Mother Feodosia. Mother Feodosia in Skopina Nun Feodosia

The beaten earthen road went up and up, past private farmsteads with strong green tulip leaves emerging from the fences, leading me to the St. Alexis Convent. The mansions, like swallows' nests, closely clustered around the foot of the monastery, which once occupied twenty-five hectares of land. Now there are only five. The ski resort and residential areas of the 1st Dachnaya district are very close to its white walls. But even these five hectares, overgrown with field grass, with an old low church of the 18th century and a temple under construction, seem to be a huge territory for thirteen nuns, one nun, four novices and Mother Theodosia, who arrived here this winter and recently became its abbess. Tall, calm and strict Mother Theodosia invited me into her office. Our conversation started off difficult. I asked the question that most interests secular people - how does a secular ordinary person turn into a monk? What is happening in his destiny, are there signs for him?

“But it’s no coincidence that I’m wearing black clothes,” mother answered. - I died for worldly life, the old me has long been gone. God and soul - that’s a monk... And then she carefully asked, looking at my heels: - Maybe you should change to different shoes so that your feet can rest? I can't even imagine how I used to wear these...

Having received a blessing from the diocese, she still told about her road to the Temple.

Father Kirill

It was natural for me to come to the monastery. As a child, I involuntarily listened to the words of the prayers that my grandmother read. In our teenage years, my sister and I often imagined our lives in deep forest places and had dreamy conversations about monasticism, although we knew nothing about it. After all, these were the times when churches were closed. We had no idea that there was a Lavra of Sergius somewhere, and we would have been very surprised if we saw the monks. For us they were from the realm of the mysterious, fabulous. But the young soul was looking for an ideal, purity. Worldly life then already caused rejection. However, I had to go through the worldly path.

After receiving a higher education, Mother Theodosia successfully worked in Kaluga. She had loving family, a stable income, and housing. When churches and monasteries began to open in the early 90s (and the Kaluga land is rich in holy places), and spiritual life began to revive, she went to monasteries to work on the restoration of monasteries. She laid bricks with pilgrims, worked in the refectory and laundry. Wherever I was on business trips, I could not pass by the temple. “My Christian soul called me into the bosom of the church,” she says. “When I entered the churches, I did not know what kind of saints were depicted on the icons, except for the Mother of God and the Savior. I came across not very polite answers from church grandmothers, I was embarrassed by my ignorance.”

I turned to spiritual books for enlightenment. One of the first, which he still re-reads, having been a monk for eleven years, was about Elder Silouan. It began with these words: “God is Love.” “She immediately captivated me. By that time, life without God had already lost interest for me. But we all want to love and - to be loved. It said this - the soul always seeks true, high love and finds it only in God.” .

In 1992, in the Holy Veden Optina Hermitage, on the feast of the Presentation, the future mother received communion for the first time. Thoughts about monasticism appeared again, unclear and unconscious. And imagine her surprise when, talking with a priest in the Kazan nunnery (she came there as a pilgrim), she heard a direct question from him: “Do you want to be a nun?” - "I don't know...". - “Do you want to know the will of God? Go to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra to Father Kirill, confessor of all Rus'. Through him you will find out.”

My friend and I went to the Lavra for the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord. There were a lot of people visiting the elder. Neither on the first nor on the second day they got to him. On the third day, standing squeezed in the crowd, I heard Father Kirill, saying his morning prayer, and while remembering her health, suddenly called her name, as if he saw her in the crowd. And people kept pushing her away from her cell.

At the entrance to the church, I saw the icon of the Mother of God, read: “Abbess of Mount Athos, patroness of monks,” and began to pray to her. And miraculously, I don’t understand how, I found myself in front of the old man’s door and entered in trepidation.

We didn't have a long conversation. I just said: “I lived and lived a worldly life. And I don’t know what to do?” “Go to the monastery,” he answered quietly. I almost choked with excitement: “How? Is this the will of God?” He patted me affectionately on the shoulder: “Go, go, you won’t make a mistake...” I left him, and with my friend, and she had already decided to go to the monastery, they sat silently for a long time on a bench in the Lavra. And our silence was reverent. I calmed down - this is undoubtedly the will of the Lord.

In October, she took a vacation and, without saying anything at work, went as a novice to the newly opened St. Nicholas Monastery in the city of Maloyaroslavets. Mom became worried: “I will die if you become a nun. How did we offend you?” The daughter prayed that her parents would not be in so much pain.

The monastery was ruined. Only one residential building. They put her to spend the night in a turret, where there was no heating, with a mentally ill woman who wailed and cried all night. With this cold, sleepless night and the subsequent series of obediences, her doubts began. Maybe he's making a mistake? She was not adapted to such a life, and I felt sorry for her parents; in their old age they were counting on her. “God tested my faith. And I kept remembering the words of Father Kirill - go, you can’t make a mistake.” There was a test going on. And how the cherished words of Father Kirill helped her...

She was one of the first novices. New sisters, many also from secular life, came to the monastery.

The most difficult thing for me was to curb my pride, selfishness, unwillingness to obey my mentor (later she became my spiritual mother), unquestioningly fulfilling every single obedience, even seemingly meaningless ones: planting carrots with their tops in the ground or planting flowers where there is a lot of construction going on. It was also difficult to overcome the hostility towards the sisters. But monastic life is built on love and obedience. To cultivate these qualities in yourself, you need to pray for each other, direct your heart to love. Jesus Christ himself lived in obedience to the Heavenly Father. The one you love, the one you obey...

In July 1993, a novice in monastic vows was named Mother Theodosia, and her friend - Antonia (in honor of the first monks who founded the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, Theodosius and Anthony).

It was joyful! And my parents miraculously calmed down and gave their blessing to my monasticism.

Mentor's Cross

As soon as our monastery grew, rose to great heights, spiritual and external, and became known throughout the country, bishops from other dioceses began to turn to us with a request to release our nuns to serve in other monasteries. The sisters left at the same time, some to Orel, some to Tyumen, Antonia to Khabarovsk, and I to Saratov. They scattered across Russia to raise monasteries in the likeness of ours, St. Nicholas. When we said goodbye, we almost cried. Over eleven years we have grown spiritually towards each other. But now we understand - there is no separation, we are tightly connected in prayer. Spiritual kinship is stronger than physical.

For the first time, seeing the Saratov St. Alexievsky Convent, Mother Theodosia understood that her abbot’s cross was not easy. The monastery is unsettled, as St. Nicholas was in the beginning, with a huge construction project that no one is financing. Blasphemously desecrated during the Soviet era, like many other places. In Tyumen, in a monastery, for example, a line for bottling wine and vodka products ran through the altar. It’s even worse here - in the building of an ancient church, a women’s clinic was opened where they performed abortions. The corpses of the babies were dumped in batches into a hole dug nearby. Now, on the “mass grave” of unborn children, a temple of repentance is being erected in honor of the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God “Hodegetria”.

When I found out that the temple was being built on a funeral site, I decided that another chapel was needed here - a throne in honor of the 14 thousand babies from Bethlehem killed by Herod. After all, children, innocent and defenseless, killed in their mother’s womb (and this is a more cruel murder than on the street), are likened to the first Bethlehem martyrs. I shared these thoughts with Vladika Longin, and with his blessing a double-altar temple is being built. Miraculously, from Jerusalem (and there, in the Russian Spiritual Mission, mother carried out obedience for a year. - I.S.) we received a piece of the relics of one of the Bethlehem babies,” the abbess opens the box, where in a tiny plastic bag in red paper there is a piece of the relics wrapped. - This is a blessing to our monastery of the holy city of Jerusalem, reinforcement and help to our sisters...

