The author of the famous “Confession of a former novice” told “Achilles” about about how those events from the life of the Maloyaroslavets convent look like for her, a few months after writing the book, how readers react to her “Confession” and how Maria herself feels now.

About faith

- You first came into close contact with Orthodoxy at the Kamenno-Brodsky Monastery in the Volgograd Region, when you were invited to become a temporary cook. Why did you agree? Couldn't you refuse, curiosity or an attempt to start a spiritual path in Orthodoxy?

At first there was only curiosity, and what was interesting was not Orthodoxy itself, but precisely to see the closed monastic life from the inside. In general, it was perceived as some kind of adventure, nothing more. Although the spiritual search has occupied me for a long time, however, not in Orthodoxy, but in Indian and Chinese spiritual practices and meditations.

I knew practically nothing about Orthodoxy at that time. I remember how in the kitchen of the Kamenno-Brodsky Monastery we were talking with an elderly nun, and she told me: “Save yourself!” It seemed to me then rather ridiculous and incomprehensible: from whom to escape, where and why. But I never received a digestible answer to my question.

- The birth of your faith: how was it perceived then and how is it now?

There was no birth of faith; even before that, from early childhood, I believed in God, prayed, and even, as it seemed to me, received help. This was not a God from any religion, it just seemed natural to me that this world had to be created and maintained by someone, and one could always turn to this God for help. But all this was somehow vague.

When I started reading Orthodox literature after visiting the Kamenno-Brodsky Monastery, I got the feeling that Orthodox faith can really give answers to the questions of existence, bring us closer to God and bring meaning to life. In fact, however, as it later turned out, the believer is asked to renounce almost everything in life, since the ideal of our Orthodoxy somehow turned out to be monasticism. The laity are also invited, if possible, to abstain from almost all the joys of life, and in the intervals between abstinences - to repent of their weaknesses and the fact that they do not have the strength to abstain, as the “imitators of angels” - the monks - do. The whole meaning of existence moves somewhere in afterlife, whereas here all that remains is to “save” yourself and “save” the lost people around you by all available means.

- In the book you mention that the “cursed” “Ladder” pushed you to monasticism: what is the “fault” of the book?

The book is written in a very beautiful poetic language and really has great power of suggestion. It is not for nothing that it is a reference book in all monasteries. There is, oddly enough, no ideal image of monasticism; it describes monasticism as it was and is, with all that it implies. The difficulties of the monastic path, and exploits in the name of repentance and humility, and the bullying of the brethren by the authorities in the name of humility, even to death, and much more are described. But all this is presented as a “means for achieving salvation,” nothing else. If a person is already ready to sacrifice his life for “salvation” and to receive reward after death, then all this is perceived as completely normal.

This book depicts very attractively the image of an ascetic monk enduring the sorrows of the Kingdom for the sake of the Heavenly Kingdom. Much attention is also paid to the “chosenness of God” and “pleasing to God” of the monastic path; this immediately inspires a feeling of one’s own exclusivity and chosenness, which is very pleasant for inexperienced and proud people. This is where the desire to follow this path arises. And at the same time, all the difficulties and sufferings of the monastic field are also perceived as God-given and saving, no matter what they may be, even completely strange and absurd. A person begins to think that the more suffering and hardship he endures for Christ’s sake, the sooner he will find mercy and salvation (this, by the way, is almost the main idea of ​​the book), although this thesis is simply a perversion of the very essence of Christianity. Nowhere in the Gospel did Christ call for one to seek adventure and suffering intentionally - neither for himself nor for others.

And so, a person, having read such literature, comes to the monastery not at all for a quiet life of fasting and prayer, he goes “to suffer for Christ to the point of death.” And there M. Nikolai and others like her are already waiting for him, ready to take advantage of this. This, by the way, is the answer to the question: “Why do the monks tolerate such Nicholas and do not leave the monasteries.”

