Newly Departed Schema-Nun Maria

(Humanly-corrected- English text, from rough machine -translated-version of the Russian): ROCOR: MEMORY ETERNAL!- VECHNAYA PAMYAT! to the newly reposed in the Lord, Schema-Nun MARIA!- MAY SHE REST WITH THE SAINTS!  

  Time:  Mon, 22 Aug 2022

"Grant me, O Lord, the Home-Land of my heart’s desiring, making me a citizen of Paradise!”

Eternal Memory!: -Schema-Nun Maria

Author: Metropolitan Agafangel. Publication date:August 22, 2022. Category: ROCOR .

On August 9/22, 2022, a resident of St. John's Monastery died at the age of 87

Schema Nun MARIA

(in the world Maria Romanovna Sergeeva)

Maria Romanovna was born on February 12, 1936, the fifth child in the family. The first three children died shortly after their baptisms, and the father no longer allowed his newborn babies to be baptized. Therefore, Maria Romanovna was baptized at a mature, conscious age, at 38 years old.

Maria grew up in the difficult war and post-war years in the Siberian outback. Her most vivid memories of those years was the constant feeling of hunger. Maria from an early age experienced the hardships of that time, the constant needs associated with hard rural labor and unsettled life.

After graduating from school, and then from a pedagogical college in 1956, Maria began working in a rural school. And two years later she got married. She had three children in her marriage. But even in a prosperous family life, Maria Romanovna had to endure heavy losses. Of the three children, she buried two at a fairly young age. The eldest daughter Marina died at the age of 25 in a car accident, and the only son, Alexander (Hierodeacon Sylvester in vows) died of cancer at the age of 27.

Maria Romanovna devoted her entire working life in the world to children, working in an orphanage, school, and kindergarten. Having come to the faith of Christ, Maria Romanovna, with the blessing of the priest and with the permission of the administrative authorities, taught the Law of God/”Zakon Boshie”  in a rural school.

The path to God for her, as a secular teacher, burdened with family sorrows and losses, was not easy. But by the beginning of the1990’s, Maria Romanovna finally became a church person, a parishioner of the Ishim Epiphany Cathedral. In 1995, she moved to the village of Shablykino, where her son Hierodeacon Sylvester served at the St. Catherine's Church. There she labored at that temple in the service of God. And after the death of her son in July 1997, her confessor blessed her to move to the village of Borovoye to help restore the local destroyed church. There she cooked food for the workers, cleaned the temple, helped in worship, and did not shy away from any work. She had to live in a dugout, in fact as a  hermitess.  So the Lord, according to her recollections, prepared for her, her  subsequent monastic path.

In 2000, at the age of 64, Maria Romanovna entered the female monastic community in honor of St. John of Shanghai in the city of Ishim, and on April 28, 2000 she became a novice. According to her own recollections, life in the monastery was difficult in terms of her need to be cutting off of her own will. And although there was for her, her already having had experience of church life, the monastic charter prescribes obedience in everything. The novice Maria prayed a lot, continued to work in many household obediences, and for several years she was the stewardess  of the monastery.

On March 21, 2002, novice Maria took her first monastic vows with the name Anastasia in honor of the Royal New Martyr Princess Anastasia. In the autumn of the same year, she moved to the monastery’s skete, located in the forest 10 kilometers from the city. The skete had its own gardens, apiary, cows, and horses. It had its own house-church. It was necessary for her to keep an eye on all of this ‘economy’ and for her to follow a rigorous prayer rule. Nun Anastasia lived in a skete with three other monastic sisters. And all of these worries fell on their shoulders.

In 2006, the monastery was forced to move to Ukraine under the omophorion of Metropolitan Agafangel (Pashkovsky),  who did not accept the union of the Russian Church Abroad with the Moscow Patriarchate. The sisters settled in the Ukrainian village of Yegorovka near Odessa. On December 3, 2006, on the eve of the Feast of the Entry into the Church of the Most Holy Theotokos, nun Anastasia took further advanced monastic vows with the new name of Anna in honor of the Holy Righteous Anna. In the first few years after the move to Yegorovka,  she carried the obedience of being the Housekeeper. In a new place, everything had to be started anew. And though being a woman of advanced years, nun Anna carried all household chores on her shoulders.

On the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos in 2011, she accepted the Great-Schema with the new name, Mary, in honor of St. Mary of Egypt. Since that time, prayer had become the main obedience of Schema-nun Mary. One could always come to her for prayerful help and spiritual guidance, both for sisters and pilgrims of the monastery.

In the last two years, Mother Maria was seriously ill and was bedridden. But despite physical weakness and bodily suffering, she humbly endured all these trials, kept a clear mind and spiritual vigor, constantly prayed, and read a lot. She departed to the Lord calmly, peacefully, in a clear consciousness, partaking of the Holy Gifts on the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord.

Her death and passing is a great loss for our monastery. We ask for prayers for the repose of Schema-Nun Mary. Everlasting Memory!

Abbess Alexandra with the sisters of St. John's Monastery

Eternal   Memory!

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Comments  

# RE: Eternal memory: Schema-nun Maria - Metropolitan Agafangel 08/22/2022 19:13

Everlasting memory!