The spiritual guidance and help of Bishop Longin, together with his own experience of strict monastic life, helped to change a lot in the life of the St. Alexis monastery. This includes constant prayer that does not stop day or night, long services, and readings of the never-ending psalter about health and peace. Everything here now, even the smallest thing - buying yeast, for example - requires a blessing. Every evening, at the end of the service, the nuns make a religious procession through the territory of the monastery with icons of the Most Holy Theotokos “Hodegetria”, the patron saint of the monastery of St. Alexis, the myrrh-streaming icon of the holy blessed princess Anna Kashinskaya, reading the prayer “Virgin Mother of God, Rejoice” 150 times.

Through prayer and faith we are rewarded. We pray for those who turn to us for help. We also ask readers of the newspaper "Orthodox Faith" to pray for our monastery. This is a peaceful, blessed place, prayed for by the schema monks who once lived here. Many came to them for advice; through their prayer, a source of spring water appeared in the mountain. There is no need to travel far to holy places. They are nearby, just find prayer and you will have Rome and Jerusalem in your Fatherland.

“Do you have a mind of your own?” - Mother Theodosia often said to those who asked her for advice on simple everyday issues. Thus, she seemed to be saying: “Trust in God, but don’t make a mistake yourself. Try to correct the situation yourself, try to decide for yourself.” But mother clearly distinguished selfhood as self-will from effort. Sometimes a visitor would come and ask what he should do in this or that case. And mother asked again:

How do you want it?

Many who knew the Skopino elder said that she knew in advance the thoughts of the visitor who came to her. I felt that he came not for advice, but to confirm his decision. I came to hear that I had to do what I had in mind.

The old woman said to such people:

Well, do as you know.

Unfortunately, there are people among us who, if they do not hear confirmation of the correctness of their intentions from one elder, will run around others until they receive a “blessing.” And when they don’t succeed even after this, they say: “The elder gave me the wrong advice.”

Priest Konstantin Gusarov, close to Elder Feodosia, talks about it this way: “The Lord sends people only what is useful to them for the salvation of their souls. Only then, through the holy prayers of Mother Theodosia, did the Lord give people what they asked for. Everyone who came to her found what they were looking for. People were looking for spiritual things - they found spiritual things, people asked for some kind of worldly advice - they received worldly advice. But those of little faith received according to their lack of faith. For example, there was such a case. Two women walked from the village of New Kieltsy to their mother. One of them says: “Why are we going? Well, what can she know? When they came to mother, she answered all her questions to the first woman, and said to the second: “Well, what can I know?”

In general, when a person began to insist on something, mother did not impose her opinion on him. She gave advice, and if the person did not accept it, she said: “Well, well... Do as you want.” Only those who refused mother’s advice did not succeed. God opposes the proud."

Mother Theodosia most often gave direct answers to questions only when she saw that the person was ready to obey.

There is such an interesting and instructive case. One woman had a 14-year-old daughter who was actively involved in sports. (Here, as in some other cases, names are not indicated due to certain circumstances).

One day this girl was seriously injured. She was faced with the question of whether to continue doing spot or not? Mom decided to go with her to Mother Feodosia, but warned her daughter:

Look, your mother might tell you to quit sports.

And this girl was a believer, a church member, and she told her mother that if the old woman said so, “then it won’t be she who will say it, but God will say it through her. I will obey."

The girl knew that she had little chance of returning to the sport. She, as an athlete, has already been written off by coaches, rivals, and spectators. However, she believed in the help of Mother Theodosia. It was not possible to talk to the old woman. The girl received the answer to her question through the cell attendant. Mother Theodosia advised her to continue playing sports and even promised to pray for her. The girl listened to the old woman and, continuing her spot training, achieved such success that she became a champion at one of the competitions.

However, it also happened that Mother Theodosia gave advice, foreseeing in advance their non-fulfillment. This happened to one woman from Ryazan who fell ill with a serious illness. She was an intelligent person and came to Mother Theodosia for a “recipe” for treating her illness. And I heard the following answer from the old woman:

I'll tell you how to treat yourself. But you still won’t listen to me. You won't do as I say. You have your own mind...

This woman listened to the old woman’s advice and really did not follow it. Why! After all, she was offered to be treated with a compress of manure... The intelligent lady really did not do this. It is unknown how this story ended, but another story ended sadly. Moreover, it also happened to an intelligent woman, although she was rural in origin and place of residence. This is what she told the author of this book:

Somehow I started getting spots all over my body. I went to Natalya Kosorotikhina for advice. She told me that there is no need to see a doctor. She advised me to drink herbal tincture. She said which ones. She also advised me to infuse nettles in a basin and pour myself over it. I started doing this and the spots on my body went away.

Then my legs and knee joints started to hurt. She again told me that it was not necessary to go to the doctor. She advised me what to do. But I didn’t listen to Natalya. I thought that my illness would go away. Yes, it was true at first - the disease began to pass. Then it suddenly escalated. I was getting worse and worse. Now I would be glad to go to my mother again, but she’s gone. I didn’t listen to her then... now I’m suffering. Medicines don’t help, the pain is getting stronger and stronger, and now I don’t know what to do... Doctors say, go on disability...

Pray to Mother Theodosia. Although she is not glorified as a saint, you still ask her to intercede before God for you, I then told this woman. And in response I heard:

So if she’s not a saint, why should she pray?

Well, maybe you don’t have to pray, but you can ask for help. I am not a theologian, but I know that the glorification of saints by the Orthodox Church begins with the veneration of them as saints by the people. From the miracles that occur after the conversion of the righteous who have left us.

It is unknown whether that woman followed my advice, I only know that the Skopino elder herself, Mother Theodosia, when giving this or that advice, never insisted on its mandatory implementation. Moreover, she did not accuse people of disobedience, lack of humility, or addictions. She didn’t denounce, but she didn’t remain silent either. Sometimes mother gently, discreetly pointed out to visitors their wrong behavior. Archimandrite Pimen (Adarchenko) recalled, for example, the following incident:

I really wanted to update the iconostasis in the church, but there was no money. So I went to my mother. “Mother,” I say, “pray that a benefactor will be found who will help.” And instead of answering:

This is how we lived. I loved potatoes and cucumbers so much...

Mother, I really want to paint icons on the iconostasis...

And mother with her Ryazan dialect:

I'll water it with sunflower oil. Yes, how delicious... Or you can eat a piece of fish (that’s what mother said - eat it), and thank God! Why don't you take some bread? Always need some bread. Now they say something, you can’t eat too much bread. Yes, my God, what a sin. How can one not eat bread? From time immemorial they have been eating.

Mother, what about the iconostasis?

But she doesn’t answer and that’s it. He left without a sip...

And then I suddenly remembered... A few days ago I was at a meal in a church on a patronal feast day. They treat me, but I don’t want one, and I don’t want another. I’m sitting and sorting through. It was Mother Theodosia who pointed out to me my spiritual state. It was she who said to my eyes: “Father, you’re stuffed.” Like this. They give you potatoes and cucumber, so thank God and calm down.

Then for a week I felt ashamed of myself, and a week later a man appeared in the temple, from whom you wouldn’t even think of asking. And he says from the doorway: “Something, father, your iconostasis is bad. Let's update."