- If the book’s fault is that it paints an ideal image, but the reality is dramatically different, then is it the book’s fault or is it the reader’s mistake? The Gospel also speaks about the ideal, about the Kingdom of God, calls there - is the Gospel also a “cursed” book?

But the reality is not very different. It’s foolish to think that monasticism used to be any different than it is now; just study a little history. It’s just that this monastic reality is presented in a very poetic and attractive way in the book, even death from beating from a mentor is presented as a great benefit for the novice. For this, the Kingdom of Heaven is promised not only to the novice, but also to the prayer mentor of the martyred novice.

Anyone who reads such books and trusts them, of course, is also guilty. Firstly, he is guilty of his gullibility, and secondly, of his pride, that he dreamed of a “great monastic feat”, imagined that he had a “call to monasticism”, etc.

But in this case, I believe that the people who distribute such literature in temples, where people tend to be trusting and open, are more to blame, especially at first. In addition to the Ladder, in the church shop you can find many books calling for monasticism. The Russian Orthodox Church here is no better than Jehovah's Witnesses, who also distribute their colorful brochures everywhere about the chosenness and salvation of their adherents, and they also have many followers. Everything there is also focused on trust and pride - “feel yourself chosen by God, special and listen to your mentor.”

Does the Gospel even talk about monasticism somewhere? Many cite as an example the episode where Christ offers to leave all his property to a young man who wanted to be His disciple in order to follow Him. But otherwise this young man would not have been able to engage in missionary activity and follow Christ everywhere, like the rest of the apostles. This was not advice for everyone, and not about that at all.

There is nowhere such a thesis as “cutting off your will” in favor of a mentor (not God, but a mentor, as is customary in monasteries). Christ does not call to torture oneself or others on purpose for the sake of “humility” and “repentance.” Did He humble any of His disciples, starve them or beat them? Where did this come from then: “the more sorrows, the more salutary?”

In The Ladder and similar books, what is considered the highest virtue for a monk? Obedience. The novice, they say, fulfilled all the commandments. Everything. Simply because he obeyed his mentor in everything. The novice does not even have to pray; everything will be done according to the prayers of his superiors. Where is this in the Gospel? Where did this even come from? And it turns out that the novice no longer needs to acquire any virtues, just obey, as in the army, without thinking about anything, and you will go to heaven.

So it turns out that after several years of living in a monastery, such obedient children have forgotten how to think, they can no longer make a single decision on their own, they become like children, they even stop distinguishing good from bad, moral from immoral. The bosses, of course, find all this very convenient: the more obedient and unreasonable the employee, the better. I wrote a lot about all this in the book, I won’t repeat it.

- Is there anything in Christianity that remains valuable to you, or is everything consigned to the “dustbin of history”?

Is it really possible to select something from Christianity, leave it as useful, and throw out the rest? It’s either all or nothing, there’s no other way. Or do you believe that Christ is the savior and God, follow His commandments and drink eternal life, or not, you throw it all away as unnecessary. I got the second option, I don’t believe in it anymore.

- Do you think you will ever return to the Church?

I don't know why I should go back there. I don’t feel any desire or any need, I don’t miss the services, in general, now I don’t understand what this can give me and how it can help me.

- You make mosaic icons - do you pray? Or just a craft?

I started doing mosaics at the St. Nicholas Monastery and continued at the Sharovkin Monastery. Yes, I used to pray, now it’s easy creative process, interesting to me only from an artistic point of view.

- Do you still have faith in God? At the end of the book, in the afterword, you mention the Lord - is this rhetorical or is He specific to you?

When I wrote the book, I still believed in God, and even visited an Orthodox Greek temple in Brazil, although I had already begun to analyze many religious topics, ask myself questions, and look for answers. Therefore, the book turned out to be on the verge of faith and disbelief. Maybe that's why it's interesting to read. Now I wouldn’t be able to write like that, it would have turned out completely differently, and I think it wouldn’t be as interesting.

-Have you become completely indifferent to questions of faith, hell, heaven, salvation of the soul, or have you simply put this question on the shelf, deciding to take a break?

