Venerable Schema-nun Martha of Diveyevo

Our Venerable Mother Martha (in the world Maria Semenovna Milyukova) was born on February 10, 1810 into a peasant family of the Nizhny Novgorod governorate, Ardatovsky district, in the village of Pozhidovo (now Malinovka). The Milyukov family, who led a righteous and God-pleasing life, was close to Elder Seraphim of Sarov. In addition to Maria, there were two older children - her sister Praskovya Semenovna and her brother Ivan Semenovich.

This village, along with those adjacent to it, were appanages - they did not belong to the lord-landowner, but to the treasury. Its land was divided separately, but it was infertile, because the black earth plots were seized by neighboring landlords. The peasants lived very poorly, from childhood they had to work a great deal in the fields, and to take care of the livestock.

With Saint Seraphim's blessing, Praskovya Semenovna entered the community of Mother Alexandra (in the world Agathia Semenovna Belokopytova), the first founder of Diveyevo Monastery, and a nun of exalted spiritual life.

When Maria was thirteen years old, she and her sister Praskovya came to Father Seraphim for the first time. This occurred on November 21, 1823, the Feast of the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple. As Praskovya Semenovna told it, Maria "was attached to me," and so both of them came to Sarov. The great Elder, seeing that the girl Maria was a chosen vessel of God's grace, he did not allow her to return home, but ordered her to remain in the community. Thus, thirteen-year-old Maria Semenovna was numbered with Father Seraphim's chosen orphans, in the community of Matushka Alexandra, of which the Eldress Xenia Mikhailovna Kocheulova was the Superior, whom Father Seraphim called "a pillar of fire from earth to heaven" and a "spiritual rasp" because of her righteous life. The extraordinary, hitherto inconspicuous girl Maria cannot be compared with anyone: she was angelic, a child of God, and from an early age she began to lead an ascetical life. In the severity of her ascetical contest (podvig) she surpassed even the sisters of the community, who were distinguished for the severity of their life, and even surpassed the Superior Xenia Mikhailovna herself. Unceasing prayer was her food, and she would reply only to necessary questions with heavenly meekness. She was almost completely silent, and Father Seraphim loved her with exceptional tenderness, disclosing to her all his heavenly revelations concerning the Monastery's future glory, and other great spiritual mysteries. He ordered her not to speak of these things until that time. She obeyed his instructions, despite the requests and entreaties of the sisters and her relatives. Whenever she returned after seeing Saint Seraphim, she was radiant with inexpressible joy.

Soon afterward, Maria entered the community of the Kazan church. The Queen of Heaven had blessed the creation of a new community next to that one, which is how the construction of the Monastery, which the Mother of God had promised to Mother Alexandra, began.

From 1825, Father Seraphim began going to bless first the sisters, and then the virtuous Superior of the Diveyevo community, Xenia Mikhailovna, who, of course, deeply respected and highly revered Father Seraphim, but she would not agree to change the Rule of her community, which seemed to be too severe, both to Father Seraphim and all the sisters who had been rescued in the community. The number of sisters had increased so much in the community that they needed to enlarge their property, but it was impossible to expand in any direction. Batiushka Seraphim summoned Xenia Mikhailovna and tried to persuade her that it would be easier to replace the severe Sarov Rule, but she wouldn't hear of it.

"Obey me, my joy," Father Seraphim said.

But the uncompromising Eldress finally replied: "No, Batiushka, let it be the old way. We have been content with the Rule which our founder, Father Pakhomios († 1794) has already established for us!"

Then Father Seraphim dismissed the Superior of the Diveyevo community, reassured that what the great Eldress Mother Alexandra had asked him to do no longer weighed on his conscience, or that the time for God's will to be done had not yet come. But on November 25 of that year, on the Feast Day of the holy God-pleasers Clement, the Pope of Rome, and Saint Peter of Alexandria, while he was making his way through the thickets of the forest along the bank of the Sarovka River, and going to his Far Hermitage as usual, Saint Seraphim saw the Mother of God and two Apostles standing behind her: Saint Peter and Saint John the Evangelist. The Queen of Heaven, struck the earth with her staff, so that a spring issued from the ground, a fountain of clear water. She said to him, "Why do you wish to disregard what my servant Agathia, the nun Alexandra, has asked you to do, and to forsake Xenia and her sisters, for this commandment to my servants must not be broken, but strictly observed; for it is by my will that she gave it to you. I will show you another place, also in the village of Diveyevo, and there I will establish this, my promised abode. In remembrance of the promise I gave her, take eight sisters from Xenia’s community, the place of my servant’s repose."