Let us tell you one more case of covert denunciation. Claudia Akimovna Gracheva, cell attendant of Mother Theodosia, had one friend. One day she came on some business to Claudia, to the house where the Skopinsk elder lived. The guest sat down on a stool and began to wait for Claudia to free herself. He sits and thinks: “Well, who is she, Mother Theodosia? What can she tell me? I know everything about myself. I have a husband and a child.” Only the guest thought so, and Mother Theodosia said to her: “Well, what can I tell you? You know everything yourself.”

“It’s good that it was dark in the cell and you couldn’t see what color my face became after these words, because my mother read my thoughts,” this woman later said.

And another incident testifies to Mother Theodosia’s hidden joy for her visitors. This happened with one of the priests of the Ivanovo-Voznesensk diocese. This is what he once told personally to the Ryazan publisher Igor Minin.

“When I came to Mother Theodosia with my questions and went into her cell, I suddenly heard her joyfully talking about something incomprehensible to me: “Oh, who came to us! And how many children he brought! And what good kids they all are!”

I began to look around - maybe some kids really came in after me? But there was no one around. And only after meeting with my mother, when a little time had passed, it dawned on me that she had seen the children saved from abortion. At that time, I worked in the diocesan department to deal with problems of family, motherhood and childhood. He distributed literature about the dangers of abortion, worked with women who, having found themselves in difficult life situations, wanted to have an abortion. Many were dissuaded from having an abortion. It was probably these children who saw the light of Mother Theodosia when I was in her cell.”

Today, the omnipresent pilgrims rushing to us from everywhere know Skopa’s schema-nun Theodosia by this name. Thanks to popular rumor and her unique gift, for more than ten years, the modest Orthodox elder has been prayerfully caring for suffering and needy compatriots in need of resolution of vital issues from all over the Russian Federation, regardless of their ranks and social status in society. It cannot be said that the well-known expression “there is no prophet in one’s own fatherland” is directly somehow correlated with mother, but it turns out that despite the respect from the authorities, the veneration of fellow countrymen, the reverence of church ministers, not a single truthful film has been made yet , not a single book or even a tourist booklet has been published describing all the rules of reception and details of visiting a popular house in the village of Oktyabrsky. We agree that in our time of information abundance this is nonsense, a reason for the capital’s mass media to generate journalistic sensations and insinuations out of the blue.

First, we would like to tell you about her, as is customary among close people who are far from mercantile and mystical interests, to help you know everything you need and be prepared for the specifics of the visit.

Natalya Nikiforovna Kosorotikhina was born in the village of Velemya, not far from the working-class village of Oktyabrsky and the village of New Keltsy, where she had to live after a work injury for about 15 years. This village in the pre-war years consisted of more than five hundred households. Parents Nikifor and Euphrosyne worked in nearby mines. Children Natalya and Olga first worked on the collective farm, and after graduating from school and vocational education courses, they ended up in the construction team of the Oktyabrsky MSO. It was there that a memorable work injury occurred, as a result of which Natalya found herself immobile and bedridden. The unpromising village of Velemya, where soon there were no parents, had to be exchanged for the village of New Kieltsy and settled with relatives on the maternal side. The village had its own medical center, a road that connected it with the regional center, and most importantly, it was an advanced collective farm, where life was in full swing. Natalya was looked after not only by relatives, but also by neighbors, local school teachers, and a paramedic. It was also known then that Natalya had a prophetic gift, which, according to rumor, was passed on from the priest of the Church of St. George the Victorious, Fr. Rodion, then Blessed Korolev, also residents of this village. However, the time of atheism and church oblivion did not leave traces of vivid memories of certain events in the memory of the villagers. Moreover, the victim was between life and death, as if in a lethargic dream, and they tried not to disturb her unnecessarily. But over time, her condition improved. Natalya took juices and light food. Speech began to return. Then the first messages of the prophetic gift began. Sister Olga, when she received her own housing, soon moved the patient to the village of Oktyabrsky, where she continued to work. At first, she looked after Natalya herself, then her friend began to do this on a voluntary basis. Thanks to her, rumors spread about the amazing abilities of the recovering Natalya Kosorotikhina. At this time, Perestroika had already begun and the Russian Orthodox Church began to regain its lost positions and open churches. More and more often, Natalya Nikiforovna attracted the attention of believers and the priests themselves. After some time, after several church unctions and urgent requests to become a nun, the rite of “tonsure as a schema-nun” was performed under the new name Schema-nun Theodosia. Now no one could doubt that Natalya, having become Feodosia, continues to conduct an interview with God. And her gift is God’s gift to the people around her.

The phenomenon of revelations and prophecies remained for a long time within the framework of church silence, since the official verdict of the metropolitan and patriarch was not issued. It still does not exist to this day, despite the fact that a separate commission has been created under the Metropolitan, which is preparing its expert decision. But at the same time, as happens in the Russian Orthodox Church, priests and mothers rushed from everywhere to the newly-minted gift-bearing nun. Often, if meetings fell on church holidays, the service and glorification of God began to take place on the doorstep of the house. Ordinary parishioners also spontaneously reached out. At first, Mother Theodosia received visitors during the day, but over time, at her personal suggestion, the procedure was moved to the evening. It is clear that it was not always possible to receive all the guests in an evening. And my mother even then made it a rule, despite her health and symptoms of deterioration, to accept until the last visitor.

This is now an established ritual. This is what he looks like. Arrivals take their place on a first-come, first-served basis from 20-00 pm. Prepare your questions. Sometimes the details of communication are agreed upon with the service personnel. As a rule, two women attend the visit. Sometimes the local priest helps them. The visit time does not exceed five to ten minutes, depending on the solution to the pressing issue. But it happens that some problems require a longer course. The visitor is led to the bed where the mother is located without outer clothing and shoes and is seated on a bench. Since mother is hard of hearing, the question is duplicated by the bed lady. The answer comes from the lips of Mother Theodosia. She speaks simply, kindly, encouragingly. The voice is clear and transparent. A feeling of grace and solemn awe. It is not uncommon for visitors to burst into tears or become overly emotional. They will carefully take you to the first terrace and give you holy water. When the visit ends, the visitor goes out to the second terrace, where new visitors are already located. Everyone who comes, as a rule, brings something with them as a gift to mother and her assistants. These can be confectionery products, medicinal herbs, honey, gifts from gardens and forests, firewood, and crafts.

When visitors line up and patiently wait for the coveted sign to enter the first terrace, an exchange of opinions and memories often occurs. It turns out that most of the pilgrims are already visiting Mother for the fifth or tenth time. This is, as the people themselves admit, former patients, who were dismissed by doctors as hopeless, suffering from chronic debilitating diseases, teenagers broken down by paralysis and cerebral palsy syndromes, but many of them are already healed and in better health. It turns out that after meeting with the mother and receiving some impetus for recovery, the wards were individually offered additional use of simple homeopathic remedies, such as a decoction of meadow meadowsweet, birch chaga or field chamomile. Apparently, if all this information is collected, then readers can be presented with a plump book of miraculous healings that occurred “besides medical prescriptions and opinions.” But, most likely, this will not be some kind of experience to be repeated, but only evidence of an individual and targeted healing from the schema-nun Mother Theodosia. The rumor of the people and the strong opinion of the overwhelming majority of visitors defines the quality result as a kind of co-creation, cooperation, the beginning of which lies in the impulse from the mother, but the subsequent steps towards health and success must be persistently and methodically taken by the person himself, who is in the same living conditions as earlier. This optimizing factor is the main meaning of “receiving” help from above and using it in further life correction. Probably, all of us living on these difficult eves of global trials are lucky in that nearby on Skopino land for more than twenty years, like a spring or a lonely flute, the living sound of a mountain conversation has been flowing. Two people communicate. It is clear: who and with whom. And, each of us, somewhere nearby. And everyone who hears what is destined for him will be comforted forever.