Now I think that there is simply nothing behind these terms that you have listed except fantasy. Personally, I don’t need all this at all. I don’t want to live anymore in this eternal neurosis and fear of sinning somewhere and not repenting, frightening myself with hell or being consoled by the anticipation of heavenly bliss. Have these scarecrows ever helped anyone behave morally? I observed rather the opposite in church life.

Even if God exists, and there is a Last Judgment in the end - so what? Judging by the Gospel, moral behavior towards others is all that will be asked of us at the same terrible judgment, if it does take place. The remaining options necessary for believers, such as unshakable faith and repentance almost to death, were already invented by the holy fathers of the church much later than Christ, so that there was something to blackmail believers and distinguish them from other people.

About the monastery

- How do you now feel about the people your book is about? To Abbess Nikolai?

I am very sorry for the sisters of the monasteries where I lived. In fact, they are in a psychological prison. It seems that you can leave physically, no one is holding you by force. Some have relatives and housing, but still, they cannot leave, they cannot even imagine such a possibility. It seems that your whole life will end if you leave. The only opportunity to escape is if something happens that simply pushes a person into the world against his will. As a rule, this is an illness or a conflict with superiors. But often such people cannot stand it and return back or enter another monastery, because it can be very difficult to adapt to the world, to overcome desocialization, fear, guilt and loneliness.

To ig. I don’t relate to Nikolai in any way now. For the first months after leaving Maloyaroslavets, I only thought about the monastery and about her. It was some kind of obsession, even a state, both day and night. It’s just that my head has already been trained to think about it all these years. I constantly analyzed my departure from the monastery, felt guilty for abandoning the monastic feat, looked for excuses for myself, was constantly nervous, even to the point of hysterics, and it was difficult for those around me to communicate with me. In addition, in a monastery you somehow gradually lose the ability to think normally and speak coherently.

Gradually all this passed, and now Metropolitan Nicholas for me is simply part of this entire ROC system, no more terrible than the same Metropolitan Clement (Kapalin), also the hero of my book. By the way, they are very similar to him: also this passion for show, luxury, the same incredible exaltation over mere mortals. Maybe that’s why he supports her so much in everything, especially now, after the release of the book and former novice of the Chernoostrovsky monastery Regina Shams in MK, where she spoke about the monastery shelter “Otrada”.

In general, M. Nicholas simply merged in my mind with many of the same church “queens” and “kings”, of whom the system they serve has now bred in abundance. How do I feel about this system as a whole? Strongly negative. In my opinion, there is nothing more disgusting and terrible in modern world than this legitimized form of slavery, which is now flourishing so wildly in our country.

- How do you now feel about the commandment to love your enemies?

Now I no longer understand what exactly is meant here. How should you love people who do evil, and on an especially large scale? No need to fight them and just turn the other cheek? Or put it for them prostrations and pray? I don't do this anymore. What then?

Love for me is a very specific feeling that cannot simply be generated out of nowhere. If loving in this context means stopping hating, then yes, even from the point of view of psychology, the commandment is useful.

I cannot say that I hate M. Nikolai, I sincerely feel sorry for her, as a person who also suffered in this cruel system. Only an ignorant person could think that she lives well and calmly in this place. I observed quite the opposite in the monastery. The mere fact that she constantly takes anti-anxiety medications and serious antidepressants speaks volumes. It is very difficult to constantly lie and pretend. She became just as dependent on the system as the nuns under her control. Almost all leaders of such destructive sects and organizations ultimately suffer from various mental and psychosomatic illnesses, and she is no exception.

- Have you been threatened? big people"? Abbess Nicholas herself or her subordinates?

Personally, no, no one threatened me. Maybe also because I wrote and published the book while in Brazil. Near metro Nikolai Long hands, but apparently not that much. There were attacks on the publishing house and on people inside the church system, and very serious ones, I know that for sure. It was very difficult to publish this book; until the very release of the edition it was not clear whether it would be possible to do it. Now the fate of the second edition is also unclear; everything is very difficult.