She also told him the names of which girls to take. Two weeks after this vision of the Queen of Heaven, on December 9, 1825, Maria and another sister, came to Saint Seraphim, and Batiushka told them that they should accompany him to his Far Hermitage. Arriving there and going into the dwelling, Father Seraphim gave the sisters two lit wax candles, which they brought with them at his orders, together with oil and breadcrumbs. He told Maria to stand on the right side of the cross hanging on the wall, and Praskovia Stepanovna (that was the name of the other sister) on the left. So they stood for more than an hour with lit candles, and Father Seraphim stood between them, praying all the while. After praying, he stood before the cross and told them to pray as well. Thus, before beginning to establish a new community he prayed mystically with the sisters, who had been designated by the Mother of God for special service to her and to the Monastery.

For four years, Maria struggled, helping Saint Seraphim and the sisters to establish the new community, she stored poles and timbers for the mill which the Mother of God blessed them to build on the site where the new community would be built. She carried bricks for construction of the church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos; she ground flour and fulfilled other obediences, during which she never neglected her heartfelt prayers, "silently lifting up her ardent soul to the Lord."

This wondrous girl was endowed by the Lord with a very rare gift of pure and unceasing prayer. In all things she was always guided by Saint Seraphim himself. As an example of her unconditional obedience, it was said that when her sister Praskovia Semenovna had a question about a certain Sarov monk, Maria was surprised and like an innocent child she asked: "What kind of monks, Parasha, look like a priest?"

Surprised in turn by her sister's question, Praskovya Semenovna replied to her: "After all, you go to Sarov, didn't you see what you were asking about?" – "No, Parashenka," Maria Semenovna said humbly, "because I don't see or know anything; Father Seraphim ordered me never to look at them, and I tie a handkerchief over my face like this, so I can see the road beneath my feet."

That is how the child-ascetic was. She lived in the Monastery for just six years, and then she went peacefully and quietly to the Lord at the age of nineteen.

On August 21,1829, Diveyevo Monastery lost its wondrous young girl of holy life, Maria Semenovna Milyukova, Schema-nun Martha. Having foreseen the hour of her death in the spirit, Saint Seraphim suddenly wept with great sorrow and told Father Paul in the neighboring cell, “Paul! Maria has departed, and it grieves me that, as you see, everyone is crying!”

Batiushka Seraphim wished to make her an oak coffin, rounded and hollowed out. Praskovya Semenovna went after him with another sister of Diveyevo, Aquilina Vasilyevna. Praskovya Semenovna was very upset, and Batiushka embraced her in a paternal way, caressing and encouraging her. Then he joined the hands of Praskovya Semenovna and Aquilina Vasilyevna and told them: "Now you shall be sisters, and I am your father, for I have begotten you in the Spirit! Maria is the Schema-nun Martha, I tonsured her into the Schema. She has everything: the Schema, the mantiya, and my kamilavka, all this is hers. Put it down! Don't be discouraged, Matushka." Father Seraphim turned to Praskovya Semenovna and said, "Her soul is in the Kingdom of Heaven, near the Holy Trinity, at God's Throne, and your entire family shall be saved by her."

In addition, Batiushka Seraphim donated 25 rubles for the funeral expenses and 25 copper rubles to give to all the sisters and laymen, whoever was at her burial, three kopecks each. He also donated two towels for the altar, a bunch of yellow candles for her to be commemorated for forty days after her repose, so that they would burn in the church day and night for forty days, and at her coffin a yellow one ruble candle, and at the funeral, half a pound of white twenty-kopeck candles.

