would be saved. “All
those who ask me for help I will meet after their death, everyone.”
Over
thirty years after she died, her grave in Danilov Cemetery became one of the
holy places in the Orthodox Moscow. People from all over Russia and abroad
would come there with their miseries and illnesses exactly as they did when she
was alive.
 |
| Patriarch Kirill at the relics of St. Matrona of Moscow in the Protection Monastery, Moscow, where they rest today. |
Blessed
Matrona was an Orthodox Christian in the very deep and traditional meaning of
the word. Compassion to people that came from the bottom of her loving heart,
her prayer, the sign of the cross, her unfailing faithfulness to the holy
statutes of the Orthodox Church were the core of her ardent spiritual life. The
nature of her ministry originates in the centuries of godliness and piety. That
is why her assistance to people bears spiritual fruit: people become firm in
the Orthodox faith, they become attached to the Church outwardly and in their
inner self, they actively participate in the daily life of prayer.
Matrona
is known by tens of thousands of Orthodox people. They call her affectionately
“Matronushka”. She helps people as in the days when she lived. Those who ask
her for intercession soon feel it, and she prays for them to God with great
boldness.
By The Convent of the Protection, Moscow
Source: http://www.pravoslavie.ru/79033.html
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