- Should the situation in that monastery and orphanage be resolved with the involvement of authorities: the prosecutor's office, the children's ombudswoman, social protection, or should we just call for the intervention of the Patriarchate and the diocese? Or to the conscience of the monastery authorities? Or is the hope only for publicity?

Routine inspections come to the Otrada shelter, everything is done completely legally. The entire monastery spends a week preparing for these inspections, all day long these inspectors are entertained and fed deliciously, children perform concerts with songs and dances. Everyone is happy, the sisters and children get terribly tired only after such checks, but everything is wonderful there. Therefore, I personally don’t have any hopes. I think we just need to at least write more about all this, so that people themselves understand what trap they will fall into with their children if they enter a monastery (and it doesn’t matter which one, it’s about the same everywhere). There is little hope for any active action on the part of the Russian Orthodox Church or the state.

- “What doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger” - Has your experience made you stronger? If so, then someone can say that there is no need to warn anyone away from the monastery, let everyone go their own way and become stronger?

Whoever says that simply does not understand what he is talking about. So you can send people to prison or to a camp - let them harden themselves physically and spiritually. I was lucky with my nerves and good health, but this is rather an exception. More often, after 3 years of such a life, a person begins to lose health - both mental and physical, and irrevocably. And how many people have simply gone crazy in this field! Who is tracking this? Who is in control? In the first years of entering a monastery, all the strength is squeezed out of a person, while he is still able to work, and then they are often thrown out onto the street sick. I'm not even talking about the fact that after several years of “feat”, professional skills are lost, and you return to the world useless and desocialized.

And this skill of obedience and cutting off your will, which makes you a weak-willed vegetable? It’s very difficult to learn to think for yourself again, make decisions and simply not be afraid of people. No, you definitely won’t get stronger here. Initially strong man will be able to recover after the monastery, but the system simply breaks people with a weaker organization.

- The problems described in the book - atrocities, humiliation, manipulation - are these problems of specific people, a specific monastery, or is this a systemic problem of the Russian Orthodox Church? Or all of Christianity in general? You described good relations in Gornensky Monastery- What is the rule and what is the exception?

The Gornensky Monastery also had its own problems, which I simply did not write about in the book, but in general the situation there is better, as long as there is a fairly adequate Abbess Georgiy. When she is gone, it is still unknown how everything will be there. And besides, this monastery, due to its specific activities and structure, is very different from Russian monasteries, organized according to the same principle of community life. In the Gornensky Monastery, the sisters are paid a salary and allowed to go on vacation; they live separately in houses, and there is no such total control over them as in our monasteries. Where have you seen this in Russia?

If we talk about the problems of our monasticism, then it is obvious that the issue is not specific people, they are simply part of this mechanism. The monastery in Maloyaroslavets is no exception to general rule and is not very different from other monasteries, except that some of the rules there are stricter.
In chapter 36 of my book, I wrote out the signs by which you can distinguish an ordinary community of people from destructive sect. And all these signs are suitable for any modern, and even ancient, communal monastery. It turns out that monasteries, as closed systems, are structured according to the principle of a sect. When a person enters a monastery, he renounces not only his property and professional skills, but also his will; he completely submits to the mentor, which is why he is called a “novice.” He becomes completely dependent on this system financially and is also subjected to constant psychological treatment. And this is where all sorts of manipulations and abuses begin. In essence, this is just legalized slavery, no matter what anyone calls it.

About the book

- Did you keep diaries? How did you manage to reproduce all the events in such detail?

No, I didn't write anything down. If I had kept diaries, I think the book would have been much longer. I was able to remember only the brightest moments monastic life, but this is something that is not forgotten.

- Did you write your book for yourself, for therapeutic purposes? Did the effect it had change you or your attitude towards the topic? Do you feel like a fighter for the rights of the humiliated and deceived, a hero? Are you glad that the book was in demand?