Thus, with the blessing of Saint Seraphim, Maria Semenovna, Schema-nun Martha, was laid in a coffin: in two scrolls (shirts), in a paper cassock, belted with a woolen black edge, over this was in a black and white cross-stitched Schema and a long robe. On her head was placed a green velvet embroidered gold cap, and on top of it Batiushka Seraphim's kamilavka, and finally, still tied with a large dradedam a dark blue handkerchief with tassels. In her hands - leather prayer ropes. All these things were given to her by Father Seraphim with his own hands, ordering them always to commune of the Holy Mysteries, which was exactly what Maria did on each of the Twelve Major Feasts, and during the four fasts.

The righteous Seraphim sent all those who had just come to him in these days to Diveyevo for the funeral of Maria Semenovna. So, to the sisters who knew nothing about it, those who worked on Satis (a forest area on the banks of the Satis River), to Barbara Ilyinishna and others, the Elder said: "You are my joys! Come soon to Diveyevo where the great servant of God Maria has departed to the Lord!" The sisters could not understand how Maria could die, and they were surprised to find Maria Semenovna in her coffin.

Then Maria Semenovna's brother Ivan, who had also attended his sister's funeral, went to speak to Batiushka Seraphim. Suddenly the Elder said: "Are you really Maria's brother?" – "Yes, Batiushka," he replied. Batiushka looked at him a second time and asked: "Are you Maria's brother?" – "Yes, Batiushka," he said again.

Then the Elder thought for a long, long time, still staring intently at Ivan, who stood before him. Suddenly he became so joyful and luminous that the sun's rays seemed to shine from his face, and Ivan had to turn away from Father Seraphim, unable to look at him. Then Batiushka exclaimed: "Behold, my joy! What mercy she has received from the Lord! She is in the Kingdom of Heaven at the Throne of God, near the Queen of Heaven, with the holy virgins! She is an intercessor for your entire family! She is the Schema-nun Martha, I tonsured her. Whenever you are at Diveyevo, never pass by her grave without kneeling down and saying: "Our lady and Mother Martha, remember us before God's Throne in the Kingdom of Heaven!"

Then Saint Seraphim repeated this to Ivan Semenovich three times.

After that, Father Seraphim summoned Sister Xenia Vasilyevna Putkova (later the Nun Capitolina) whom he always assigned to write down various names for commemoration, and said to her, "Behold, Matushka, list her as the Nun Maria, but because by her deeds and by the prayers of the wretched Seraphim, she has received the Schema! Pray to her as Schema-nun Martha, you and everyone around her."

According to the testimony of the sisters and those close to Diveyeo, Maria Semenovna was tall and attractive in appearance; with an oblong, pale, bright face, blue eyes, thick light blonde eyebrows, and hair of the same color. She was buried with her hair loose. She rests on the left side of Mother Alexandra, the first founder of the Kazan community. Few of the stories told by the older nuns about Maria Semenovna have been preserved. Maria Ilarionovna (later the nun Melitina) related the following: "Living in the world and hearing about Father Seraphim from everyone," she said: "I wished to be at Sarov and to receive his blessing. First of all, when I arrived at Sarov, I went to Batiushka in his wilderness; he came out to meet me, blessed me, and said with a smile, 'Matushka, do you know Maria Semenovna?' I said 'I do know her, Batiushka; she lives three yards away from us.'

'Behold, Matushka," the Saint continued, 'I will tell you about her, how zealous she was about her work. When a church was being built at Diveyevo in honor of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, the girls themselves carried small bricks, one took two, another took three, and she, Matushka, could carry five or six bricks, and silently, with a prayer on her lips, she lifted up her ardent soul to the Lord. Soon she developed a stomach ailment and surrendered her soul to God.'

According to Saint Seraphim, the nineteen-year-old ascetic Schema-nun Martha, who departed to the Lord, was appointed, as the Superior of the Diveyevo "orphans" in the Kingdom of Heaven, in the abode of the Mother of God, concerning which he said to the Eldress Eudokia Ephraimna: "The Lord has twelve Apostles, the Queen of Heaven has twelve virgins, so you twelve are mine. Just as the Lord chose the Great Martyr Katherine as His bride, so from you twelve virgins, I selected Maria as His future bride. There she is above you, she will be the eldest!"