These May days we remember Mother Theodosia - the old lady died three years ago, on May 15, 2014. A prayer worker, a seer, a quick helper and a comforter in sorrows, Mother Theodosia gained many spiritual gifts, being physically not just weak, but immobile. She lay paralyzed for 60 years, 20 of which were in a coma. But mother’s spirit remained cheerful, she was always with God. And she always remained a worker - only now in the spiritual field: comforting, encouraging, helping with advice and prayer to many, many people.

“The child will grow up!”

1923 Country on Golgotha. A girl was born in the small village of Velemya in the Ryazan region. They called her Natalya. The family of Nikifor and Euphrosyne Kosorotikhin already had three children: older sisters Fekla and Anya (all called her Onya) and brother Tikhon. And then a younger sister was born - Olenka. Other children were born, but died in infancy. Mother Theodosia (that’s how Natasha will be named when she was tonsured into the schema) later said about such people: “Angels!” They beg for the family. Just don't kill. Mother cried a lot when she found out what someone had done.

“Why did you cause such trouble?” - one of her fellow villagers recalls how her mother met her.

The abortion resulted in severe complications, there was blood poisoning, they quartzed so much that the skin then peeled off my legs like stockings. Mother prayed, and she made a vow to God: if she survives, she will never have an abortion again. “You won’t give birth again,” the gynecologist said.

“And two months later,” the woman recalls, “I became pregnant again.” The husband drank (my mother said about “drunks,” as she herself put it: “The Mother of God turned away from them, she doesn’t want to look at them”). The eldest boy is about to go to school, and I bathe him and on purpose - I know that he can get out of the bath himself - I take him in my arms... My mother and I arrived at my mother’s, and she looked at me so sadly... She is usually very affectionate She greeted me with names, but then he pronounced the full name and said: “What you have in mind, you won’t succeed.” And next to me sits my mother, who asked my mother for prayers for me when I was dying just now; but he doesn’t know that I’m pregnant again. We leave my mother’s place, I remain silent. And my mother starts crying: “Lord! Well, why don’t you say anything to your own mother?! What are you up to?" I told my mom. And she: “Oh my God! During the war, they raised eight children each. The child will grow up!”

We were in the house of the already deceased Mother Theodosia, and the woman called her son:

- Kolenka, come here!

A tall, handsome guy came up and smiled.

It turns out that he brought old women here by car, first one, then another, and helped here, soon returning to them.

“As my mother blessed me,” his mother says, “I didn’t go to the hospital or have any tests, I was only here, and she told me: “Don’t cry! – (I worked in a hazardous industry). - Everything will be fine". And when I was about to give birth, she suddenly said: “Everyone will be amazed by the boy.”

Those post-revolutionary and war generations saw so many deaths in their lifetime that they knew how to value life. The country, washed by the sobering blood of the new martyrs and heroic defenders of the Fatherland from the dominance of the red gum, even in those terrible years, in the memories of those faithful to Christ, is Easter bright.

“The Lord loves work”

By 1937, which was called the bloodiest year in the history of our country of the 20th century, the Kosorotikhins lost their mother. She was not repressed, her family was not dispossessed, she was not exiled. Here, on the fertile land of Ryazan, she suffered from backbreaking labor. She died right in Natasha's arms.

Back then they worked a lot physically: collective farms, construction sites, socially useful work - about which Mother Theodosia herself always spoke, even without a hint of grumbling or discontent: “We have to work. How can you not work?”

This desolation is due to our negligence. The nursing land is abandoned, that’s why souls are in the weeds

“The Lord loves work,” mother never tired of repeating, “He says: “You work hard, slaves, and I will help you.” You need to go into the field as soon as the soil dries out and sow. This desolation is due to our negligence. The land that feeds us is abandoned, and that is why our souls are in the weeds - we will have to answer to God.

Parents who would later flock to her with questions about their children would grieve out loud:

– Yes, we have no fear of God. What do we ask the children?

And before, children in large families were raised through work and caring for each other. As soon as it was light, we went up to the gardens in spring and summer. And also feed some kind of stotinka, poultry. All this was still subject to exorbitant taxes.

Men, as they do now, went from the outback to Moscow to earn money - also dad Nikifor Kosorotikhin. So the whole house, the whole household was on my mother’s shoulders. The children, of course, helped, they grew up compassionate, not selfish.

In the past, there was no central heating system, and after a grueling day at work you had to go to the forest for brushwood. And also carry water in buckets home. Not to mention what to cook, wash the dishes, clean up, do the laundry. Sew clothes, mend, patch...

Knowing how difficult all this is, the children grew up thrifty, not spenders, but not greedy either. The hungry will always understand the hungry. Bread was highly valued. Mother always called him “a gift from God.” She told me to take care of each piece and “not throw it away” (do not throw it away). Remember how the Lord blessed the apostles to collect everything to the last detail (see: John 6:12).

The children grew up in gratitude, and this gave them joyful cheerfulness in their souls.

- We used to live happily! Cold, hungry, but they went to work singing, mother recalled. - Who is wearing what? We didn't have any shoes. Galoshes appeared later, but your feet froze in them at a construction site: where you stand, shifting from foot to foot, it’s cold. And now everything is there, everyone is full. Dressed up and shod. Why are you so sad?! Darling should be joyful!

“The arms and legs are intact, what else do you need? – I was then surprised at my contemporaries who were prone to depression. “You can run on green grass!” I myself recalled how, as a child, we went to the forest to pick mushrooms and berries. And most importantly - to the temple for Communion.

"Thank God!"

In the area around the church, everyone was already in disgrace, so they got to the St. Nicholas Church in the city of Skopin on foot. They left around two or three in the morning and were in time for the service. They will receive communion, and then return. And along the way there are so many holy “wells”, everyone will pray. Even today, Mother gave her blessing to clear and consecrate the holy springs that were familiar to her from her childhood and youth. “The Lord gives everything through prayer,” said the old woman.

– Why don’t people strive for God now? – I was surprised. – Temples are open, buses run, almost everyone has a car...

This state is quite similar to what it was exactly 100 years ago before the revolution of 1917, which today researchers call the “revolution of the well-fed.”

By the way, mother did not give her blessing to destroy the stoves in old houses to celebrate the gas.

“My beloved children, I look at you, how young you are, and what you have to go through...” she sometimes sighs.

But she did not intimidate in any way; on the contrary, she encouraged:

When you have something, thank God. When it doesn’t happen, thank God too!

- Pray to God - the Lord will give you strength to endure everything. When you have something, thank God. When it doesn’t happen, thank God too! There's plenty of everything on the table now, I'm glad from I need it. If it doesn’t, then praise the Lord.

She blessed at least the minimum, but keep a supply of food at home.

“Anything can happen in one minute,” she said. If you don't expect it, it will come.

True, I exhorted you not to be greedy, but you feel that there is enough for the future, and now there is plenty of everything, take your surplus and donate it to a monastery or a large family. For such mercy, the Lord will extend good and generous days.