Rather, the therapeutic effect was intended not for me, but for some of my friends who went through the same path, but never realized what actually happened to them. It was for them that I wrote this book, although it also helped me systematize everything in my head and understand everything even better.

Oddly enough, many former monks and nuns for many years after leaving the monastery cannot overcome the fear and feeling of guilt that they left. After all, leaving the monastery is equivalent to betraying God. And the person rushes about, cannot find a place for himself in ordinary human life, constantly remains in this humiliating and neurotic-exhausting state, imposed on him in the monastery, goes to services, endlessly confesses, repents. Someone can’t stand it and comes back, leaves again, and this can continue several times. Plus this eternal feeling of one’s own unworthiness and inferiority, naively mistaken for humility, which is also cultivated in monasteries and parishes.

I experienced all this myself, so I wanted to describe this experience and thus support those who need it. A lot of people wrote me reviews, thanked me for the book, for me this is the most important thing. And it seems to me that the book received such a resonance because many people were already in pain, so to speak, such a book has been brewing for a long time.

- Do you hope that the book will change something in the system of monastic life of the Russian Orthodox Church or in the Russian Orthodox Church itself? Or only in the minds of readers? What has life shown over the past few months since you wrote the book?

I don’t think that changes in the Russian Orthodox Church system will happen quickly and thanks to the book, I think everything will happen gradually, thanks to the Internet and publicity. They only recently began to talk and write about this slavery under the guise of monasticism, and many are no longer afraid to call a spade a spade, this is the most important thing.

The scandalousness, as you put it, of the book does not in the least prevent me from living normally now; on the contrary, thanks to the book I met many interesting people. Therefore, no, I don’t regret anything, I’m glad that the book turned out to be in demand and was useful.

- Don’t you think that the book played into the hands of those who take an extreme anti-religious position, the so-called “union of militant atheists”? Whose opinion and support is more important to you: these “atheists”, reasonable and cautious believers, church people or simply secular, curious readers?

Now I don’t divide people into believers and atheists; everyone can have their own beliefs if they please him and help him in life.

And regarding your question, in my opinion, what now plays most into the hands of the “atheists,” as you put it, is the very policy of the Russian Orthodox Church and Patriarch Kirill, comrades. No matter how much these same “atheists” wrote before, it all had no resonance until people from within the system itself and those who suffered from it began to write.

So you talk about “Confession” as a scandalous book. But think carefully: what is so scandalous about it? Am I talking about something that is not known to monks or long-churched laity who do not wear rose-colored glasses? All the sensationalism is in the eyes of those who knew nothing about the life and customs of modern Russian monasteries or knew only from sugary pious fairy tales.

After publication, they accused me of seeking cheap fame and even recalled the story of the biblical Ham, who told his brothers about his father’s nakedness. By the way, I learned during this time that the argument with the story of Ham is one of the most favorite among our priests: they say, there is no need to bring dirt out in public.

But reread this one biblical story, think about its content: Ham accidentally violated the concept of purity when he saw his father’s nakedness, after which he went to his brothers and told them. What did the brothers do? They went in to their father and, without looking, covered their nakedness so that the uncleanness would not happen again. Ham became defiled and told his brothers. The brothers eliminated the source of uncleanness thanks to Ham's publicity. If he had remained silent, then what happened to him would have happened to his unwarned brothers, they too would have been defiled.

So much for scandalousness, here for rudeness. Glasnost is feared where there is a lot of uncleanness. And it’s very good that many readers perceived my book as a warning. Maybe I’m not answering exactly the question you asked, but for me it’s important: to reveal the topic of scandalousness. As for the authorship of the scandalous book in Russia, then you’d better ask the publishers. Believe me, they have something to tell, but they do not speak - like people who have something to remain silent about.

- Why do you think critics of your book immediately get personal?

As far as I can tell, this doesn't just apply to my book. The phenomenon is much broader. It seems like all exes are treated this way. Maybe wanting to drown out what they said, maybe to divert attention...