Their brother, Ivan Semenovich, also ended his life as a monk at Sarov Hermitage. Having the obedience as the gatekeeper at Sarov, he said: "As a layman and a peasant, I often worked for Father Seraphim, and he foretold many, many wonderful things to me concerning Diveyevo, and he always said: "If anyone offends my orphan girls, he shall be punished severely by the Lord; but whoever stands up for them, and defends and helps them when in need, God's great mercy will poured forth on that person from on high. Whoever even sighs and pities them in his heart will be rewarded by the Lord. And I will tell you, Batiushka, remember this: happy is everyone who stays with the wretched Seraphim at Diveyevo for a day, from morning to morning, for the Mother of God, the Queen of Heaven, visits Diveyevo every twenty-four hours!"

Remembering his commandment to Batiushka he added: "Gatekeeper, I have always said that, and I tell everyone."

Three of his daughters later entered the Diveyevo community. One of them, Elena Ivanovna, married a spiritual man, Saint Seraphim's friend Nicholas Alexandrovich Motovilov, who was the Monastery's benefactor. She was a "great lady," as Batiushka Seraphim called her when she was just a child, ordering her sister to fall down at the young girl's feet. Elena Ivanovna was the only one present at Father Seraphim's burial in 1833, and the survived until his glorification in 1903. Widowed in the last years of her life she lived at Diveyevo. Elena Ivanovna reposed at an advanced age in 1910. Before her death, she was secretly tonsured as a nun.

Praskovya Stepanovna, an old sister in the community by the mill related how terrible it was to disobey Father Seraphim, she recalled that once Batiushka ordered her to come with the young woman Maria Semenovnaya with two horses pulling logs behind them. They were to go straight to Batiushka in the woods, where he would be waiting for them. They prepared two thin logs for each horse. Then, lthinking that all four logs could be carried by one horse. The sisters attached the logs to one horse, and to the second horse they attached a large, thick log. But as soon as they tried to move from their places, this horse fell, wheezed, and almost died. Knowing that they were guilty of acting contrary to what Batiushka had blessed, they immediately fell to their knees in tears and asked for forgiveness, and then removed the thick log and attached the other logs as before. The horse jumped up and ran so fast that they could hardly catch up with it. The words of Schema-nun Martha have come down to us through generations of Diveyevo sisters, recorded by an old woman, Justinia Ivanovna (later the nun Hilaria), from a manuscript page found in the cells of Schema-nun Margarita Lakhtionova.

After the Monastery was restored, the Lord wondrously celebrated the Feast Day of the Venerable Schema-nun Martha by consecrating the Transfiguration Cathedral. It was built in 1917 but was not consecrated. It lay in ruins during the Soviet years and the authorities transferred the cathedral to the restored Monastery in 1991, The restoration work went on until 1998, and the Cathedral's consecration just happened to coincide with the day of the Saint's blessed repose.

According to the memoirs of the nun Seraphima Bulgakova of Diveyevo Monastery, before the Monastery's closure in 1927, there was a portrait of Schema-nun Martha, painted by the sisters immediately after her death. According to the testimony of Archpriest Stephen Lyashevsky, in addition to this portrait, another one was painted by his mother (Capitolina Zakharovna Lyashevskaya, later the nun Maria). It is a hagiographic image of the Schema-nun Martha with the following scenes around the borders: Schema-nun Martha carrying bricks to the top of the Nativity Church under construction; Father Seraphim tonsuring her into the schema; Father Seraphim, Maria, and Praskovya Semenovna pray with lit candles for Diveyevo; the soul of Schema-nun Martha ascending to God's Throne; the Queen of Heaven and Schema-nun Martha in a vision in the church; and three holy graves. The present location of Schema-nun Martha's portrait is unknown, but the hagiographic image is believed to have been taken abroad.

In 2000, Schema-nun Martha was canonized for local veneration as a Saint in the Nizhny Novgorod diocese, and now her relics rest in the church of the Nativity of the Theotokos in the Seraphim-Diveyevo Monastery. Saint Martha of Diveyevo is commemorated on August 21 (the day of her repose), June 14 (the Synaxis of the Diveyevo Saints), and on the Synaxis of the Nizhny Novgorod Saints (Movable Feast on the Sunday after August 26).