On August 29, 2012, in the Catherine Hall of the Moscow Kremlin, the President of Russia presented state awards to outstanding citizens of Russia, including cosmonauts, military personnel, scientists and cultural figures, and representatives of working professions.
“It is symbolic that today, here, in the Kremlin hall of the same name, for the first time in many decades, a revived award that existed during the Russian Empire - the Order of the Holy Great Martyr Catherine - is being presented,” V.V. noted in his speech at the ceremony. Putin.
According to the head of the Russian state, this order will honor “peacekeeping, humanitarian, and charitable services.”
For her great contribution to charitable and social activities, the Order of the Holy Great Martyr Catherine was awarded to Abbess Nicholas (Ilyina), abbess of the St. Nicholas Chernoostrovsky Convent in Maloyaroslavets, Kaluga Region, the official website of the President of Russia reports.
Reference(based on materials from the website of the Kaluga diocese)
St. Nicholas Chernoostrovsky Convent was created at the end of the 16th century. on the site of a church built by the princes Obolensky in the 14th century. At the beginning of the 17th century. During the Time of Troubles, the monastery was destroyed, and only by 1659, under Elder Hypatia, monastic life was resumed in it. In 1764, the monastery became unemployed, and the following year, due to poverty, it was converted into a parish church.
At the request and at the expense of the Moscow merchant Tselibeev, a native of the city of Maloyaroslavets, in 1799 the monastery began to be revived. In 1809, when Hieromonk Macarius (Fomin), a resident of Optina Hermitage, was appointed governor, construction of a new temple began.
In 1812, the territory of the monastery became the site of a decisive battle in the war with Napoleon. According to various estimates, from six to eight thousand Russian soldiers died in this battle. The monastery, like the entire city, suffered greatly from military operations. All its buildings were burned out, and only the main gates remained, riddled with grapeshot, but the Miracle of the Savior of God written on them miraculously remained unharmed. Over the next 10 years, St. Nicholas Monastery was completely restored. In 1817, it became a full-time third-class monastery “in memory and in the eternal favor of the Almighty, who granted our Fatherland a glorious victory over its enemies under its walls.” Through the works of their abbots, immigrants from the Holy Vvedenskaya Optina Hermitage, throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. the monastery was landscaped externally and internally, and traditions of strict monastic life developed in it.
In 1918 the monastery was closed. Since 1930, the monastery housed a pedagogical technical school. In 1939, an exposition of the museum of 1812 was opened in the building of St. Nicholas Cathedral. After the Great Patriotic War, the museum was moved to the building of the former chapel, and the monastery was occupied by residents. In subsequent years, at various times it housed pedagogical and library technical schools, a chess club, general education and art schools, a bakery, and construction organizations. Gradually, the monastery fell into complete desolation: in addition to the temples, only one building survived from the monastery buildings, in which the art school was located.
On August 20, 1991, the monastery was returned to the Church and opened as a men's monastery, but the small brethren dispersed to other monasteries, and in February 1993, the Holy Synod decided that the St. Nicholas Chernoostrovsky Monastery should be a women's monastery.
Currently, all the residential buildings of the monastery have been restored, and construction of an orphanage complex for 80 people is underway. Divine services are held in all churches.
The monastery conducts charitable and educational activities among the population of Maloyaroslavets and receives numerous pilgrims. Since 1993, the monastery has operated the Otrada boarding house for girls from families with drug and alcohol addiction. It houses 58 pupils. The trustee for the construction of the orphanage complex is the Connection of Generations charitable foundation, which is headed by Major General A.I. Kotelkin.
In July 1999 he visited the monastery, in 1998 - .
Currently, there are 75 nuns working in the monastery.
On January 29, 2007, the Government of the Russian Federation transferred the monastery to the ownership of the Kaluga Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Patriarchy.ru
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“There are a lot of broken destinies there: they ended up in prison and in a mental hospital”
“Regina Shams spent 5 years in the St. Nicholas Chernoostrovsky Monastery. Maria Kikot recently spoke about the wild morals reigning in this monastery, headed by Abbess Nikolai, in her frank confessional book.
But Regina’s story is much more dramatic: her fate was fully shared by her little daughter Diana, who was raised in a monastery orphanage all these years. Life in a closed community became a monstrous test for both, requiring long rehabilitation, like after a serious illness.
“The nuns were accused of lesbian inclinations”: the novices were given hell in the monastery
The friends with whom Regina shared her nightmares shouted in one voice: “This Maloyaroslavets again? Don’t remember!”
It seemed like an eternity lay between her before and after photos. There is almost nothing left of that girl with a romantic smile and serene eyes. It was as if it had been erased with an invisible eraser.
Regina before and after. There are only two years between these photos.
Regina is a native Muscovite. She graduated from Mendeleevsky - for her parents, worked in her specialty, but her soul yearned for other shores. When the opportunity arose, Regina went to Italy - the country of her dreams. At the Dante Alighieri Institute, she learned Italian. At that time there was a real boom in this language in Moscow, and work was found
he wanted to marry me,” she says. - I have never been lucky in my personal life. The first marriage was unsuccessful; I raised my eldest daughter Masha alone.
When Diana was one year old, I married an Iranian, Mohsen, who was studying to become a pilot in Russia. He registered his daughter as his own, and Diana Silvievna Smirnova became Diana Mokhsenovna Shams. It was not a marriage of great love; each of us pursued our own interests: I became a married woman, and Mohsen received a Russian passport.
From the outside, Regina looked quite successful. I dressed fashionably, ran in the mornings, worked with the Italian language, and studied to become a psychologist. She could afford to keep a nanny for her youngest daughter, and was greeted at home by a handsome husband, nine years younger.
But problems began with Masha. As a teenager, she fell into bad company. I didn't have to spend the night at home. I suffered a lot with her. I lived like hell. But one day everything changed. Masha and her friends went to Optina Pustyn and returned with different eyes. It was as if she was broadcasting grace. She told about miracles, about Father Eli, about the source in which they plunged. And next time we went together.
This was my first experience of immersion in Orthodox life. A whole world opened up for Regina with beautiful monastery services, confessions and a new circle of friends.
And then I suddenly felt as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders, as if someone had taken my burden upon themselves. I’ve been on a spiritual quest for several years now; I’ve read a huge number of philosophical and esoteric books. My soul was hungry, and I couldn’t satisfy it with anything.
I tried Buddhism. I read the Koran twice and even performed namaz, as it was written in the book that my Muslim husband gave me. Mohsen didn’t like the fact that I started fasting with marital abstinence. We started having big scandals, with fights, tears and mutual insults. Life with him became painful. He even said in his hearts: “It would be better if you were a Buddhist!”
Regina is very trusting and naive by nature. It's easy to fool her. She could not even imagine that her new acquaintances from the Orthodox community would turn out to be ordinary scammers, and her attempt to move to the Moscow region would result in litigation and financial losses.
Regina went to Optina Pustyn for advice. Elder Father Eli blessed her to settle in the city of Borovsk, 80 kilometers from Moscow, where she had neither friends nor acquaintances.
I perceived his words as the will of God. I sold an apartment in the center of Moscow and bought a house in Borovsk - beautiful, in the Baltic style, but, as it turned out, not at all suitable for winter. We settled in, bought furniture and a car, but when the cold weather arrived, we began to freeze.
The money ran out, my husband didn’t come, I fell into depression. I woke up every morning in terrible anxiety and saw no way out of the impasse. There were no jobs there for my qualifications, and I didn’t want to become a methodologist or a nanny in a kindergarten.
It seemed to me that since Father Eli blessed me, then everything should work out by itself, but this did not happen. And then Masha, in the last stages of pregnancy, lost her child and, with the blessing of Elder Elijah, went to the Toplovsky Monastery in Crimea, where she stayed for six months. Diana and I were left alone. And if it weren’t for Father John, who selflessly supported us, I don’t know how we would have survived.
How did you get to the Chernoostrovsky Monastery?
Father John brought us there for the service. We entered to the sound of bells and gasped. Walking towards me was a nun of unearthly beauty, who seemed to be flying above the earth. And when in the temple the sisters sang “Behold the bridegroom comes at midnight...”, my tears flowed. It was such a strong impression. Only later did I realize that these voices rushing under the arches were ringing with genuine suffering. And when I saw the girls in smart sundresses and formal headscarves, the decision came naturally. I wanted my daughter to be like that. And Elder Eli advised to send her to an Orthodox gymnasium. Now they called me Rimma, Diana - Daria, by their baptismal names.
When did the strength tests begin?
My Diana was always headstrong, but she didn’t like the abbess right away, and she didn’t approach her for a blessing. She was punished - she was deprived of communion on the feast of St. Sergius of Radonezh.
I, too, fell out of favor almost instantly. I was put in the kitchen as a cook and the eldest girl from the orphanage was given as an assistant. Usually this work was done by two physically strong sisters, so that by 11 o'clock the meal would be ready.
But obedience turned out to be beyond my strength. Vegetables had to be peeled and cut for 80 sisters, then cooked in saucepans. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t do everything. I cooked porridge and something else, but the vegetables turned out half-raw: I set the wrong temperature. Mother said that this was an outrageous case, this had never happened in the monastery and that now I would be forever in the kitchen, and I would have to get up at 4 in the morning to be on time.
What else did mother punish for?
Literally for everything. The punishments snowballed. One sister missed her mother, another had the wrong expression on her face when her obedience was changed, the third was blamed for thoughts that we all admitted in writing. Even my innocent cat, a smoky Persian, whom I brought with me to the monastery, got it.
The sleek, handsome man turned into a skinny homeless man with shabby fur. He practically lived on the street, and even in severe frosts he was rarely allowed to warm up indoors; he was driven away from the kitchen. Once I returned from exile to the monastery, and the cat came to my cell.
Mother did everything the opposite, sometimes it reached the point of absurdity. If my sister wants to sing in the choir, she is forbidden, she is tired of zucchini, they will serve her for all three meals, she has no strength for hard physical work, they will give her the most difficult obedience. Mother once came from Greece and ordered everyone to smile like they did there. I was deprived of communion if someone forgot to smile. There are crowds of guests in the monastery; you cannot spoil their impression. Friendship and any affection between sisters were especially discouraged. Friends were separated, accused of lesbian tendencies.
Were the punishments severe?
Rise at 5 o'clock: morning prayers - and off to work. And so on until 11 pm. If the abbess was dissatisfied with you, she expressed this to Dean Seraphim, who gave you some kind of unbearable obedience.