It’s one thing to discuss whether it’s normal for novices to eat expired food donated to feed livestock, and another to be sarcastic about the fact that I photograph nudes. Feel the difference, as they say, and think about the moral character of such people. As is well known, such accusations can prove the rightness of those who are attacked by so-called critics. Criticism is good, it helps to correct mistakes and become more perfect, but the rage and meanness of offended people is revenge, not criticism.

There are also those who find it genuinely painful to read my book and think about the topics I touch on. It's painful and difficult for them. You have to reassess your values. This gives rise to internal protest. I understand this reaction. The most important thing is that she is sincere, and we usually find a common language by discussing the book on my Facebook page. I do not consider such a protest to be criticism. This, if you like, is also spiritual life: the crushing of idols and the desire to call things by their proper names, and not by splendid euphemisms.

- Tell me, have you learned anything from the negative characters in your story?

Believers like to say that there are no non-random people in our lives, meetings are providential, every person in our life teaches us something. By asking this question you probably mean specific persons, and I, listening to him, also immediately imagine those whom you might have in mind.

I'll say this. You know, when some terrible crime occurs, you don’t yet know who did it, you think of the criminal as a fiend of hell, an ominous demonic figure, but then they show us the detainee: he’s just a person, just like everyone else. If we didn’t know what he had done, we might even have shown sympathy for him or found a reason to respect him for something, or even imitate him. Or they might not notice him at all, as one of thousands, and if he is a drunkard, then even condemn him or feel sorry for him. If you treat my story as a description of a terrible picture you saw, then you will begin to demonize the heroes of this story without knowing them, and if you knew these heroes, then you will not believe the picture painted.

Therefore, I rather learned not from the heroes of my book, but rather received a precious existential experience of the duality of personality and the duality of being, so to speak. There are very valuable lessons to be learned from this experience, without blaming anyone.

What review of the book do you remember most?

- ““Confession of a former novice” is the passport of a conscientious person, which you should always have with you”. I would not be as categorical as its author, but these are the words that I remember most of all. I also could not help but pay attention to the numerous confessions that the book gives joy and hope, inspires to be spiritually mature people.

About life now

- Did you make friends after the publication from the same exes? Do you keep in touch with former nuns and novices of that monastery?

After the book was published, I made a lot of friends, and not just ex-friends. I communicate with former sisters of the Maloyaroslavets monastery, and we are quite close friends with some.

- It probably takes a lot of mental strength and nerves to correspond and respond to comments - aren’t you tired of your fame?

At first, when the book was published in the live journal, more than 100 letters and comments came in a day, I tried to read and answer everyone. Now the number of reviews has become much smaller, I have time to read and respond to everything, it’s interesting to me and doesn’t take up much time. I am very grateful to all those who write to me, support me, and share their impressions of reading the book - I received many such letters, and this is very important to me.

- Have you given interviews in the past months? Have Orthodox media contacted you? Why did you decide to agree to talk with “Achilla”?

There were several offers to give interviews. According to our agreement with the publisher, I consulted with him when making the decision. After a not-so-pleasant experience with one of the major Orthodox media outlets, I really needed help in choosing. At some point I decided not to give interviews at all. It’s not that I was completely unprepared for unethical and dishonest behavior by journalists, but why all this squabbling?

I recently heard several good reviews about “Achilles”, and I found your project very interesting. What you are doing now is worthy of attention. The publisher, agreeing with my decision, shared a similar opinion, and unanimity is always encouraging.

- In the afterword to the book, you write that you have been undergoing internal rehabilitation since January 2016, and by October of the same year, by the time the book was written, you had fully recovered. It's February 2017 - do you still think there has been a recovery?

I began to recover during my stay at the Sharovkin Monastery. I was there for about a year. We lived in a small community at the temple, as I wrote in the book, we had the opportunity to use the Internet, read books, and go home. And then Brazil helped me a lot: the ocean, the sun, communication, great food and relaxation. Actually, if not for this, the book would not exist. Has your mental and physical strength been fully restored? I think so.