“Her face is somehow very alive...”

Natasha was 18 when she started. They, the youth, were sent to the front to dig trenches.

-Where will they take you? Where will they take you? Where do we live? What do we eat? They didn’t know anything, they only saw one job.

And after the war again: work and work. She worked with prisoners of war in a mine, then in a construction crew...

Back then, people were injured a lot at work. They were transported throughout the year in open dump truck bodies. So Natasha and her younger sister Olya had their first accident in the early 1950s: the truck overturned. The injuries were severe, they even wanted to give the sisters disability, but they refused: “How can you do nothing? Young people need to work.”

Wasn’t it this zealous dispensation that revealed to the world such an unceasing prayer book, just as she had no other opportunity for selfless care for others?..

They lived hungry, the sisters wanted to marry Natasha. Few men returned from the war then. Yes, Natasha was a prominent bride. “Lord, do not allow my matchmaking,” she prayed to the Groom whom she hoped for, returning after Communion to the Assumption in 1953. “This was the last service that I attended with my own legs,” mother later recalled.

It was on the day when the matchmakers were supposed to arrive in the evening that the second accident happened.

The side of the dump truck, when they were unloading bricks, overturned on the workers. The man is immediately killed. He left four orphans; they later came to see their mother in our days. And Natasha herself was taken to the morgue, lifeless. And there was one nurse nurse: “Her face is somehow very alive...” - just put the mirror to your lips, but it fogged up.

For a long time they did not want to give Natasha to her relatives.

- Yes, you don’t even have the necessary funds to care for such a seriously ill patient. We send such people to Moscow for experiments, that’s what they said directly.

Then the husband of Olya’s younger sister, with whom he had just gotten married, wrote a receipt that he would take his relative in a coma under his responsibility. But he himself was sent on a long business trip - he was a military man. So Olya devoted herself to caring for her unconscious sister. They never saw their husband again.

God and the Mother of God know what happened to Natasha’s soul all these years. “The Savior is with us, the Mother of God is with us,” mother often repeated later. She also instructed: “Pray to the Lord and love Mommy (that’s what she called the Most Holy Theotokos).”

"Me there taught"

On Easter 1973, mother came to her senses. Although before, in fact, the soul mysteriously manifested its presence in the sleeping body. When they were burying their older sister Fyokla, Natasha suddenly said: “Momma” (the older sister really remained their mother to all of them). And brother Tikhon came to say goodbye to Natasha - and died right there. When the coffin with the body was carried out, her tears flowed.

Then, out of the blue, as it seemed to many, she could say to a relative: “Petya, say hello to my parents,” and he suddenly died...

“These terms allotted to each of us were open to Mother.” But she didn’t tell everyone about it. If you tell a person, it’s unknown how he will react to it,” explains the dean of the Danilovsky deanery of Moscow. “Oh, I remember, I was once in Jerusalem, my mother called: “Tell so-and-so: let him serve and receive communion every day.” Literally in the next few days I meet this priest, who was only once with my mother. “Mother asked me to tell you...” - “Why?” - “Well, why?!”... And it was on this day, when mother called, that a year later this priest passed away. She opened it to him because he built the temple of the Archangel Gabriel - the messenger of both life and death. Or, I remember, the dean of Alushta, Archpriest Mikhail Khalyuta, died († 03/20/2014). He never went to Mother Feodosia himself, and then I just happened to be with her and told her that he had passed away. And mother - once, she went into oblivion, as she used to do - then she returns and says: “You know, the Great Martyr Varvara met him there!” Wow, I think. I called his son, now the dean of Sevastopol, Sergius Khalyuta. So and so, I say, mother said... And he answered: “Yes, he had a large 17th-century icon of the Great Martyr Barbara, all his life he took it to the parishes where he was transferred, and served akathists before it. And two years before his death, he took her to his last church in Alushta of all the Crimean saints and Theodore Stratelates to the altar and read the akathist there every week almost until his death.”

Mother also saw the spiritual world, and saw the realities of the physical world, even when her eyes were still closed for some time after emerging from a coma; and then, bedridden, I saw something happening far in time and distant in space.

“Natasha, when will your eyes open?” – asked the assembled relatives when Natasha woke up. “For the Ascension,” she answered. And indeed, not in the same year, but precisely on this holiday this happened.

One of Natasha’s first words was: “Why did you feed me, the Mother of God Herself fed me.” And then, it happened that sister Olya would bring lunch, but she didn’t seem to need food. “Well, before, when you were unconscious, did you eat?..” - and then suddenly he remembers the words of his sister, who seemed to have some kind of heavenly relationship.

Otherwise, she will hear Natasha praying and understand that these are prayers that they could not read in childhood... “How do you know them?” - "Me there taught."

Who studied for what, as they used to say. Ahead are 40 years of colossal prayer work. Cross of senile care for the people.

"Live with God"

Mother received everyone.

- Mother, there’s a camp of gypsies there! Well, maybe the gypsies,” the child will try to take care of the peace of the old lady, “shouldn’t be allowed in?”

- How is it that gypsies are not needed?! - Mother will be indignant.

And they, it turns out, brought the newlyweds to bless her for marriage. Their families agree among themselves - the older generation - which of the young people will marry whom, and then they go to their mother for a blessing: what will she say? how will he bless? And they had virtually no divorces.

And once a psychic tried to sneak into her mother’s cell, and people pushed her away with their elbows: “You have nothing to do here!” She finally made her way under their feet, crawling to the crib, and mother looked at her so tenderly and felt sorry for her:

- Little sorceress! How I love you...

She burst into tears and right there, in mother’s cell, tore up her “diploma” in psychic sciences.

“Mother didn’t even reject bandits,” marvels the head of the city of Skopin (in 2000–2011), Ivan Mikhailovich Eganov. “He will also find something to care about—someone to stand up for.” And then you look: his heart will soften, and grace will touch him. He will come out of her, all red from tears, bursting into tears.

It happened that they wouldn’t divide the inheritance and they would quarrel so much that they couldn’t see each other. One such elder brother tearfully asked for forgiveness on his knees from his relatives in his mother’s cell, and then the whole family was shot by racketeers before his eyes. It was the 1990s. What would happen if, in such irreconcilability, the souls of blood relatives were separated? He even made a vow to God: I will go to a monastery if I stay alive. And the Lord preserved him.

"Satan is glad from“Say when you quarrel,” said mother. People will come to their senses - and she is glad: “Peace be with you - and I will come to you”

"Satan is glad from"When you quarrel," mother said. They will come to their senses - and she is glad: “Peace be with you - and I will come to you.” In general, I always tried to somehow gather everyone around the table, give them something to drink and feed, so that no one would leave "lean and inconsolable" Yes, I let go of all the grievances against everyone.

She talked about the beauty of paradise, about how everything here is really insignificant and passes quickly. Someone saw what a dilapidated house my mother lived in and offered to build her a normal house. "I have there home,” she refused.

“Do everything God’s way,” she instructed. – If you are guilty, make amends fourfold (see: Luke 19:8).

- The truth is with the Lord God. The truth can't be found anywhere else. Pray. Tell the truth. Live with God - her instructions were simple.

Here, in this small house on the outskirts of the Skopino village of Oktyabr, there were regular speakers of the State Duma, governors, ordinary people, and the powers that be.