I once had to wash everyone’s dishes for two months from morning to evening just because one sister complained about me: I didn’t rinse it properly. Then mother promised to forgive the punished sisters at Christmas, but as a result she only forgave them at Easter. It was especially difficult on long holidays with visiting bishops, concerts, long speeches, and magnificent receptions. We could not attend these meals: we were dressed in colorful clothes, like stuffed animals, and after work we slept in the back of the kitchen, hungry. No one dared to complain. Everyone was afraid of mother's wrath.
This is some kind of irrational fear, like in a totalitarian sect.
You live in a closed system, you have no phone, no passport, no outside communication.
Mother inspired: “You see everything wrong. Black is white and white is black. You are below zero. Everything that seems good to you is evil.” As a result, everything gets mixed up in your head.
Mother seemed to us omnipotent and perspicacious. She asked: “Why is your face so dark? What are your thoughts?” The sisters shuddered; they believed that she could see right through them. Mother always insists that this is the best monastery with the Athos charter, and the rest are collective farms. For a long time I sincerely shared my thoughts, and my mother punished me for it, shamed me in front of everyone. But Natasha, who was sent to us from the Kaluga Kazan Monastery to be corrected for her pride, suffered especially hard.
What happened to Natasha?
She was a cassophore novice and seemed to me an example of monasticism: cheerful, friendly. She easily fulfilled the regulations and all obediences. But Natasha became attached to her mother Seraphima, and the abbess regarded this as an addiction and forbade them to communicate. In general, mother made sure that everyone in the monastery loved only her and that there was no sympathy, affection or friendship for anyone else.
She “undressed” Natasha - took off her ryassophore, began accusing her of lesbian feelings, calling her a dirty harlot who allegedly seduces her sisters. She demanded that Natasha repent, and she stood and said: “Sisters, forgive me, I didn’t think anything like that, I approached it in simplicity...”
Then something happened to Natasha. They saw her walking up the stairs and clutching the Gospel to her chest. She was increasingly detached and kept falling asleep right at work. She was given some pills. And mother announced to us that Natasha needed a psychiatrist, and soon announced that Natasha had schizophrenia and that she should be sent to a psychiatric clinic for treatment.
I haven't heard anything about her for a long time. Then I once met her in Kaluga at the Kazan Monastery, where she was returned after the hospital. She gave the impression of a lost and unhappy person. There were rumors that she was married to an unbeliever, he beat her, and she lost her child. Where is she now? There are many such sisters whose destinies were broken by mother: they ended up in prison and in a psychiatric hospital.
You also lived in Jerusalem, in the Gornensky Monastery. Was this also obedience?
Yes, there I also had a special blessing - to work seven days a week. Then they gave me one day of rest a week. Mother Spiridona and Galya from our monastery constantly denounced me to Abbess Nikolai. And the Gornensky sisters, with some exceptions, tried to live according to the Gospel. From the nun Joanna, with whom I was placed, only love, care and support came, just like from the abbess of the monastery, Mother Georgia. It was strange to me, I was not used to this, since in Maloyaroslavets I saw only cruelty on the part of my mother and her henchmen.
How did your little daughter cope with being separated from you?
She suffered without me. Every time my mother sent me somewhere, Diana was very worried. In a monastery, everything sensual must be rejected, including manifestations of love for one’s own child. I was practically deprived of communication with my daughter. Every meeting with a child requires a blessing. It breaks your soul when your daughter is sick! You run into the shelter, but they don’t let you in without your mother’s blessing. What kind of blessing is it if I didn’t get out of obedience?
Only on Sunday, during rest, could I see my daughter if I was in a monastery and not in exile. When I was in the monasteries, we did not meet for weeks. And so... briefly in the temple, she grabbed her hand. Or when the children went through the “groove” - a religious procession throughout the monastery with prayers to the Mother of God, I jumped out of the refectory to at least wave. They could also be punished if the child ran up. One day they talked like that, and then they reported it, and Dianka was punished - they kept her on soup for a week.
I don't know how one can stand this. Don’t hug me again, don’t hold me close, don’t kiss...
I came up and kissed the child, and for this she was deprived of sweets, rest and was forced to clean toilets. Diana shouted to me: “Mom, don’t come closer!” She was drooping, like an extinguished lantern. She didn’t eat and fell asleep while walking.
One day, passing by an orphanage, I heard a loud cry, in which I recognized the voice of my Diana. I rushed to her. It turned out that my girl was punished: “You won’t go to the refectory until you find your skirt!” I took out the first skirt I came across and advised me to say that I had found mine. The children were generally fed even worse than their sisters. Milk and cottage cheese were rarely given, and meat - never.
Have you also lived from hand to mouth?
Only on holidays did the monastery host feasts with delicacies. But on ordinary days I just wanted bread with salt, but mother limited the bread to two pieces of white and two black. Once I exchanged photographs of my daughter with one sister for black bread. This was without a blessing, and when I confessed to my mother, she, sitting on her throne, tore up the photographs in front of my eyes.
How did Diana come to terms with the monastic order?
Diana did not want to live in a monastery. When she talked about this, they intimidated her: “Mom abandoned you. You will go to an orphanage. And then they beat me and tie me to the bed! If you want, write a statement!” And my little daughter still wrote a statement!
Later, when we left the monastery, she confessed to me that at the very beginning, when she was only six years old, Alexandra’s mother locked her in the toilet and forced her to scrape off the rust in the toilet with her nails. She is secretive by nature and thought that if she told me it would be even worse.
And how many times they packed her up for some trips, they picked out the outfits that she so dreamed of wearing, and then the suitcase was taken away, and she didn’t go anywhere. Nikolai’s granddaughter was sent on vacation to Anapa.
Diana tried to fulfill all the obediences, walked to the line, but everything was useless. My daughter was taken off the last trip because she broke out in blisters before leaving. They thought it was chickenpox, but she had already had chickenpox. It was due to nerves. In general, she recently began to get sick often with a high fever.
When did you decide to leave the Chernoostrovsky Monastery?
The daughter could not stand it first. I left thanks to her. In Jerusalem at the Holy Sepulcher, I prayed that Dianka and I would learn obedience. And at this time, a story happened with my daughter in the monastery. She was sent to the refectory alone to wash the dishes for 80 sisters, she refused, said: “I’ll run away!” Of course, she didn't expect anyone to believe her. But they took her words seriously, my mother did not want problems with the law, they got scared, found my eldest daughter in Borovsk by phone and demanded to take Diana away.
It was 11 pm. Masha asked to wait until the morning, but she was not allowed. “Your daughter was thrown out!” - our nuns joyfully told me.
After returning from Jerusalem, a new punishment awaited me - obedience to the assistant cook at the children's refectory. They work there twice as hard as usual, with almost no rest or services. This is a very exhausting obedience: a large refectory, endless guests, teachers, children, holidays, dishes, cleaning and much more. For me, with my chronic anemia, anemia, and constant fatigue, this obedience would be very difficult. But no one was interested in my health.
These five years of life could not pass without a trace either for you or for Diana...
My daughter was like a little animal: she hid in the closet, if she dropped something, she immediately shouted: “It’s not my fault!” And after leaving there for another year, no matter what I did, I mentally checked my actions with the abbess: how would she react?
I wore black clothes for a long time: I was afraid that something terrible would happen to me. Mother scared me: a brick would fall on my head or I would be raped. When I was in the Kaluga region and saw the turn to Maloyaroslavets, I was overcome with horror. The fear of a chance meeting with Mother Nikolai drove me like a wounded animal, and when I saw her at the service, I ran, confused about the road. Even today it is difficult for me to talk about the past in a detached manner. This wound still hurts. When you plunge into memories, it’s as if you are living through all hell again - all this cruelty and unlove.
But you didn’t immediately decide to completely break with the monastic past?
Despite the terrible condition of my blood - high sugar and anemia - I tried to continue my monastic path for two more years in the monastery courtyards, until the confessor of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra gave me another blessing to work, which meant living in the world.
Where is Daria-Diana now?
The daughter now lives in the orphanage of the Holy Trinity Stefano-Makhrishchi Monastery and studies in a regular school. This monastery was recommended to me back in Jerusalem. Everything is arranged differently there.
When we lived at home for several months, our daughter completely lost control: she slept until noon, surfed the Internet, dyed her hair, cut her hair. She had entered adolescence, she wanted everything at once, and I understood that I could not keep her, and asked her mother Ambrosia to take her to the orphanage until she graduated from school.
Diana didn’t care about me - Nikolai’s mother did that. She devalued me in the eyes of her daughter, I was always an outcast, always in bad standing. When I took my daughter to Makhra, she told me: “I will never, never send my children to a monastery!” She had such a protest! I didn’t want to go to church, I said: “That’s enough, I’ve prayed!” Now our relationship is improving, but I feel that she has a grudge against me.
Abbess Nicholas, abbess of the St. Nicholas Chernoostrovsky Monastery.
...Despite everything she had experienced, Regina did not lose faith. Largely thanks to her confessor, whom she met at the monastery courtyard in Talitsy. Father David, as Regina says, showed genuine mercy to her.
She prays, attends services, confesses and receives communion. But she will never return to the monastery. This page of life is closed forever. There, behind the high walls, so close to heaven, there was everything that makes up monastic life, except for the most important thing - love. But God is love.
Saint Nicholas helps everyone who asks him for it, and even those who not only do not ask, but also do not know what to ask...
I haven’t even asked him yet, but the saint has already helped me
, dean of the Moskvoretsky district, rector of the Church of the Transfiguration on Bolvanka:
I remember once, back in pre-war times, when my father was not a priest, he was sitting and loading cartridges (my dad was an amateur hunter), and my older brother Peter and I were playing nearby. Father gave us caramel each so that we would not disturb him. And I choked on this candy, it got stuck in my throat. The elder brother saw and shouted:
Dad, dad!
And somehow I wave my hands like that. The father looked into the throat - there was candy there. I wanted to pull her out, but I pushed her even further... Mom was not at home at that time. My father grabbed me and ran to my neighbor (we rented half a house in Zaraysk). It was in the fall, in November. The housewife, apparently, went to the well and, while she was carrying water, splashed it on the floor, and it froze. A plywood door separated our halves. The father kicked it out, and while he was running, he prayed to the saint:
Help - the child bears your name!
And so he runs with me in his arms, but how he slips! He fell, hit his elbow on the bench, and the candy flew out. I clearly remember the moment when I began to breathe: my father was holding me in his arms under a light bulb. This was the first, and perhaps not the first, participation of St. Nicholas in my life.