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 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 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 along weak ice across the river and fell into the 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 last words 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 old 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 our Seraphim Skete had not yet been restored Ryazan region Temple of the Kazan Icon Mother of God, and the monastery itself had not yet been rebuilt, we served there only twice a year, in Kazanskaya - 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 Holy Mother of God 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

We decided to write this letter because... We are sure that the slander that unfolded on the Internet around the Maloyaroslavets St. Nicholas Chernoostrovsky Convent was inspired by anti-church, anti-God circles.

In her “Confession of a former novice,” Maria deliberately attacks all monastic traditions, the importance of observing which the Patriarch so clearly spoke at the congress of abbots and abbesses. No wonder this “confession” came out immediately after the congress. Maria, and those who support her, direct their blow against the foundations of monasticism, which Mother Abbess Nicholas strengthens and develops in her abbot service. Speaking against spiritual care (which the Patriarch recently spoke about at a meeting of abbots and abbesses), the “former novice” distorts its meaning, calling it “denunciations” (although Mother always teaches us to repent only of our sinful thoughts and scolds the sisters not for their thoughts, but for actions). Prayer, the main monastic virtue, is also blasphemed against the practice of the Jesus Prayer and keeping lips in the monastery. The devil, through his “novices,” attacks obedience, as the basis of monastic work, with particular fury—the author of the “confession” calls it a “cult of personality,” and a leading not to God, but to oneself. The target for denunciation is not only the abbess of Nicholas, but also the spiritual elders - Schema-Archimandrite Eli, Schema-Archimandrite Blasius, Archimandrite Naum, as well as St. John Climacus, whom the “debunkers of monasticism” classify as sadists, and his immortal “Ladder” is called PR for the “sadists” abbots."

Further in her writing follow unfounded accusations of poor nutrition, exhausting labor, lack of rest and treatment, not only of the sisters, but even of the children of the Otrada shelter. (For information: an Italian cheese factory is installed in the monastery, and the monastery feeds all parishioners on Sundays and holidays - 150-200 people, 2-3 times a month distributes food to more than 70 poor families, so why not take care of their sisters and children. In The monastery has a therapeutic sauna, physiotherapeutic and dental offices, and a large pharmacy.) The atmosphere of the shelter is called barracks, and the children are described as sitting within “four walls.” This year alone, the children of the orphanage had 7 trips abroad, including performances by the children’s choir and dance group, as well as pilgrimages, which have become commonplace. Every year, the pupils of the Otrada orphanage relax by the sea, in Greece or Crimea.

Slanderers form the image of Mother Abbess as a rude, domineering and cruel tyrant. But everyone who has been to the monastery knows how much all the sisters, not only of the Maloyaroslavets Monastery, but of all our monasteries, love Mother. We all live like one big, friendly, loving family; no one wants to leave, because when we came to the monastery, we chose this abbess for ourselves.

We, as former sisters of the monastery, are surprised at what evil and perverted vision those who write these slander must have in order to see our native monastery and Mother, always full of love and patience for our infirmities, in such a perverted form. We think it makes no sense to respond specifically to all these devilish lies, but we cannot tolerate it and want to stand up for the defense of those high spiritual ideals that are affirmed by Mother Nicholas and our confessor Schema-Archimandrite Blasius (formerly Lavra Schema-Archimandrite Michael) and which bear visible fruit, witnessed by everyone spiritual modern authorities of monasticism. Many bishops ask for abbess to come to their dioceses from the St. Nicholas Monastery. 15 abbess have left the monastery in all parts of our country; the abbess of the Orthodox monastery of St. Paisius in America considers Mother Nicholas to be her spiritual mother. The monastery is loved and appreciated for its spiritual attitude and adherence to the traditions of monastic tradition by Metropolitan Athanasius of Limassol, Schema-Archimandrite Eli, Schema-Archimandrite Vlasiy, Schema-Archimandrite Ephraim of Vatopedi, the late Elder Joseph of Vatopedi and many other spiritual people.