Spiritual mother

Mother rejoiced when the priests came to her. Not knowing the exact date of my birth, I celebrated November 4th all my life, on. In general, on Mother of God holidays I might not accept it. Then the priests came to her - up to 20 priests could gather: prayers were served, akathists were read.

Mother very much loved now Metropolitan Kirill (Nakonechny) of Yekaterinburg and Verkhoturye, then Archbishop of Yaroslavl and Rostov. She called him “Son”. And the clergy, it is known, had a formula that could even be heard during the funeral service of the righteous woman: our mother, schema-nun Theodosia. For all the reverence with which she treated those in office, she truly was a spiritual mother to many monastic and married priests.

The tonsure immediately into the schema became church recognition of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which the ascetic was vouchsafed with: prayer, consolation, healing, insight, prophecy. With the blessing of Metropolitan Simon of Ryazan and Kasimov, Simon (Novikov; † 09/1/2006) was tonsured in 1997 by an ascetic of high spiritual life, an Athosite, abbot of the St. John the Theologian Monastery, in Poshupovo in the Ryazan region, Archimandrite Abel (Makedonov; † 12/6/2006).

A few years earlier, Archimandrite Naum (Baiborodin) from the Holy Trinity Lavra of Sergius came to my mother and predicted her tonsure (as well as Agathia, who was still following her at that time, in the monasticism of Pelageya). In total, Father Naum visited Mother Theodosia twice, although they communicated prayerfully in some mysterious way in the spirit. The mother could have sent her children to him, if they definitely needed to get to him (to consult about the seminary), send them and reassure them: “It’s okay, he won’t accept you now, but he will accept you.” And indeed, the son, according to his mother’s stories, managed to “accidentally” meet an elder somewhere on the stairs and talk to him.

Like on wings!

Mother herself took it at night. From 9–10 pm until the last visitor. And in recent years there could have been 100 or 150 people per night. Previously, the police and KGB officers tracked down believers, so they tried to visit the old woman after dark. And then it happened like that. He receives at night and prays during the day. When mother was sleeping, people close to her sometimes found it difficult to answer.

Olga Solovyova, the wife of Mother’s great-nephew Sergei, who had been looking after Mother for the last ten years, recalls that Mother would pray to God and the Mother of God for a long time and with tears until she received notification.

The monks say: there is no harder work than prayer. But for this, the soul, in principle, must have a predisposition to work. So the lively and hard-working Natasha found herself paralyzed for more than 60 years and unconscious for 20 years, and the need to work is, it turns out, a property not of the body, but of the spirit.

Likewise, when the soul is separated from the body, isn’t the Lord’s call to such all and always necessary workers: “Well done, good and faithful servant!.. Enter into the joy of your Lord” (Matthew 25:21)?

Schema-nun Theodosia (Kosorotikhina) rested at the age of 90 on May 15, 2014, on the day of remembrance of the holy passion-bearers and martyrs of the faithful - the church closest to her house is dedicated to these saints, and they buried her there. A few hours before her death, early in the morning, mother received the Holy Mysteries of Christ in full memory. Then she asked the priest who communed her - the rector of the Boris and Gleb Church, Archpriest Konstantin Gusarov - to look at her “death bundle,” that is, the things set aside for burial in preparation for death.

When Vladyka Kirill came to say goodbye and saw how many people had gathered, the clergy in Easter red vestments, how many flowers they brought, so that not only did they not fit at the coffin, but they didn’t even fit in the church and vases began to be placed on the street along the church walls, then involuntarily said: “This is more like a glorification rather than a funeral.”

The 40 days of Mother’s blessed death were celebrated at the Council of Ryazan Saints.

Everyone around this hard worker felt light and joyful.

“We’ll come tired, sad,” share the sisters of the Princess Monastery that was previously next door to my mother’s house, “and we’ll fly away from her as if on wings!”

“There wasn’t a puddle in the village (despite the fact that they were quite impressive on the broken roads of October) that I couldn’t jump over when I left my mother’s!” - admits some businessman-neighbor, clearly dejected by a lot of troubles and litigation.

Mother gave not only the spiritual strength to cover the infirmities and stupidity of loved ones with love, to humble oneself, to endure, but also physically tangible, grace-filled energy to overcome difficulties and illnesses. Next to the old woman - in the co-presence of God close to her - it was easy even in sorrow.

So she denounced the imaginary dominion of sin and the transitory image of this age over the immortal soul of each of us and the spirit liberated by the Sacrifice of Christ. Christ has truly risen in her heart.

Mother Theodosia did not hide any secrets of this blessed life, did not take it with her. The main thing, she commanded, is for people to return to the Church, repent, and receive communion. Moreover: “Live in peace,” she said. “Where there is peace, there is the grace of God.” “Stay with the Lord God!”

"The Christian spirit breathed in her"

“When I had problems, I went to Mother Theodosia and asked: “Mother, pray.” Humanly, we had a warm, trusting relationship. Mother had spiritual wisdom. And in everyday life she was very reasonable. I tried to take her blessing for every major step in my life. For example, you enter a seminary: “Mother, bless!” - “Yes, yes, it’s a good thing. We need priests!” - “Pray.” - “Well, with God!” These could be fairly general phrases. If you listen to her from the outside, she's okay such– amazing – she didn’t say. Smiling, friendly. Lying in her white handkerchief, outwardly seemingly helpless, is caring itself.

She asked: “What do you want?” He will listen, and if this does not contradict the commandments, he will say: “Come on, come on! Well, God help!”

It seems to me that this is a very correct approach: do not cut from the shoulder. Act with reasoning and - most importantly - with attention to the position of the person himself: “What do you want?” He will listen, and if this does not contradict the commandments, he will say: “Come on, come on! Well, God help!” Such that: “so! I'm an old lady! listen to me - I bless you to do so!” - did not have. I’ll send you somewhere now, and then you’ll execute me for it - that’s not mother’s way. Rather, some kind of aura was created around her, an atmosphere of exalted enthusiasm was created by some wild admirers. This confuses. She herself had never been like this. She treated this with a condescending smile: “Well, they say, it happens...” As if she herself was embarrassed for this. She had modesty. This has always fascinated me too.

The Christian spirit breathed in her. Therefore, I never expected or looked for any miracles from her. And that’s not the main thing! Much more important is rootedness in church tradition and the mutual prayer of people for each other. We still pray for her, and she prays for us. I honor her as a prayer book before God.

“The Mother of God does not command!”, or How to live like a God

– Since the 1990s, I went to see my mother, she wasn’t even tonsured yet, she was just Natasha. He gave her communion when she asked. She read prayers, canons, and akathists to her very much. How ecclesiastical she was! Because now we seem to have a lot of people who believe in God, but these people are so far from the Church... But in my mother there was genuine reverence. We listened to her advice. They loved her.

More than 25 years ago, where I serve was in ruins. There was no heating, there was nothing to live on. I am a newly married young priest. They offer me to serve in the very center of Moscow - in the Church of Florus and Laurus near the Paveletsky Station. And my wife and I even had housing there - literally two stops on the tram. And they promise the following schedule: you serve for a week, a week off. This is where I have been serving alone for 26 years without a change. For me then, of course, it was a very tempting offer.

And Mother Theodosia immediately said: “The Mother of God does not command!” Nowadays everyone strives according to the proverb: fish look for where it is deeper, and man looks for where it is better, and this is not in the Divine way. I realized that the will of God: no matter how destroyed the temple, and how unsettled the parish, since the Lord brought it - serve!