It is known, for example, that during the Great Patriotic War, when the Germans approached Zaraysk, their spies saw cannons in all the loopholes of the Kremlin. The Kremlin seemed to bristle with guns. The Germans did not dare to take him. One pious woman had a vision that Saint Nicholas stood guard over the city with a sword. We have there, in Zaraisk, a famous icon of St. Nicholas of Zaraisk.
An old man who helps everyone and waits until a person canT believe
Hieroschemamonk Valentin (Gurevich), confessor of the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow:
It is surprising that Saint Nicholas turns out to be an ambulance even in those cases when people not only do not call on him with faith, but do not even suspect his existence.
During the Russo-Japanese War, at the beginning of the twentieth century, there was such a case. The Russians hung a large icon of St. Nicholas on the station building in China. When asked by the Japanese general about this icon, the local Chinese replied that it was an old man who helped everyone. This conversation was also witnessed by a Japanese soldier.
Shortly after this, a battle took place between the Russians and the Japanese. In this battle the Japanese were defeated.
The soldier who heard this conversation fled from the battlefield along with his colleagues. The path lay through a swamp, and he got stuck in it, he began to be sucked in. When he was already immersed up to his chest, and there was no one around who could help him, he prayed with all his heart: “The old man who helps everyone, help me!!!” This old man immediately appeared and pulled him out of the swamp.
At the same time, the Japanese general in question, seriously wounded, lay on the ground among the corpses of his subordinates. The bleeding was so profuse that it threatened him with imminent death. There was no one around who could help him. And then he cried out in the same words as the Japanese soldier drowned in the swamp: “The old man who helps everyone, help me!!!” Instantly an old man appeared and took him in his arms. He lost consciousness and woke up many kilometers from the battlefield, in a Japanese hospital, where he was treated.
Returning to his homeland, he became a parishioner of the Orthodox community, headed by the Equal-to-the-Apostles Saint, whose name, like his savior, was Nicholas. Having married a parishioner of this community, he became the father of many children and gave all his children of both sexes the same name - Nikolai.
Another case of help from this “old man” was told by singer Vertinsky. One old Chinese man was walking on weak ice across a river and fell into a wormwood. The unfortunate man was already being pulled under the ice by the current when he remembered that the Russians always ask for help from some old man whose image hangs at the station.
Old man from the station, help me! - were the last words of the Chinese. Then he lost consciousness. He woke up on the other side and first of all rushed to the station to thank the holy elder for his miraculous salvation.
After this incident, the fisherman himself was baptized, and many other Chinese followed his example.
And one day, at the beginning of my churching, I met an elderly woman. She lived in Gnezdnikovsky Lane and was a parishioner of the Church of the Resurrection of the Word in Bryusov Lane.
Before that, in her youth, she worked with Ordzhonikidze and other revolutionary figures. She herself was Latvian, her name was Elsa Yanovna. Her husband was an Armenian, also from Bolshevik circles, he was an atheist all his adult life, and in childhood, like his wife, he was baptized in heterodoxy.
By the time we met, her husband had died after a serious and incurable illness that confined him to bed for a long time, and she cared for him for several years.
And then one day, Elsa Ivanovna tells me this incident, a neighbor in a communal apartment comes in and congratulates them on the holiday:
Today Nikolai Ugodnik! - and shows them the icon of the saint.
And the husband suddenly says:
Today this old man appeared in my dream and reminded me of my whole life. I saw all the times when I was in mortal danger. Somewhere on a mountain river in Armenia... - etc., etc.; including the mortal danger that arose in those years when the iron laws of the revolution came into force, destroying its creators. - And I constantly received deliverance. And this old man told me: “Whenever you found yourself on the brink of death, I saved you. Why don't you want to know me?
And suddenly a neighbor comes with an icon!
This husband and wife both believed and were united to Orthodoxy.
Stop asking - stop helping
, confessor of the Sretensky Monastery in Moscow:
When the Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God had not yet been restored in our Seraphim skete in the Ryazan region, and the skete itself had not yet been rebuilt, we served there only twice a year, in Kazan - in the summer and autumn. At that time, we were already given for safekeeping the miraculous Kazan Icon of the Mother of God from this church, which the believers had previously kept in their homes. The icon is interesting in its iconography: Archangel Gabriel holds in his hands the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God.
On the eve of the next service, for the summer Kazan service, we loaded our old monastery Volkswagen with everything that needed to be brought to the monastery for worship: first of all, this icon, candlesticks, vestments, etc. We drove together with the driver. We have already left the Moscow Ring Road. The metal part that holds the mudguard behind the wheel opens and rips open the tire so that it turns into rags.
And so we continue our journey at walking speed. This damaged wheel hits the road with its rim: boom-boom, boom-boom. The driver does not have a wheel wrench to unscrew and change the wheel. But we need to arrive in time, and also prepare everything for the service so that it starts on time...
We barely made it to the Auto Parts store, the driver ran out, bought a wheel wrench, ran over a brick, put the wrench on the nut and began jumping on it, but the wrench would not budge - the nut was screwed in tightly. He jumps and jumps, and he himself was small and light in weight. Nothing works. Why I didn’t think of jumping myself, I don’t know. He began to pray to Saint Nicholas:
Saint Nicholas, help! We need to get to work in time.
I looked: the process began immediately! The nut began to unscrew. And I thought to myself: “Well, that’s it. Stop asking, it’s already unscrewing...” As soon as I thought so, he again: jump-jump-jump, but the nut doesn’t work at all. Then I again began to ask St. Nicholas:
Saint Nicholas, forgive me! Help!
That's it - the nut began to unscrew again. We changed the tire and got to the service on time.
Here is a lesson: stop asking - stop helping.
St. Nicholas amazingly always supports a person’s living faith, not mediated by some tradition or other relationship to God, to prayer, to the saints... Namely, living faith, direct conversion. As it should be.
How a sponsor throws money from Heaven to us
, abbess of the St. Nicholas Chernoostrovsky convent in the city of Maloyaroslavets:
We had to build a shelter building. A company was working at the construction site. This is every month's bill. And the benefactor said:
Mother, we don’t have any money right now. Let them build, and then we will pay...
And so they build and build, and in May I already had a debt of 3 million. Then these were other millions - this amount was at that time more significant than in terms of modern money. I lost sleep. Of course, they tried to cheer me up:
Now the whole country lives like this!
But somehow this was of little comfort to me. And now we have a trip to Bari - the kids and I are flying to the relics of St. Nicholas. Liturgy is being served. We all took a candle. They stood on their knees during the service and prayed.
Father Nicholas, I say sadly. - I'm sorry that I'm asking you for the wrong thing... I'm asking for money to get rid of my debt. I am forced to.
The liturgy is over. Our assistant, who organized this trip itself, comes up to me and introduces me to two representative-looking men.
“Here they are,” he says, “they heard about your debt, they want to help you.”
I have tears. “Father,” I thought, “why didn’t I ask you for prayer? If with money you can solve everything in a second?”
Moreover, they not only paid our debt, but also helped us complete all this.
When they ask me:
Who is your sponsor?
Saint Nicholas, I answer, throws from Heaven.
You need to build something - there is exactly as much as necessary.
Incident on the platform
, parishioner of the Moscow Church of St. Maron the Hermit (Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Starye Panekh):
I remember, in memory of St. Nicholas, on a weekday, I went to a service in our church of St. Maron the Hermit. I confessed and received communion. I drank some tea in the refectory - this is how we celebrated the feast of the universal saint as a community. And now I had to rush to the station, go on the Sapsan on a business trip to Tver. I walk onto the platform. You must pass the control specific for this class of trains. I see that the conductors are already standing at the carriages, checking passports, comparing data with electronic registration. Mechanically I take out my passport. It accidentally opens slightly... And this is my husband’s passport!!! We also have different surnames. Apparently, in a hurry this morning she took the wrong one. Well, that’s it... And since I was walking at a fairly fast pace, I didn’t even notice how I was already in front of the doors of the car I needed... The conductor holds out her hand for my passport...
Saint Nicholas, please help! - I only have time to pray.
The conductor looks attentively.
Please come in! - returns to me the identity document of my other half.
Entering the carriage, I already thanked St. Nicholas. Everything happened so quickly, although before my mind’s eye I had time to flash pictures of how they were turning me around, tactfully explaining that it wasn’t actually me in the photo... And when I heard: “Come in!” - I almost asked again: “Exactly?” But a miracle is a miracle.
And on the way back, the Sapsan stands on the platform in Tver for only a minute - there is no time for a thorough check of passports. So from there I returned safely on the day of remembrance of St. Nicholas.
This is how Saint Nicholas maintains a living faith in us.
Prepared by Olga Orlova
Abbess Nicholas (Ilyina)
The magazine “Monastic Bulletin” talks with the abbess of the St. Nicholas Chernoostrovsky Monastery, Abbess Nikolai (Ilyina), about the danger of developing “selfishness” even in obedience, the art of complaining about oneself, and about when a monk needs to go to people.
New person
Mother, I would like our conversation to be addressed, first of all, not even to monastics, but to those who are just thinking about this path. Now, thank God, many monasteries have been opened in our Church, new monasteries are being established. They are all filled with people who feel a monastic calling within themselves, or at least they think they feel it. Some people end up staying, others leaving. And here it is important to understand from the very beginning what monasticism is, so that those who seek this path do not have substitutions of concepts.
The Lord said to all Christians: Take up your cross and follow Me. And each of us Christians understands what this means. But, let’s say, the monks follow Christ in the forefront, taking up their cross. Our elder said: “A person cannot become a monk unless his heart is wounded by love for Christ.” Any Christian loves Christ, that's why we came to Orthodoxy. But the monk has his own special secret - the secret of love for God. This love is like a call, that is, it is like a flame igniting in your heart and you, guided by this flame, must run to it. Therefore, the flame of Divine love, when it ignites in the heart, calls to God, but also calls to people who, just like you, are ignited by this flame.
If, after we received this light in our hearts, we managed not to extinguish it, then, as a rule, it leads us to the monastery. We do not come to the monastery to become an accountant, a cook, a secretary, or a tailor. We come to the monastery to become a monk.
Monk means “alone”, “lonely”. This means that you must be completely freed, be in unity with God. Only you alone stand before God, and everything that interferes with this unity, even if it is your relatives, even if it is your education, your work, you must leave it all and come as if beggars, stand before God as a beggar in order to become rich already new wealth, the one that God will give you.