120 sisters live in the monastery; cases of sisters leaving are very rare, and this mainly concerns laborers or novices. Behind Last year Not a single assigned sister left, but 13 sisters came.

Our Mother, for her work for the benefit of the Church and the state, has 2 government awards (the Order of Friendship and the Order of St. Catherine), and six church orders.

It is obvious that this campaign is planned and directed against monasticism as a church institution, against the charitable activities of monasteries, i.e. against the Church of Christ itself. There is a deliberate falsification of information (how do Rimma-Regina Shams, who left in 2011, and especially the novices who left in 1993, know what is happening in our monastery now?).

Who is the author? When Maria, after leaving the monastery, took up photography again, photographs of naked women taken by her were displayed in the photo gallery on her website. Now, being in Brazil, she collects information about everyone who left and was “offended”, sometimes fabricating false comments.

All this forces us to especially pray for our persecutors, but “God is betrayed in silence,” and if we do not respond to this slander, then the enemies of the Church will triumph. We all, who lived and were raised in this monastery as abbess and nuns, together with the sisters of our monasteries, testify that everything in the notorious “Confession of a former novice” is a lie, spread by the enemies of the Church and monasticism. And if you want to know the truth, come to Maloyaroslavets (only 110 km from Moscow) and see everything with your own eyes.

We abide with Love in the Crucified and Risen Lord:

1. Abbess Theodosia (St. Alexeevsky Monastery, Saratov)
2. Abbess Anthony (St. Peter and Paul Monastery, Khabarovsk)
3. Abbess Anastasia (Spaso-Vorotynsky Monastery, Vorotynsk)
4. Abbess Nektaria (Seraphim-Pokrovsky Monastery, Kemerovo)
5. Abbess Michael (Holy Dormition Convent, Kemerovo)
6. Abbess Varvara (St. George Convent, Essentuki)
7. Abbess Theodosia (Nativity of Christ Monastery, Vyatka)
8. Abbess Elikonida (John Convent, Alekseevka village, Saratov region)
9. Abbess Makaria (Vladimir Convent, Volsk, Saratov region)
10. Nun Paraskeva, abbess of the metochion (Monastery of the Kaluga Mother of God, Zhdamirovo village)
11. Nun Mikhail, elder sister (Holy Dormition Gremyachev Monastery)
12. Mother Elizabeth, elder sister (Holy Dormition Sharovkin Monastery)
13. Mother Joanna, elder sister (Monastery of the Tikhvin Mother of God)

“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, eldest daughter I raised 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 married woman, and Mohsen received a Russian passport.

From the outside, Regina looked quite successful. Dressed fashionably, ran in the morning, worked with Italian, 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. IN adolescence she got 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 the 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 according to my qualifications, but to become a methodologist or a nanny in kindergarten did not want.

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. This strong impression was. 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 testing 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 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 for a long time I haven't heard anything about her. 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” - 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 once again, don’t hug me, 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. Will you go to 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. She's generally in Lately I started getting 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 state of my blood - high sugar and anemia - I tried to continue my monastic path in the courtyards of the monasteries, 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.

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 somehow material base have 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 goes away, and in this fire is born new person- a 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 one of their own? sister? Will you be able to obey your mentor, who will then, subsequently, take responsibility for Last Judgment answer for you? 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 already becomes a monk, and according to the IV Ecumenical Council When tonsured, there must be an elder or elder 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 - immediately go to the temple, ask 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. Human body 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 happy 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 the one and only a 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 one wonderful example, we love him 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 Sarovsky, 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 what closer people 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 and wish her good day or say something kind, a little, but say it in order to show your disposition. 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 compatible is such an active social work 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 Venerable Sergius Radonezh even blessed them 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.

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 Soviet army, reached Berlin.

Abbess Nicholas received two higher education: 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 Danilov stavropegial 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, April 28, Friday Holy Week, on the feast of the icon of the Mother of God " Life-Giving Spring", for diligent service for the good of the Church of Christ by decree His Holiness Patriarch Alexia 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 efforts to restore 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."