When I refused the offer, the rector of the church, Archpriest Alexy Zotov († 02/12/2012), even respected me and admitted that he himself, it turns out, in his youth began in the church of the holy martyrs Florus and Laurus, in the city of Kashira near Moscow, but not survived and ran away from there a year later. And then, in his old age, as he said, in order to atone for his sin, he began to restore the temple of these saints at the Paveletsky station, on Zatsepa.

We survived here thanks to the prayers of our mother. A village priest has many hardships. You have to do everything yourself. To restore the temple, to serve, to be an elder, to be a watchman in the temple... If you break out to Mother Theodosia, you will receive a breath of strength. Spiritual communication and prayer support are the most important thing.

I had the opportunity to communicate with Fathers John (Krestyankin) and Adrian (Kirsanov) from the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery, and with Pavel (Gruzdev) and Kirill (Pavlov). Whenever you meet them, you will always draw from their humility, love, gentleness, and meekness. Something so good emanates from them that it is difficult to express in words, but in which the soul can no longer go wrong. After communicating with holy people, you can clearly determine for yourself whether a person lives by the Holy Spirit or by the evil spirit of this age. It's immediately obvious.

If you break out to the old woman, you will get a breath of strength. Spiritual communication and prayer support are the most important thing

When we were young, we needed everything, we looked for everything ourselves, we climbed everywhere. They tried to get to the elders. This is some kind of youth now, they don’t need anything. So the Lord will take away all the elders.

You could feel from my mother that she was a holy person. Very prayerful. She loved everyone. This is the distinctive quality of a Christian. “By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). And she loved us all! I prayed for everyone. And she remembered everyone by name. So many people came to see her, and she also started asking about her family: “How is Natasha? How’s Olezhek?” He will ask everything about everyone. Even if a person came to her once, she remembered it all her life and prayed.

Does mother help everyone?

r.B. Natalia Zh., mother of six children:

“I remember in the early 1990s I came to my mother almost for the first time and said: “I’m Natasha.” - “I don’t know anything!” - she answers. The children always left their cells dumbfounded: “Mom! She called you by name!” Although we sometimes arrived after some considerable time. Mother didn’t need to introduce herself; by the Holy Spirit she already knew everything about you both the first time and the next time. You’re still somewhere there at the entrance, or you’re about to get to the back of the line, and, I remember, cell attendant Pelageya comes out into the street (she was very strict) and says: “Who’s here with Anechka?! Come here!" And it’s me and one of my daughters who are just approaching the crowd of people at the gate, and mother, it turns out, is already calling. I came to my mother to ask for prayers, asked for the children. I can still hear my mother’s words: “Let’s pray, Natalya!” No one ever called me that again.

At the draft board, doctors look at a recent photograph, but there are no brain cysts!

My son was very sick. We were restoring the temple, the builders lived in our home. The temple was completely destroyed. 37 Kamaz trucks hauled away debris, soil, and sand from crumbled bricks. The five-year-old son was constantly hanging around the workers. I decided to take the rolls to them. He placed the board against the window, climbed, could not resist and fell. He developed a cyst in his brain. Epi-syndrome began. This is not epilepsy, but he fainted with convulsions, and with such convulsions that he had to constantly check in the hospital whether his brain had moved. It was with this misfortune that I came to my mother. “Everything will pass,” she answers and adds: “You beat the egg with honey.” And then such post-perestroika times came: sometimes you couldn’t find eggs, sometimes you couldn’t find honey. I already had three children, all the same, and sometimes the house was like a ball. But I periodically stirred something up there... I now understand that she was hiding her prayerful feat behind such recommendations. Mother immediately said about her son: “He is my grandson!” At the draft board, doctors look at a recent photograph, but there is no cyst. There are pictures from many previous years, but they don’t find her! They tell us: “Take another shot!” And again: nothing. The doctor from the military registration and enlistment office insisted: “This doesn’t happen!” Before this, we examined leading professors everywhere: in Burdenko and other scientific centers. “What if there’s a miracle?!” - I tell him. From the very beginning I believed that since mother said “everything will pass,” so it will be.

I remember one day I came to my mother and said: “Can I have a daughter?” She answers with her light flying intonation: “Let it be!” And indeed, my daughter Mashenka was born later. We did not immediately bring her to her mother, because the baby was undergoing surgery. And before the operation, they prayed fervently in Khotkovo at the relics of St. Cyril and Mary. And so we come to my mother, Mashenka is one year old, she is like a little bear, walking around her cell in overalls. And her mother says to her: “Mashenka, bring Maryushka, bring Maryushka!” The child approaches the icons, which then stood on such low benches throughout the room, and out of all the outwardly similar images in the technique of execution, he takes the icon of the Venerables Cyril and Mary and brings it to his mother! And it was at this moment that the canaries, of which mother had many then, all began to chirp. “You see how happy they are!” - said mother. We adults even shed tears then.

Masha grew up and came to her mother after school to take her blessing. "And what do you want?" - asks her mother. “I want,” he answers, “to go to university.” “Look! - says the old woman, concentrates and adds: - Okay. If you want, then you will do it.” Then some terrible temptations began with submitting documents. But the daughter was calm: “Since mother said that I would do it, then I will do it!” I didn’t even apply anywhere else, namely to the university where I wanted to study. The competition was huge, but she actually qualified for a budget place based on points.

My friend’s eyes hurt a lot, it was like sand was poured in, she barely made it to Skopin. I only had time to ask my mother about the children. “And my eyes,” he later says, “didn’t hurt anymore!” Although she didn’t even ask anything to herself, she just spent a minute next to her mother.

The children had to be raised somehow; money was needed. We planned to open a small hotel. But mother didn’t bless everything, she asked some leading questions: “Where will you live?..” She already understood then that the children would grow up, go to school and they would have to go to school. We haven’t even had such a thought in our heads yet. This is the second time my husband and I have left my mother’s house, having never received a blessing for this project, we approach the car, he opens the door on one side, I open the door on the other - we meet our eyes and then we both understand: that we have to live there. We didn't want this. But, as it turned out later, this was the only optimal solution. The daughters did not have to return from school to the distant Moscow region after dark or live in hostels.

I once took my daughter-in-law to my mother, and she was going back and suddenly asked: “Does mother help everyone?” Next time I convey these words, and mother replies: “To everyone who loves God and goes to church!”

Mother Theodosia is simply light. Source of strength. When you came to her, there was always a feeling that all the power that the Lord Himself acted in her weakness (cf. 2 Cor. 12:9), she gave to people without reserve. This was the main miracle: the mighty of this world, strong and healthy, knelt down at the crib of this seemingly helpless little man and sought her help and support. Mother is paralyzed, and you feel as if you were hugged and encouraged. We're all so worthless. There are no children - we cry. There are children - we groan again: Lord, it’s difficult. And you came to your mother, and nothing hurt anywhere. You drive with a bunch of questions, and they all fall away along the way, because they are far-fetched! We all consoled ourselves with mother.

“God sent you to me through my mother’s prayers”

Archpriest Sergiy Rybakov, Chairman of the Department of Religious Education and Catechesis of the Ryazan Metropolis, Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences:

– I returned to Russia from Kazakhstan, but there is nowhere to live here. The apartment is still there, the children are there too, there is nowhere to move them here. I came to Mother Theodosia: so and so, I say, such disorder... It was Lent, Mother answered: “Pray.” What else is left to do? I pray. But immediately it became easier to pray. And it’s not to say that these difficulties were very difficult to experience at that time: everyone was practically in such disarray then, they lived on old supplies.