Of course, the world often doesn’t understand this; they say that monks are slackers, they avoid worries, they don’t work (this was especially true during the Soviet era). But this is not true at all. The monk has a colossal amount of work. I'm not talking about physical labor. Actually, it is not very correct for the monastery to have to do a lot of work in the fields, gardens, and construction sites. But as soon as we get destroyed monasteries, as soon as we get ruins instead of buildings, we must restore them, we must somehow equip them and we must have some kind of material base in the form of cows, fields and other things, so that the monastic life of the monastery is restored. This forces us to work physically hard. But as the monastery is gradually being restored, the monk must move away from these external affairs, reducing them to a minimum in order only to ensure the life of the monastery, and more and more engage in internal construction, that is, strive for the goal for which we the Lord called. What is this goal? Connect with Him. So that our heart connects with God. So that the fire that I spoke about would burn out everything superfluous, unnecessary, everything selfish - everything that bothers us. So that all this worldly things would go away, and in this fire a new man would be born – the man of Christ. And then the Lord comes into such a purified heart, the person unites with God and in this fulfills his monastic goal.
But before achieving this goal, we must go through a long thorny path...
Yes, this process is quite complex and long, and God forbid if by the end of our lives we still achieve this goal. Therefore, here we give monastic vows to God. And we don’t make vows right away. If my heart is inflamed with love for Christ, I look for the place where I will come - say, a monastery.
I come to the monastery and then I have to decide, first of all, whether this is my monastery. Is this how I imagined monastic life? Did I find what I'm looking for here? For this, we are given the test for three years, and for some even longer, when the sisters are called novices. It is interesting that in Serbia, for example, they are called temptresses, a word that even more accurately conveys the meaning of this preparatory stage. And at this moment you must understand, firstly, whether you love Christ as much as you thought. Do you love Christ so much that you are willing to endure everything for His sake? The Lord said: take up your cross - it is heavy, and we don’t know whether you can bear this cross for the sake of Divine love? This is the first test.
The second test is your spiritual mentor, spiritual father, spiritual mother and sisters who surround you. Can you join this family? Is this your family? Does everything suit you for this? At the same time, the family itself also looks at you and decides another question: are you suitable for this family? Can sisters accept you as their own sister? Will you be able to obey your mentor, who will then, subsequently, take responsibility for you at the Last Judgment? And this is very difficult, this is a big task. Your spiritual mother or your spiritual father looks at you and determines whether he can answer for this person, whether he can beg this person, help this person. And this issue is resolved in three years, and I will add again: sometimes more. Then, when answers to all the questions have been found, the person writes a petition, and he is just accepted as a novice - while he is still a candidate. Then, when you were accepted as a novice, dressed in a headscarf, the time of preparation continues - until monastic tonsure.
This is how it is in our Russian tradition. The Greek tradition is different, but, in my opinion, ours is still correct, when a novice is tested for about ten years in order to take monastic vows. And here other questions are already being resolved: how ready are you to fulfill monastic vows. You are just trying on them, although, in fact, when they put a cassock on you (and a cassock is already a garment of obedience), you are already giving God, as it were, a promise to be obedient.
About friendship in the monastery
Here you can ask the question: why do you need to be obedient and what is obedience? In the world, we know, there is discipline...
Obedience is a very serious monastic vow, the very first one. Why? Because here we imitate Christ. The whole life that we spend in the monastery is an imitation of Christ, and Christ is our ideal and source of inspiration.
The very coming of God’s Son to earth, our Lord Jesus Christ, is obedience. As He Himself said: I came not to do my own will, but the will of the Father who sent Me. We know that He is God, the Creator of the entire universe, the Word Incarnate. He comes to earth as a Disciple of His Heavenly Father. This is the main thing.
Why? Because the entire curse of this world, the fall of this world, which began with Adam, came from man’s disobedience. And therefore, the Lord, in order to correct the human path to God, in order to return humanity to God and show the path of correction and repentance, shows the path opposite to Adam’s disobedience: He gives us the path of obedience to God.
But, of course, obedience to God is also a question. We cannot obey God, as the Holy Fathers write, Whom we do not see, but we can obey the person whom we see. Therefore, here in the monastery, we are given a mentor - a confessor. It happens differently in different monasteries, because there are many families - many different foundations. But in fact, for the novice himself, the spiritual mentor is always the one who in monastic vows is called an elder or elder - this is the one to whom the novice is awarded after tonsure. He is already becoming a monk, and according to the establishment of the IV Ecumenical Council, during tonsure there must be an old man or old woman to whom the monk is awarded.
And this is the first obedience: you listen to those in authority. There is, as it is now fashionable to say, a vertical: for example, here is a sister, I took her from my tonsure, and she listens to me, and she is obedient to me. In her monastic vows they say: obey the old woman in everything. This will be the guarantee of your salvation - obey the old woman in everything and be saved. And, besides this, she must also obey everyone, even the youngest in the monastery.
That is, in obedience we cut off our will, we show that we don’t need that vicious human will that has been such a hindrance in the world - we need the will of God. And we will hear and know the will of God when we cut off our own. And that's why obedience is very important. And it is important not only for the novice. You can ask a question: now you, mother, have become an abbess - so what? Nothing. In the same way, I continue to obey my elder or elder of the monastery and, naturally, my ruling Lord. When we were just being formed, then our elder Schema-Archimandrite Michael was still alive in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra (Heavenly Kingdom to him), he immediately taught us this: “The Lord is your second elder.” We knew Father back in the world. Then, by the grace of God, all the sisters began to come to him as to an elder, and our mother abbess all became his children. But the priest always taught that the second elder, the ruling bishop, is more important. For us this is Metropolitan Clement. Therefore, the abbess is also in obedience, and the elders themselves are in obedience to their elders, the Vladyka is in obedience to the Patriarch, etc. That is, this principle of obedience extends to the entire Church, because this is the most important thing in monasticism. And by the grace of God in our monastery, when the priest departed to the Lord and it was difficult for us to lose the elder, we found an equally strong elder - Father Blasius from the Pafnutievo-Borovsky monastery. Therefore, this is what happens: Vladyka, elder, abbess, novice - this is the hierarchy that is observed, and everyone is in obedience to each other.
What should a novice / novice prepare for?
Of course, when you are a novice, this is very difficult for you. We will get up in the morning not when we want, but when we are told; we will go to the refectory and eat not what we want, but what is offered; and we will do not what we want, but what they say - again, obedience. In this regard, it is characteristic that obediences change in the monastery. As a rule, there are icon painters, teachers, sewing and the like - in a word, creative obediences that require special abilities. But so that a person does not, so to speak, assert himself in this work (now we are talking about external obedience), it changes for him. That's why we all go to the kitchen: every week any sister goes out as a cook, and so do all the sisters. And there are other obediences - in the barn, where there are young sisters, who also constantly change in their order. The older ones are being cleaned. Thus, obediences change all the time so that the sisters do not get used to it, so that it is only a share.
Inner obedience is also tested, because in your obedience, in your work, you must read a prayer. Although we have now, speaking about obedience, moved on to the issue of external obedience, the main thing in the monastery is prayer, that is, communication with God. Prayer is like air in a monastery. That is, we wake up and immediately go to church and ask for God’s help. We leave the church and go to the cell - there we carry out the cell rule with the Jesus Prayer. Then we go to the Liturgy, where prayer continues. After the Liturgy we go to lunch. And at the meal they read to us - as a rule, in our monastery it is the abbess who reads it - the Holy Fathers, they explain, they discuss. This is also a prayer. Then there is a short rest, a break. Well, some are just relaxing, but many sisters usually read the Holy Fathers - and this is also a prayer. Then after rest they go to obedience. In obedience (this is the law), if you can, you read the Jesus Prayer out loud. If this is a group of sisters, then they also read the Jesus Prayer in turn. And you are again in prayer. Then you go to the meal, where there is reading, also a prayer. Then you go to the temple - and there is also prayer there: the service is performed. And then in the evening you come to your cell, read either the canons or the Psalter. And so the day is completely immersed in prayer. And like it or not, being present in the monastery, you involuntarily immerse yourself in this field of prayer.
You also need to set your heart to this. And, as a rule, so that this does not turn into a routine, into everyday life, as I have already said, the heart must burn with love for Christ. And here you can generally ask: is the person not alive or what? A person cannot burn endlessly - sometimes it goes out, sometimes you don’t want anything. Like the weather: today it’s sunny, tomorrow it’s raining. The human body is also changeable. But here we need to look at the root of the problem. If you love Christ, if you feel this love, then that means you are alive. What if you don’t feel this love? This means that for some reason you are spiritually ill, you are dying - just like in the world.
Urgent intervention in the course of internal life is required .
Yes. A sufficiently experienced monk knows. Why am I sick, why am I not on fire today, why do I want to sleep today and don’t care about everything? And you begin to investigate yourself, going down into your heart: I probably did something wrong. As the Holy Fathers write, one’s own will is a copper wall between man and God. That is, it means something, some kind of copper wall has blocked the Sun for you, if He is not in your soul. First of all, this “something” is your own will. This means there was some kind of disobedience or condemnation.
You search your heart. And you have a means of purifying it - this is confession. You definitely tell this in confession, talk about your spiritual internal problems. About our own, not about strangers! It is strictly forbidden to talk about strangers. Even if your own sins or misdeeds are connected with others and you want to talk about it, under no circumstances should you touch others! The purpose of such a confession is to tell bad things about yourself, and not about other bad things, not to complain about another, but to complain about yourself. This really helps to cleanse your heart again and you want to pray again. This is the work of a monk.
It is important to preserve your heart for prayer, for communication with God and for communication with each other, because there is also a subtlety here. For example, there is an expression among the Holy Fathers: if a monk meets a friend in a monastery, then he has lost God. Father Ephraim of Vatopedi personally told us: sisters, you are sisters to each other, not girlfriends. Because when this human spiritual communication begins, we go into it, into some of our spiritual experiences, into the pleasure of communication. That is, again this worldly spirit comes into your heart and again interrupts your connection with God. And therefore it is believed that friendship in a monastery is wrong. Saint Basil the Great also wrote: if two monks are friends with each other, it means that one of them will leave. Or, as a rule, two will leave, unless the abbot intervenes and sends one away from the monastery. This is all serious.
Therefore, when a person does not understand monastic life, everything seems strange. It’s strange: how is it that you can’t be friends in a monastery? Why can't you be friends? Because you have one and only true Friend. This is God. And everything else turns out to be some kind of betrayal. And due to the fact that we are sisters, there should be a certain goodwill and love here. Yes, love, it is this that allows us to preserve the monastic family. But our love does not consist in meeting each other, chatting merrily with each other, wishing each other something... Yes, we wish each other all the best, but, as a rule, we wish it prayerfully. And our love lies in the fact that I would rather remain silent and not embarrass my brother or sister with my obsessive impressions, my unnecessary thoughts, or impose them. I’d just rather keep quiet with my opinion, and when, well... not even a dispute arises, but disagreements on matters, I’d better give in. There is such a wonderful example, we love it very much. This is when two elders, who lived many, many years in monasticism, decided to quarrel:
– Why do people quarrel, but we don’t? Let's quarrel too.
- How can we quarrel?
- Well, you see: is the jug worth it? Let you say that it is yours, and I will say that it is mine. And this is how we will quarrel.
And they began. One says that this is my jug, and the other objects to him: no, this is my jug. Then he says: well, if it’s yours, then take it. Out of habit, he said so. This needs to be a skill so that we can always give in to each other. And if this love is not for Christ, then nothing happens. First of all, we love Christ, through Christ we already love each other. Of course, it’s hard for new monks, and perhaps all of us are far from this.
The doors are wide open
How do you still build relationships with your neighbors in a monastery?
Do you remember St. Seraphim of Sarov, who greeted every person sincerely: “My joy!”? I rejoiced at him and loved him. This kind of universal love is achieved only by love for the Lord. For God we are all equal. He loves us all, and when a person draws closer to God, then he learns to love in this way. If you remember Abba Dorotheus, he has the following scheme: the Lord is like the sun, and from Him are rays, that is, the paths of people’s procession. And the closer people are to God, the closer they are to each other. It is very important. It is important to maintain the ethics of monastic relations so that there are no quarrels. This is achieved by the fact that you always try to be friendly to your sister. And, even if you scold her in your soul, you should smile at her, wish her a good day or say something kind, a little, but say it in order to show your affection. Elder Emilian wrote about it this way: the best thing we can give to a brother or sister is our smile, our disposition. The worst thing we have is irritation: we must leave it at the bottom of our hearts for confession.
Many will say that this is hypocrisy...
No, this is not hypocrisy. You know what they say: take a small step, and the Lord will finish everything for you. And if you, for the sake of Christ, go and smile, as it seems, at your enemy, with whom you just quarreled, then the Lord will complete the rest. Because it usually happens like this: sisters quarreled, said something unpleasant to each other, and the next day one goes, smiles, asks for forgiveness, and she is already waiting for her with it. And thus all the devil's machinations are broken.
If such a principle of love exists in a monastery, then a large, friendly family is formed.
If we continue talking about vows, then the vow of chastity is also an imitation of Christ. This is purity. When Adam was expelled from Paradise, he not only stumbled, disobeyed, did not listen to God. When the Lord called to him: “Adam, where are you?” - he answers: “No, I cannot go out to You.” The Lord asks: “Have you eaten from the Tree?” Then Adam doesn't say, "I'm sorry."
The Lord asks:
- Why did you do that?
- And this is not me - this is the wife you gave me.
Then the Lord asks Eve:
- Why did you do that?
“And it’s not me—it’s the serpent that You sent.”
This exposes our human vice of self-justification. Not only do we, as a rule, always make excuses when we are accused, we do not ask for forgiveness, we also blame someone. Same here Adam. He did not repent, and the Lord sent him to earth for a while to repent, so that he would later return, repenting. But there was no repentance, because Adam, as Schema-Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov) writes, having lost his support in God, began to make supports. The first support is me, myself, pride. The second support is my wife. The third support is my home. And it is precisely in this word that Father Sophrony says that monastic vows destroy these supports of Adam, our old man, so that we again find support in God, so that we see Christ. Obedience destroys this pride, the “self.” Chastity destroys what is called a wife, non-covetousness destroys my house, my property.
The monk has nothing. We really like this Athonite custom (we also try to imitate it): when leaving the cell, leave it wide open - after all, nothing is yours, but when you enter the cell to pray, then you close yourself so that no one will interfere with you being with Christ . The vow of non-covetousness is expressed in this.
Mother, since the monks are in the vanguard, they are the first to meet the “enemy fire”...
Naturally, the devil hates monasticism - this is clear and understandable. This example is close to us: the Germans occupied the territory. And the local population of the village collects eggs and lard, they bring them to them, and the Germans do not touch them. They seem to be “our own”. But as soon as one from this village takes a gun and goes into the forest, says: “I am a partisan,” they immediately look for him, comb the forests, just to kill him. The same thing happens here. The monk invisibly puts on the paraman and says that I bear the wounds of the Lord on my body, that is, everything that the Lord endured. The enemy immediately tries to overtake and inflict these ulcers on him. Of course, this struggle begins from the first days of coming to the monastery. If a young girl comes, she comes clean, she has less struggle. The enemy fights her more with internal temptations: despondency, homesickness. But if a person has lived in the world and has some experience of serving sin and passions, then the devil does not immediately let him go. And a very difficult struggle begins. And actually this struggle, this battle, goes on until death. But God is with us.
When the tonsure begins, firstly, in the name of the Lord, you are told that now you will take vows, and the Lord, and the Mother of God, and all the saints are invisibly present here. A very deep meaning of monastic vows and the rite of tonsure itself. Then at the Last Judgment you will be judged not as you promised, but as you fulfilled. And you already understand the meaning, the significance of all this. And then they tell you that you will thirst, you will hunger, you will be persecuted, you will be surrounded by sorrows. And they ask only one thing: do you profess all this? Are you going to take this cross upon yourself? Before this, just these words: whoever wants to follow Me, let him take up his cross and follow Me. You, of course, by participating in this sacrament, agree, and, in fact, you, having already arrived at the monastery, agree to this, but here this importance becomes more acute - you promise it. And after you have promised (as the Lord said: “I want mercy, not sacrifice”), He says: “I will be a wall that will protect you, I will be water that will give you drink, food that will feed you.” And, indeed, if we place all our trust only in God, as it is written, Let everyone trust in You, let him never be ashamed, then this trust in the end either delivers us from temptation, or transforms this temptation into good.
Gifts from Heaven
It is now “fashionable” in a secular environment to discuss how financially wealthy the monasteries are, how much money they receive...
You know, we are very rich, I can't even tell you how rich we are. Poverty. Like our Saint Nicholas, because he is our sponsor, the most important one, there is probably no better sponsor. And they even say that all the monasteries ruled by St. Nicholas are always rich.
If you ask where we get the money, I still don’t know. That's what we usually say: they fall from the sky. For example, construction is underway. Now we are building the Church of St. Spyridon. How we build it, I don’t know. Need a dome? Immediately someone is there and pays for the dome. That is, there are no crazy bills, no sacrifices, but when you need something, it is always there. It's a secret. And this is perhaps the most important miracle. People often ask about miracles. There are a lot of them, in a good way, but the most important miracle is how alive we are. Sometimes I wonder. 120 sisters. This means: 120 beds, 120 pillows, 120 blankets, 120 clothes for each season. Plus 50 children. And the same thing. Where and how? But somehow it always works out, and in a very mysterious way. One has only to think that one would need this, and it is immediately found if, in fact, it is needed.
We came here: the water is at the source, the toilet is a wooden house on the street, everything is in ruins, there is no money. And then it still seemed to us that we were living in a palace. We liked it so much, we were so happy about it. The most important thing is that about 30 young girls from Optina Pustyn immediately came running. There was some kind of reform, and they, the novices, were sent to the monastery. It seemed that there was nowhere to live, and the roof fell on us, on the only house in which we lived. We arrived on October 6, and the roof collapsed under Archangel Michael, even crushing someone, but by the grace of God we got off easily. But this was the only place where it was possible to live normally. Repairs had to be done immediately. This is how it all happened.
God helped. Firstly, it was very difficult to make heating. For the first months we lived on electric heating. The Germans then brought humanitarian aid to Kaluga. We saved. For example, we only heat the room at night so you can fall asleep, but in the morning you get up and it’s already cold. You can’t sit in your cell because it’s very cold. And if the sisters were obedient, they were so happy - it was warm everywhere in the kitchen. And I sat in a sheepskin coat and felt boots, so as not to turn on these batteries either. It was very expensive. There was no hot water for a long time. All this went on and on, well, because we loved God, probably.
But children appeared almost from the first days.
By the way, about children. How is such active social work compatible with monasticism?
You see, in fact, they are probably incompatible. A nun must embrace the whole world with her prayer. And nothing should interfere with this prayer. But this, of course, is ideal. At the same time, the saints wrote - Elder Joseph of Vatopedi wrote about our time - that if there is some kind of catastrophe in the world, then the monk takes part, comes out of his retreat, goes to people. The same is the feat of Oslyabi and Peresvet, when St. Sergius of Radonezh blessed them even to fight.
Brief information
Abbess Nikolai (Ilyina Lyudmila Dmitrievna), abbess of the St. Nicholas Chernoostrovsky Monastery, was born on May 9, 1951 in Orekhovo-Zuevo, in 1968 she moved to Moscow.
The parents were participants in the Great Patriotic War, and, apparently, that’s why the Lord gave them a daughter on Victory Day.
Her mother, Vera Vasilievna Korolkova (nee Vorobyova, born 1925), was a nurse in a hospital during the war years and not only instilled in her daughter faith, love of mercy, courage and sacrifice, but she herself ended her life in a monastery in the monastic rank with the name Veronica († 2011).
Mother’s father Dmitry Vasilyevich Korolkov († 2005) was a tank driver in the Soviet Army, reached Berlin.
Abbess Nikolai received two higher educations: in 1973 she graduated from MIIT with a degree in electronic computers and in 1984 she graduated from MEPhI with a degree in automatic processing of scientific and experimental data.
She worked as the head of the Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence Systems at the All-Russian Research Institute of PS, while simultaneously completing her graduate studies (1987).
Being a parishioner of the Danilov Stauropegial Monastery in Moscow, Mother Nicholas decided to devote her life to God in the monastic rank and, with the blessing of her confessor, Archimandrite Polycarp, she went to the newly opened (in 1990) Kazan Ambrosievskaya Stauropegial Women's Hermitage (Shamordino). The housekeeper was obedient there.
In 1992, Metropolitan of Kaluga and Borovsk Kliment (at that time archbishop) was blessed to the St. Nicholas Chernoostrovsky Monastery to organize a convent there. By the decision of the Holy Synod on April 2, the St. Nicholas Chernoostrovsky Convent was opened, and Mother Nicholas was confirmed as the abbess. In 1995, on April 28, on Friday of Bright Week, on the feast of the icon of the Mother of God “Life-Giving Source”, for diligent service for the good of the Church of Christ, by the decree of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II, nun Nicholas was elevated to the rank of abbess with the presentation of the abbot’s staff.
On the Week of St. John Climacus, March 9, 2000, Mother Nicholas was awarded a pectoral cross with decorations.