And then we came to mother for the second time, it was already closer to Easter, and mother suddenly said: “Why aren’t you going, why aren’t you selling the apartment?!” The Bishop himself did not let me go then: I had to serve, but my mother went. And in two days there, in Kazakhstan, I sold the apartment. And successfully, for a reasonable price. And the next day they had some kind of economic collapse there - she might not have received anything at all for this apartment, and we, if we were even one day late, would have been left without anything at all.

But housing prices are different everywhere! And my son was already studying in Moscow at that time, he had to live in rented apartments, he suffered. We come to mother to take a blessing somewhere in the Moscow region to look for an apartment - even if we go by train to school, we’ll all have our own corner. And my mother says: “No, no, you need an apartment in Moscow!” “Well, mother, how can it be in Moscow... - I’m trying to realistically assess the situation - when prices have such a huge difference!” “Nothing,” he says, “look!” They started looking. You know, an amazing thing happened: we actually found an apartment that suited our price, and it was also a three-room apartment, albeit small, but in a brick building on the sixth floor and in a good area in the east of Moscow.

The former owner told the following story. He had just bought a nice apartment the day before, but this one urgently needed to be sold. Yes, then also the mayor of Moscow Yu.M. Luzhkov ordered that double tax be paid for the second apartment. And so he began to sell his apartment, but there were no buyers, and that’s all. He reduced the price several times, so that in the end he put it up for auction at almost three times cheaper than the original price. And here we show up with exactly that amount in hand. Although the price was almost symbolic, no one took this apartment from him without us and for that price. The realtor couldn't understand anything. After listening to our story, the former owner later said: “God sent you to me through my mother’s prayers.”

What made mother happy?

Archpriest Vyacheslav Agureev, rector of the Assumption Church in the village of Lipitino (Stupino deanery):

“We didn’t have children for several years, and my wife was very worried. We came with her to mother Feodosia, and she told us a “parable”: “Here my mother came to see me, she has three children...” But my mother did not yet understand that this was a conversation about her, and she began to cry. Then, through tears: “Will they?” “They will! - Mother answers. “And maybe more.” Through the prayers of the old woman, we soon had three boys in a row, and then three more girls. We didn’t even go to any doctors.

“Have an abortion, the child is defective.” - And we prayed to God. - “He doesn’t move!” - And we prayed to God. And was born

Mother Theodosia once told how one mother was going to give birth to a baby, but the doctors were categorically against it. “No,” they convince, “you won’t give birth, your health is poor.” “And we,” Mother Theodosia explains, “we prayed to God...” Doctors send the woman in labor for an abortion: “Your baby will be defective!” “And we,” Mother Theodosia flatly disagrees with these oracles, “we prayed to God.” - “But he’s not moving!” And mother kept saying: “And we prayed to God!” - “You won’t give birth on your own...” - “And we prayed to God! And Nikolushka himself was born,” said Mother Theodosia, “just in time for the winter Saint Nicholas, healthy and handsome.” Mother’s prayers always brought very clear help.

Some grumble about the disease, how to get rid of it as quickly as possible. And the saints say: “Health is a gift of God, and illness is a priceless gift of God.” If you accept it, like Mother Theodosia, with thanksgiving, then this cross will turn into such spiritual gifts! The Lord Himself knows what to give us and when. And if they don’t send something, it means they’re not ready. There is no need to ask for some gift.

At the funeral service for Elder Kirill (Pavlov), His Holiness said in his sermon: “What is clergy? This is a waste of not only spiritual, but also physical strength on this or that person.” Pelageya, a former cell attendant, would sometimes swear: “After you, mother’s shirt is completely wet—at least you can wring it out! All of you: give it to me, give it to me, but no one will ask how it feels for her...”

Mother was always happy when we ourselves worked, did something in such a way that her instructions and spiritual advice were not in vain. We were restoring the temple, I came and told her, she always saw everything for herself and said: “Yes, yes.”

In general, mother clearly saw the light: you come, for example, to her, and she “reports”: “I prayed for you all the way, there was an accident along the way.” And indeed, someone crashed, and we also had dangerous moments. “Oh-oh-oh, what kind of car did you come in...” - she could lament, knowing that this particular car was faulty. She always accompanied me back in prayer.

We were driving away from her one day, and my car tire burst. I stopped: there was only five minutes to do. I had everything with me: a jack and a spare tire. Changed it. I set off, drove about ten meters, I felt: there are no documents - they fell out of my pocket! I returned and found a hole on the side of the road from a jack. While I was hanging around there, looking, all the cars I overtook on the way passed by. I was actually in a hurry. And then it’s as if something is holding me back. I get into the car, annoyed, and it turns out that my wallet has fallen between the seats! Let's go, and there is a collision.

When we served prayer services at Mother’s, it was something unearthly. It was as if a heavenly presence was already opening up to us. After that, I didn’t want to talk or fuss - just to maintain this state as long as possible. To be imbued with this spirit of grace - this was the main thing for which we strove for mother. Although she, of course, gave tips on life. She prayed for us. This spiritual connection is not interrupted. She said: “Come to my grave.”

Dedicated to the blessed memory of Schema-nun Feodosia, Skopinskaya elder.
A few days ago, Valentina Basova, our mutual friend, asked to write a poem about Mother, but Valentina said that it would be better to let Alexey do it.
When they informed me, I replied that most likely there would be a song, not a poem, because I rarely write poetry. And if they are born, then with music.
Valentina replied: “But let there be a song about Mother.”
After talking, I sat down at my desk, above it there are icons and two books about Mother. Mother smiles from them, but I don’t know what to write. Where to begin?
I turn to my mother: “Mother, I was not your child, I didn’t come because I didn’t know what to ask, and I didn’t want to be curious, but you arranged it so that I had to be in the church for two days at your funeral.” Pray for a song to be born if it is needed.
A day earlier, when I opened Igor Evsin’s book about Mother Feodosia, the first thing that caught my eye was how they called Mother - our sun. Even then, the thought flashed through my mind, I wish I could write a song... But there was no thought that it would happen just the day before. Maybe in a year or two, or even three...
After praying, only the chorus was born. I didn’t know what to write in the verses, but nevertheless, with Mother’s prayers, the choral part appeared at the very beginning, and then the verses with the words that Mother herself spoke to her children.
I admit honestly, for the first time I felt how a song was written not by me, but by someone invisible... It’s just a miracle.
On Saturday, July 9, we went to the grave and asked for Mother’s blessing.
A month ago, when I read a book about Mother, my tears did not stop flowing throughout the entire reading for 5 hours.
Through Mother’s prayers a song has now been born and let it be a consolation to all children and a reminder that God is with us!
Another miracle was that the money for the song was raised in one day. The gathering was organized by my friend and poetess Valentina Basova. The arrangement was made in one day and the song was recorded today.
Mother Theodosia, pray to God for us sinners!

Thank you for the financial support provided for the recording of the song:
Basov Valentin,
Basov Sergei,
Parshina Elena,
Gusev Lyudmila,
Korneeva Lyudmila,
Nesterova Tatyana,
Pozdnyakova Yuri,
Pozdnyakov Zinaida
and Sukacheva Marina.

God bless you!

Words, music, performance - Alexey Fadeev
Arranger and sound engineer - Ilya Konyukhov
Official site -