For her work in restoring the monastery, works of mercy, for services to the Fatherland, for faith and goodness, Abbess Nicholas was awarded 15 awards: nine orders (two of which are state awards, and seven church ones) and six medals (three state and three church ).
In 2012, President of Russia V.V. Putin awarded Abbess Nicholas the first restored Order of the Holy Martyr. Catherine "For works of mercy."
“I am an abbess with the soul of a novice,” says the abbess of the Odessa Archangel Michael Convent, Abbess Seraphima (Shevchik), about herself. She has been a monk for 35 years, of which she was a novice for 15 years, and for more than 20 years she has been heading the famous monastery in the very center of Odessa. To this day, mother has a dream that she is in the kitchen sweeping the floor, washing dirty dishes and feeling guilty for disobedience... Why in a monastery you need to work until exhaustion, what will happen if you confess your thoughts to the abbess and how to keep 100 women within four walls, if life in all its manifestations is in full swing outside the window - our conversation continues about this and many other things in the continuation of the “Pravmir” discussion.
“15 years of novitiate gives me the right to speak”
- Mother, we agreed that our conversation would be as frank as possible. Because there are many questions. You are ready?
So ask. Reading Masha’s confession, I remembered my life. She, this girl, is in many ways my portrait. I was very stubborn. True, there is something that distinguishes us: I endlessly loved my monastery. Although she suffered from her own character just like her. I must say that I constantly found some sharp corners, created them for myself with my tough, unyielding character, but at the same time I loved the monastic lifestyle so much that all temptations seemed small compared to the main thing that lived in my soul - enormous love to the monastery.
- What was Masha missing to endure everything? And was it necessary to endure?
What was missing, in my opinion, was a calling. Monasticism is voluntary martyrdom; not everyone can bear this cross. We need the special grace of God.
- You know, in the discussion of this topic, people write that the community of the first Christians was so full of love, peace and joy that it attracted everyone to them. The Lord commanded His disciples to be in peace and to love one another. For Christians this is the main commandment. What is described in “Confession” is far from this ideal!
There have always been disagreements in human groups. In some of the letters the apostles mentioned their differences with members of the community. Even then, their followers began to separate: one said “I am Pavlov”, the other - “I am Apolosov”, the third - “I am Kifin” (that is, I am Petrov). And the fourth is “I am Christ’s.” And even then Paul addressed them with letters of exhortation.
Moreover, he wrote that disagreements, in principle, “must be between you” in order for “skillful ones to be revealed.” That is, the Apostle Paul looked at disagreements calmly, believing that this is a natural course of development of any community, any community, even a Christian one.
But, speaking about “Confession of a former novice,” having read all these many accusations against Mother Abbess and the sisters, I would not like to condemn them. Because until you know everything, you won’t be able to make the right judgment. Moreover, being thousands of kilometers away. And even more so, based on the words of only one person.
I'm not a prosecutor and I'm not going to judge. Simply, based on my own 35 years of experience in monastic life, 15 of which I was a novice, I think that I can humbly say something, explain something.
To live in a monastery, you had to work as a cleaner in a hospital
She entered the monastery at the beginning of 1981, at the Presentation of the Lord. I was 17 years old.
I came to the abbess, asked to come to the monastery, she accepted me.
- Did you come to Odessa right away?
No, to the Kyiv Intercession Monastery.
An absolutely worldly girl, yesterday’s Komsomol member, I found myself in a completely closed patriarchal world, where everything was radically different from where I lived before. And there were a lot of different temptations and non-standard situations.
There were also conflicts... My character was disobedient, obstinate, I always had my own judgment. That's what I got.
The rules in our monastery were very strict, but, nevertheless, I did not walk around the monastery - I flew with happiness. I didn’t notice this myself until one elderly nun asked a novice friend of mine: “Tell me, how can I find Nadya?” (Nadezhda is my name before tonsure). “Which Nadya?” - she asks. The nun replies: “And the one who smiles all the time.”
When the novice told me about this, I took a closer look, and indeed - yes, I walk around with such a smile all over my face. Happiness literally poured out of me. And this state, thank God, continues to this day. I have never regretted for a single minute or a single second that I chose this path.
- To those who read the Confession, it may seem that the terrible practices described there exist in all women’s monasteries. Tell me, what do women's closed groups really suffer from?
I’ll start with the abbess, because in monasteries she determines everything.
The abbess at the Pokrovsky Monastery was Mother Margarita (Zyukina), the spiritual daughter of the Glinsky elders. We had extremely strict regulations. A step to the right, a step to the left - immediate expulsion from the monastery.
But this was Soviet times. In general, all the years of my life at the Intercession Monastery were during the Soviet period. And according to the laws of that time, we lived in the monastery illegally. Every month we were checked by the KGB. They came and organized raids. All the girls were caught in the literal sense of the word, as if on a hunt, and they arranged a safari for us. And Mother Margarita had to accept us into the monastery as cooks, janitors, and cleaners.
I have a document from 1981, which states that I was accepted into the monastery as a janitor.
- Wow!
Yes, that I was given equipment: a broom, a bucket, something else. I signed that I undertake to store it and follow safety precautions. I even became a member of the trade union...
In Soviet times, monasteries did not provide registration to persons under 60 years of age. In this way they tried to marginalize the monasteries, to make them a refuge for grandmothers, practically almshouses, and extremely limited the influx of new people, new novices.
Mother solved this issue in a non-standard way: she took us under the guise of workers. And at the same time, we had to register somewhere, for which reason we had to look for work in the Kyiv region or in Kyiv. The passport regime was then observed very strictly, even to the point of imprisonment. Temporary registration was given to limit workers for the most difficult jobs. And the young sisters, working in the monastery, were forced to work in hospitals, construction sites, and collective farms. After all, there were very few Kiev residents among us. Young people from various parts of the Soviet Union worked in Pokrovskoye.
And do you know what was the hardest thing for us? Not what Masha writes now - her sorrows are incommensurate with ours then... The most terrible sorrow is leaving the monastery into the world.
You see, I’ve never worn handkerchiefs before, in Soviet times - what kind of handkerchiefs? And here you are at 18 years old, you go out in a scarf, in a dress with long sleeves, all eyes are staring at you. You find yourself in a team where everyone asks: “Why do you look so lean? Why are you wearing a cross?” We were greeted in secular institutions with contempt and obstruction; we were outcasts.
We hid from KGB raids in monastery basements and attics, like mice in holes. Inspectors burst into each cell and noted the number of people living. We didn’t even sleep on normal beds, because at any moment government officials could come and, based on their number, calculate the real number of nuns. I remember sleeping on a huge leather sofa, antediluvian, from the 19th century. And the funny thing is, when I laid down on him for the first time, so to speak, I woke up covered in some red spots. I get up and say to the novices, the girls, of whom there were five others with me: “What is this?” They laugh: “And these are bedbugs.”
But, you know, it was impossible to kick us out of the monastery! Once one sister made a fine. Mother Abbess told her to pack her things and leave. Just think, just leave the monastery! Not to deprive of communion (by the way, as far as I know, only a bishop can deprive of communion). I remember how this sister was lying at her feet and asking: “Mother, leave me.”
- Why could this be?
Anything happened... And I was punished too. Once the abbess gave her blessing to bow in front of everyone in the refectory. The sisters ate, and I bowed. And this happened several more times. Either in church or in the refectory, everyone is praying or eating, and you are beating and beating these bows.
I fry fish and cry
And if only I would bow… In one year I changed 11 cells! That is, almost every month there is a new cell. This is how Mother Abbess shuffled us around. I tested it for strength. According to John Climacus...
As a rule, we lived in groups of six, eight people, and if we were lucky, four. The cells were large - the monastery was ancient, the buildings were pre-revolutionary. The rooms were divided into cubicles by some kind of sheets and curtains. You put yourself a locker, hang a curtain from another locker - that’s your personal space - about two meters. A bed, some small path under your feet, you can retire there. But even this personal space was invaded by surveillance; the monastery authorities kept a strict vigil!
- What’s wrong with being transferred to different cells?
Because every time you find yourself in a new team. You are going through new adjustments. A fresh reason for humility. I am a very sociable and social person. I have a hard time with loneliness and being a hermit; I love friends and communication. But in Pokrovsky the mothers were all old, you couldn’t talk loudly in front of them at all, they didn’t like it. Moreover, laugh, “hang out” with friends. Once I had to live in a cell where I slept on some kind of bench. However, difficult living conditions were brightened up by my friendship with my peers.
You can whisper with them, complain about your universal sorrows, and you will feel better. However, the monastery authorities were suspicious of our youth gatherings. We even joked: “The order is not to walk in groups of two, and not to gather in groups of three.” But our ingenuity, due to the urgent need for communication, pushed us to the sin of guile. We found a thousand and one ways to get around the ban.
Indeed, it happened that they diligently washed the bones of their superiors! But we let off steam and relieved emotional stress, which freed the entire team from our negative emotions. After all, if you don’t open the lid slightly, the steam can explode the pot!
After some time, I was placed with an old mother in a room where there were a lot of bedbugs. This is how I lived with bedbugs in my arms for several years. This was, now I think, the most difficult test for me, but then I was happy. We had to choose: live where there is constant noise and commotion, or live together, but with bedbugs.
Now I remember with a smile, but then it was no time for laughter...
I worked in the kitchen and had to get up at 4.30 in the morning. The next day go to the choir for the midnight service at 5.15. It turns out that one day I go to the kitchen and return at midnight. The next day I get up at 5 am, quickly get ready in 15 minutes and fly to church for the rule and service. In the afternoon there are general obediences, in the evening there is another service, then in the morning I get up again at half past five and run to the kitchen.
I worked in the kitchen every other day. The conditions were extremely difficult. But you know, either youth or enthusiasm helped, but I didn’t notice this work, it came to me easily and with pleasure. I worked as a cook for 8 years...
Mother transferred me from the church to the kitchen on the eve of the spring feast of St. Nicholas, in May. Since I, working in the church, was accustomed to attending all services, I dreamed that on the feast of St. Nicholas I would run and take communion.
But - I also read something similar from Masha - in the evening I had to fry fish in huge quantities, because the monastery was very large, there were enough eaters. And so I alone had to cut up this fish, light the wood stove and fry it in frying pans. I remember standing, the all-night vigil for St. Nicholas is going on, and I’m frying this fish and sobbing that everyone there in the church is happy, and I, an outcast, a sinner, am covered in smoke and soot...
But it was dangerous to grumble. Mother Abbess did not favor grumbling. Once, my kitchen buddy, in the presence of the abbess, inadvertently said: “Everyone is praying in the church, but here I am in hell.” Mother immediately transferred her to the clergy. The poor sister regretted her talkativeness a thousand times. For the obedience of the churchwoman was truly martyrdom, without sleep or rest. The temple sparkled with cleanliness and splendor, but the laboring women who labored in it melted away like candles. Cruel? But Mother Margarita herself also went to church from a young age, not sparing herself first and foremost for the sake of the house of God. She literally disappeared in the church for days, walking around the huge cathedral in an old robe and a faded scarf with a broom or rag in her hand.
- There are no words...
And you know, all these difficulties constituted, I would say, a 20th part of what seemed negative. The hardest thing was something else.
We were exhausted from spiritual temptations: you have left the world, you don’t understand something, you don’t get something, despondency often sets in. But in Pokrovskoye there were old women from the tsarist era, highly spiritual, of special temperament. We, fledgling greens, loved to communicate with them. The greatest grace came from them, such love, such joy! They could always give wise advice.
I will never forget my first day at the monastery. I’m walking around the territory in a red coat, all like Danilko sings: “In Dolce-Gabbana...” Here I am, “all like this,” 17 years old, in a fashionable coat... An old nun hobbles towards me, carrying a saucepan from the refectory. “Mother, may I help you?” She looked up at me: “Baby, have you come to the monastery?” - "Yes". - “Do you want me to give you advice?”
And she said the words that I remembered for the rest of my life:
“Always try to do good for someone during the day. To each. Try to be told “thank you,” “God bless you.” Be very careful about hurting someone. And God forbid you do harm to someone, because even a sideways glance, not just a reproach, but a sideways glance in your direction will already have consequences for you, you will bear for it... - as she said... - atonement. And when you do good to people, when they say “thank you,” “God bless you,” you will feel good about it.”
You know, with these words it was as if she had inserted some kind of matrix into me. And since then I have tried to consistently adhere to this principle. Let’s say someone shouted or said something wrong - it’s a women’s team, anything can happen, especially since I, with my obstinate character, often gave reasons. But, remembering her words, she held back with all her might. Not being meek and humble, she gritted her teeth and did not enter into conflict.
When I was already transferred to Odessa, I had to come to Pokrovsky for some business. Many of my friends gathered - sisters with whom we had lived together for so many years. Cheerful chirping, because we haven’t communicated for some time, we wanted to talk to each of us about something. And one sister stood to the side, so silent and modest. And suddenly I hear her quiet words: “Here is a man who never did harm to anyone in the monastery...” I pretended not to hear, but this assessment made me think.
How important it is to encounter instruction in the Holy Spirit at the very beginning of the monastic path! I am firmly convinced that I received it.
I am now re-reading my novice diary as an abbess
- How long did you live in Pokrovskoye?
-Where did you receive tonsure?
In Odessa.
- Why not in Pokrovsky?
Because in Pokrovskoye there was such a custom - people were tonsured very carefully, after 30 years of living in the monastery.
- 30 years?!!
Yes. Our mother abbess was a great, greatest old lady, she tonsured with great care.
I admit, I kept a diary then. I still have it - several thick notebooks for 40 kopecks each... I wrote everything down in great detail. Moreover, the new novice entered into it many quotes from the holy fathers, entire paragraphs of the same John Climacus.
But “what comes next is worse” (Woe from Wit). Over the years, the holy fathers in the diary gave way to everyday life. I recently re-read it and noticed that the teachings were replaced by notes about some small everyday things: who looked where, where they went, what they sang in the choir, etc. That is, my diary turned into such a book by Masha, where there is very little spirit, and everything is flesh, and flesh, and flesh.
Now I’m reading it and it’s the funniest thing: Mother Abbess is all over the place... In the diary she’s terrible, strict, even cruel. Here Masha and I are twin sisters.
Now, being the abbess, I scroll through, analyze and come to the conclusion - not comforting or comforting, who knows - that if I were Mother Margarita, I would have done exactly the same thing!
You see, the abbess has one coordinate system, the novice has another. Indeed, this is a cause for controversy.
Once, a priest came to Patriarch Tikhon, a holy martyr and confessor, who began to complain about everything. He said that we must fight the authorities, go against the Bolsheviks. He expressed rather radical thoughts and complained why the Patriarch did not behave this way. To which the Primate of the Church said to him: “You, father, judge from your bell tower, and I from mine.” Patriarch Tikhon chose a different tactic, for which many may have condemned him. But he, the godly elder, understood that he needed to save the church ship! Therefore, he made compromises that seemed completely unacceptable to others.
Yes, there is a distance between the abbot and the novice, which sometimes does not allow them to understand each other. The Optina elder Isaac loved to say about himself: “Hegumen, but not smart.” About zealous and ambitious brethren he said: “He is smart, but not an abbot.”
- When you already moved to Odessa and your path as abbess began there, how did you manage to cope with such a phenomenon as absolute power?
I am extremely grateful to Mother Margarita, and, first of all, to the Lord for being, so to speak, a soldier, for eating soldier’s gruel, for freezing in the trenches, for having shrapnel and bullets flying past me and hitting the embrasure. Because the experience of simple novice life helped me extremely. This is an invaluable experience!
Believe me, I’m telling the truth: I am an abbess, but my essence is novices. Until now, I often have a dream; it is repeated in different variations, but in the main it is the same. That I am a novice, am undergoing obedience at the Intercession Monastery, that my abbess is Mother Margarita (the first monastery, the first abbess is always sacred), and that I always disobey. I work in the kitchen, washing mountains of dishes. I run around with brooms, sweep the floor...
An abbess with the soul of a novice... And when I see any of the sisters of our monastery, I immediately put myself in her place. In order to truly understand the sister who works in the kitchen, in the barnyard, in the church, it is important to have this experience. And Mother Abbess dragged me through all my obediences: I was at the prosphora, and in the sewing room, and in the choir, and at the meal, and in the garden. And the toilets were washed. By the way, a reason for pride (not pride)! - this is what John of Damascus did.
- All this may seem bleak...
I remember how before Easter during Holy Week we baked Easter cakes in the kitchen, painted eggs - there was a huge amount of work. Believe me, before Easter, the kitchen in the monastery is something incredible! And so, after everything, I go to the temple, completely exhausted, killed. I could barely drag my legs and was so physically exhausted that I simply passed out in the corner.
The Resurrection of Christ, the festive service, the beautiful singing, everything is magnificent, but I’m sitting, I can’t open my eyes.
After Easter Matins, in the same state of mind, I can barely stretch my legs and crawl into my cell. And I already lived with this old lady with bedbugs. Instead of Easter joy, my soul is filled with insane fatigue and emptiness. I think, what is wrong with me? I made it to the cell and opened the door. And the cell is small, there is a window right opposite the door. There was a house lily growing in a pot on the windowsill. As I was leaving, I saw that the flowerpot was green.
And what? After Matins, the lily blossomed, one flower bloomed - snow-white, like a star... I walk in, and this luminous spark looks into my eyes! In one second, the whole mountain of despondency and fatigue disappeared from my soul! I felt such incredible Easter joy that words simply cannot express these emotions!
Yes, God rewards monastic torment (truly, monastic life is martyrdom) in a way that a worldly person cannot understand at all.
- Mother, excuse me, but why so much work? What is the need to kill yourself like that?
I'll explain. The Intercession Monastery, like all monasteries, survived with great difficulties. We, nuns and novices, not only maintained the entire monastery ourselves, we also built it.
I remember in 1981 the roof on St. Nicholas Cathedral burned down. I was working at the hospital that night. There was a terrible thunderstorm. My friends, the girl nurses, huddled in one of the empty wards and screamed: “Lord, have mercy! Lord have mercy!" – Can you imagine, Komsomol members?
I didn't see the fire itself. In the morning I come to the monastery - there is smoke all around, firefighters are running around. And to one of my friends, a novice, one of the firefighters said: “God punished you for your sins.” And she told him: “Yes, you are right, for our sins.” I sincerely said so...
We ourselves restored this cathedral, we worked day and night. They climbed to great heights, carried heavy buckets of coal that remained from the burnt beams, and unloaded bricks. Seven huge cars with trailers, each with two bodies, that is, we unloaded 14 huge bodies, a dozen young girls.
It would seem, why such masochism? But we did not complain, we worked selflessly. They painted, whitewashed, and carried out a lot of construction work. And on scaffolding, at high altitudes. They didn't think about health. Like Pavka Korchagin on a narrow gauge railway. Probably today's youth don't even know who he is. You can jokingly say about us: this is how steel was tempered.
Or, for example, in Odessa. In 1993, we came to a monastery that was completely destroyed. In this, by the way, I understand Mother Abbess Nikolai in Maloyaroslavets well; we have the same starting situation. My sisters and I carried metal, logs, and stones, restoring the shrine with our own women’s hands. They rebuilt the temple, restored the buildings, built a museum, a four-story house of mercy, a monastery, educational buildings, and so on. They worked with great love. It was happiness for us!
When you go to the abbess as a black sheep, it’s very traumatic
- How many sisters do you have in Odessa now?
About 120.
- Wow! How do you deal with them?
The monastery is a well-functioning system. In each monastery there is a dean, a treasurer, a housekeeper, a chief churchwoman, an eclissiarch, etc. - each sister works in her own place.
There is a lot of work in the monasteries now, just have time. The problem is when the sisters are sick and cannot work, and the boss’s heart is breaking: there is no one to come out. Why did Mother Margarita punish me and make me bow down? I didn’t go into the kitchen on my day and there was no one to replace me. Either she was sick, or she was away somewhere... It was a shame then, but now, as an abbess, I understand that I got what I deserved. After all, who will cook for the huge brethren? Everyone will remain hungry!
- Are there things from the experience of your novice life that you do not use in your monastery?
For example, we do not have a tradition of revealing thoughts. My modest experience suggests that this does not always work in women's teams.
Once upon a time I also revealed my thoughts to Mother Margarita. I loved her very much, trusted her very much, it even got to the point that I ran after her - I wanted to communicate so much, such was the impulse. But then I began to notice gazes from her. She realized that I was uncontrollable and could do something like that - and she told her about it herself. As an administrator, she was concerned that there would be negative consequences from my actions.
Her attitude towards me changed dramatically. Yeah, I think, if that’s the case... And then it closed. When I met my mother, I put on a pretty face and let her know in every possible way that I was very good.
There was a case when I reported one of my sisters to her. Yes, this was our practice. This was probably a way to maintain control over our monastic-Komsomol horde.
I couldn't sleep at night. Conscience was on fire. After that I never reported on anyone. She was silent, like Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. Alas, my reputation has become even worse. But I don't regret it. I am still convinced that I was right.
And she revealed her thoughts in confession. For us, young but too smart, the main and unshakable principle was the secret of confession. We never wanted Mother Abbess to know about our sins and shortcomings. This is not shyness. If the secret of confession has been observed, you can tell everything in spirit. Moreover, the priest receives special grace during consecration. Including the grace to bear human sins.
I know and feel from myself that I do not have the grace to impartially perceive the sins and weaknesses of others, because I myself am spiritually weak and sick. Thank God, there are many elders in Odessa, there is where and with whom to receive treatment.
We had a priest in Pokrovsky who was quite easy to communicate with. He never judged and spoke to us as equals. We found great relief in communicating with him: he explained a lot, adequately, simply and intelligibly. You come to him, repent, it’s as if he will sort everything into pieces, and your eyes will open. By the way, he was from the white clergy.
The Holy Fathers write that the abbot cannot always be the confessor of the brethren, and can combine both abbot and clergy. To be a confessor, an elder, an elder is a kind of calling. Not everyone has it.
What else I learned from the experience of a novice is that you must love everyone equally and not give preference to anyone. Due to my character, Mother Margarita did not really favor me, and I was very offended by this. When you love your abbess so much, respect her, but act like a black sheep, it is very traumatic.
You can’t show your sisters how you feel about them deep down in your soul. Probably, the abbess shouldn’t show her emotions at all. I'll be honest, it's hard, but you can't let any sister think she's worse than the other. In a large family, it is common knowledge that when a mother or father gives preference to one of the children, the rest simply become hysterical.
The Monk Seraphim of Sarov spoke to one abbot, instructing him: “You should not be the father of the brethren, but the mother.” And he said this to a man, for a male team!
The great secret is to be a mother to everyone. We must work very hard to live up to the words of St. Seraphim.
- How do you deal with novices who have a strong character?
This is definitely a problem. Especially in the women's team. Mother Margarita settled the conflicting sisters in one cell. There are such strong personalities that they cannot help but suppress others. Our abbess also connected the strong with the strong. Sparks sometimes flew wildly. Dramatic exclamations came from the windows of the cell with the shrews; this was the subject of laughter of the entire monastery, but miraculously led to results. They knock out a wedge with a wedge - it turns out that this is a good psychological technique. The “strong personality” involuntarily came to the understanding that either keep an eye out, or you have to come to terms with it.
Not all of the methods of my mentor, the unforgettable Mother Margarita, are practiced in our monastery. Unfortunately, its height is beyond my reach. She, for example, never doubted her decisions. But I don't have enough sense. I will repeat the same problem in my head many times until I find the right solution.
Being an abbess is a terrible responsibility and, frankly, an unbearable burden.
In our monastery there is an icon of the Most Holy Theotokos Abbess of Mount Athos - one of the main images in the temple. The abbot's staff is inserted into this icon. I have never even picked it up in my life...
Before any obedience, I and the sisters go to Mother Abbess the Theotokos, bow, ask Her blessing, and She really helps us. In hopeless situations, I, like a novice, go to Her, fall and say: “Mother Abbess, help, bring some understanding...” And everything works out.
- Probably, if the authorities in the monasteries had reasoned this way, such works as “Confession of a Former Novice” would not have appeared...
The Lord said: “By their fruits you will know them.” It is very important to judge not by words, but by deeds. After all, it often happens that words do not correspond to deeds, right?
- Yes, sometimes…
What's left after Masha? Devastation, murmuring and the assertion that “The Ladder” is a cursed book. I can't imagine! To live so many years in a monastery and call such a book, our monastic constitution, cursed... Monasticism was not Masha’s way of life, because for us, for monks, this book is holy. Without the humility that the Ladder postulates, monasticism is impossible.
Now let’s look impartially at Abbess Nicholas. I don’t know what kind of order there is, I can’t judge, but she revived a beautiful monastery from ruins, founded many hermitages, brought out more than twenty abbess from her nest, and is conducting very serious educational activities. The fruits are obvious.
To judge a person so harshly, based on the opinion of one sister? Let the other side speak, then we will be able to see an objective picture. Each prosecutor must have his own lawyer.
I will also say something about Christ and love. If Christ had not been in the monasteries, they would all have crumbled long ago, simply ceased to exist, do you understand? Indeed, living in terrible conditions - such as, for example, Masha writes, and I myself can confirm how harsh this is - is impossible without Christ. Impossible!
We have a very attractive life nearby in Odessa, across the fence. Park, sea, turquoise water, sand - all the beauties of the world... I crossed the threshold, walked out the gate, and found myself “in paradise.” Therefore, if a person lives in a place where everything is harsh and limited, like in a barracks, where you work day and night, where you are weak-willed and voiceless - outside of Christ’s grace this is definitely impossible! But, I emphasize, people live in monasteries voluntarily, they themselves consciously choose this path!
Here I am - I came to the monastery from the Komsomol, from the dance floors. She was just like everyone else, she went to dances, put on makeup, loved movies, social life, loved her friends and classmates.
I end up in a monastery, with the scanty brains of a seventeen-year-old. To be honest, I was not at all ready for such a life. And you know, my entire 35-year experience of being in this so-called “prison” suggests that if a person does this for the main thing - for the sake of Christ, everything else becomes petty and insignificant.
You receive from Christ, because you serve Him, extraordinary grace, extraordinary joy. Only a believer can understand this.
How can Masha explain all this? I feel really sorry for her. I feel that she is a well-read and literate girl. But, believe me, a true monk will never in his life say about the monastery that it is hell. For him, the world is hell, and the monastery is heaven!
Dear Masha! Your pain is my pain...
- And literally the last two questions. People look for the love of Christ, the spirit of mutual respect and support in the Church, in monasteries, in churches, but often they only meet rudeness and moralizing. What would you say to someone who has experienced this and is feeling frustrated?
I remember I worked in the Metropolis, and the Metropolitan of Kyiv was then Filaret, who is now in schism and anathematized. Each time I returned devastated, incredibly tired, it was very difficult for me to work there. It's spiritually difficult. And who did I find consolation from? From the founder of the Intercession Monastery, now canonized as a saint, the royal nun Anastasia (from the House of Romanov). She came to her grave - she was buried right on the territory of the monastery - and talked to her as if she were alive, complained, asked for help. And you know, she miraculously sorted everything out, as they say now, and helped.
Therefore, if anyone really suffers from small or large temptations, let him go to the Mother Superior - to the Mother of God, to the saint - the patron saint of the monastery - and ask for help. If you don't like the abbess, the bosses don't matter. After all, there is someone to complain to! In an unexpected way, this help will definitely come.
- And one more thing... Mother, I must admit, “Confession of a former novice” upset many. People are really upset that everything described in the book exists. What could you say to those who are worried and depressed after everything they read?
When a court hearing is going on, if you listen to the lawyers, their clients are just angels. If you listen to the prosecutors, then they are utter villains. Two extremes. But the judge listens to one side, then the other, and makes his verdict. This has been the case for a long time.
Masha acts as a kind of prosecutor - and we listened to her. Do you need lawyers? Of course we need it. By the way, sometimes in some monasteries and some abbots God Himself becomes the lawyer.
The monastery that Masha describes has extremely strict rules. But there are those who are looking for just such rigor. Some sisters told me: “You, mother, have too soft rules, you are a soft abbess, but I want to strive, I want to strive as a martyr for the sake of Christ. And I’ll go to that monastery where everything is very strict.” And they really went to such monasteries and felt happy there.
There are very strict regulations on Mount Athos. In Kyiv, the first monks generally lived in caves.
Each monastery has its own rules, and if you cannot, do not want to endure it, look for another monastery. Yes, there are people for whom “The Ladder” is a reference book, their souls are tempered, they want to shed blood for Christ’s sake, to fight the world, the flesh and the devil.
There is a beautiful phrase in the Holy Scriptures, the words of Christ Himself: “The tree that my Father did not plant will be uprooted.” The tree of monasticism was planted two thousand years ago, and during this time it has not dried up, but blooms magnificently and produces the fruits of holiness - extraordinary, stunning fruits of holiness.
The monasteries raised a huge number of reverend wives and husbands, and even the Soviet government, which hated and fiercely exterminated them, could not do anything with monasticism. As a nun, I endlessly thank God that I belong to this cohort of people, and I not only believe, but I know that this tree is from God, and it is impossible to eradicate it.
- They also say that monks and priests have no rights before their superiors. What can you say to this?
The fact is that abbots and bishops are the same monks; they also went through novitiate school.
My many years of experience tell me that there is no hazing, to use military language, in monasteries. It all depends on your inner look, on from what bell tower you judge, according to the Gospel: “If your eye is black, then everything around you will be black. If the light that is in you is darkness, then how great is the darkness?”
If you love your job, you see everything in a different light. Yes, there are different temptations. But there is a principle in the Church - the unquestioning submission of the lesser to the elders. And at the pulpit in the diocese, where priests must obey the bishop, and in monasteries, where monastics obey the abbot. This is how the Church has lived since the time of Christ Himself. And he will live like this until the end of time.
We, monks, place ourselves in the hands of the abbot. Moreover, when we are tonsured before the altar, we voluntarily take a vow of unquestioning obedience, along with the vows of poverty and chastity. For the world - madness! Nonsense!
When the world judges us according to its own laws, it is indeed difficult for us to justify ourselves. We live in different systems, different dimensions.
Let God judge.
I want to contact Masha. I remember Blok: “She is crushed by love, dirt or wheels - everything hurts.”
Dear Masha! Your pain is my pain. You are one of the options for my destiny. But remember the main thing - you are with God! He will never leave you.
For us, ministers of the Church, the fate of the holy monastery and the fate of the Christian soul are equivalent. If you allow, we, your sisters in Christ, will pray for you. Forgive and let go!
Abbess Serafima (Shevchik)
At the age of 17 she became a novice of the Kyiv Intercession Monastery. Four years later she became a nun, and in 1994 she took monastic vows in Odessa.
In the Odessa City Council he holds the position of deputy chairman of the commission on spirituality and culture.
Chairman of the Synodal Commission “Church and Culture” of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Member of the Inter-Council Presence of the Russian Orthodox Church.
In 2007 she was awarded the “Woman of the Third Millennium” award. A year earlier - “Best Christian Journalist of 2006”. Author of 15 books on the history of Orthodoxy and spiritual culture of Ukraine. The first book was dedicated to the Transfiguration Cathedral and was published in 1993. He considers his main work to be researching the history of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.
Founded the Christian Odessa Museum. She was appointed head of the local history museum “Orthodox Ukraine” of the Kyiv diocese.
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