by Evgeny Balakin
[REGNUM] "An Adventure Strange to You." Maria Diveyevskaya, prophetess and holy fool of the 20th century
In the autumn of 1927, on the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, representatives of the provincial authorities and Red Army soldiers arrived at the Seraphim-Diveyevo Monastery with orders to close the “hotbed of priestly reaction” based on the decree of the Council of People’s Commissars.
The sister-nuns were talking among themselves: the prophecy of the Venerable Seraphim of Sarov, which they could not decipher for a long time, had come true: “The time will come, and my orphans will pour out of the Nativity Gate like peas.”
And so, on the day of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, everything began to fall apart... That day, September 27th according to the New Style, it rained heavily. The nuns said it was as if the Intercessor Mother herself, who had chosen Diveyevo as her fourth domain, was weeping. They left lightly; the hardest part was how to carry the frail and sick nuns out of the almshouse.
Thanks to the kind people from neighboring villages and towns who were not afraid to accept the “servants of the cult.”
A compassionate family took in the Diveyevo holy fool, Maria Ivanovna. Now blessed Maria of Diveyevo is canonized, and her memory is revered. But back then, in life, she was a very restless guest—she'd either throw out something or point out an inconvenient (or even dangerous) truth.
One day, the nun Euphrosyne looked into the hut where the holy fool was given shelter and asked the prophetess the question that had been tormenting everyone.
- Marya Ivanovna, will the monastery ever open?
“They’ll definitely open it,” the old woman answered immediately, “but there they won’t call you by name, but by number… Your number will be 338. Mother Lyudmila and I will call out to you: ‘Where are you, number 338?’”
In the life of Saint Mary of Diveyevo this story continues as follows:
"And so, imagine, years passed. The authorities arrested our Efrosinya and sent her to a camp, where she was listed as number 338.
What a comfort it was for her to know that in God's destiny this number had already been assigned to her.
Remember what the Apostle said: “Do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is sent to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.”
This episode mirrors the most difficult times in the history of the Diveyevo Convent—when the sisters were forced into hiding, and soon many were "transported." It also bears witness to the prophetic gift of the holy fool Maria Ivanovna, the last in a line of great Diveyevo elders, who foresaw the coming of these sorrowful times.
The life of the saint says that the ability to foresee the future was given to her as a reward for her feat of madness in Christ.
"WE ARE ALL BLESSED IVANOVNAS"
The Diveyevo nun Maria was also called Maria in the worldly realm. However, her patronymic was not Ivanovna, but Zakharovna.
"We asked why she was called Ivanovna? She answered: 'We, the blessed ones, are all Ivanovnas—after John the Baptist,'"— this is the testimony given in the memoirs of the blessed one. It was also said that she was named Ivanovna in memory of the holy fool Pasha of Diveyevo—Paraskeva Ivanovna, whose ministry she took upon herself.
Maria Zakharovna Fedina was born quite far from the Seraphim-Diveyevo Monastery—in the Yelatomsky District of the Tambov Governorate, in a village variously spelled Goletkovo or Glyadkovo. The latter is more likely true: the village of Glyadkovo still stands in what is now the Ryazan Region, and the road to Sarov, Diveyevo, and Arzamas passes through it, as it did in the 19th century.
The date of birth is unknown; the year in all biographies is given as approximate—"around 1870." In peasant families, even ten years after the abolition of serfdom, such trifles were "insignificant."
But her small homeland—the Yelatom district—wasn't a backwater (despite the fact that it had more forests than the neighboring steppe districts). During the reign of Alexander III, during Masha Fedina's youth, these parts were, as they would say today, a "producing region": grain was transported from here to the Volga ports by land and along the great river's tributaries—the Moksha, Tsna, and Oka.
Local hemp was used to make ropes for barges and passenger ships. In the wealthy village of Sasovo (now a city in the Ryazan region), a fair was held—a "branch" of the Makaryevskaya or Nizhny Novgorod fair. Traveling to the larger Volga cities to earn money was commonplace. But wandering—that was considered vagrancy by the police.
The life of Maria Diveyevskaya has a standard "introduction" for such stories: as a child, she was silent, didn't play, didn't have fun, wasn't interested in clothes or holidays, and dreamed of spiritual achievement. It's difficult to say how things really were. But there is one thing that distinguishes this life from the typical narrative. Masha was orphaned early. Zakhar Fedin died when his daughter was barely 13. Her mother, Pelageya, moved in with her younger children with her eldest son— "but life there was no place to live because of her daughter-in-law, so they had to move to the bathhouse." Pelageya also died soon after.
“It’s business as usual” – after all, even at the beginning of the 20th century, when the situation with zemstvo health care was better, in the Tambov province, out of a rural population of 2.2 million, up to 20 thousand people fell ill with diphtheria, 15-16 thousand people with typhoid fever, and 9-10 thousand with typhus.
The orphan Masha Fedina had a restless disposition—not the most typical quality for a future saint, nor the best "certificate" for a peasant girl. She was never given a husband, and "life was becoming unbearable with her family." Maria seized the opportunity: several women and girls from the village had gathered on a pilgrimage to Sarov, and she asked permission to join them.
She never returned home. Her life tells us that she traveled to holy places: along the road from Sarov to Diveyevo and in the other direction, to Ardatov, located in the middle of the Mordvin forests.
Maria voluntarily took on the challenge of homelessness and suffering in her youth. The lives of the saints relate: one day, she was walking to Sarov during Holy Week; winter had not yet subsided, so the wanderer waded knee-deep through water mixed with dirty snow. A man in a cart overtook her, took pity on her, and offered to take her, but Maria refused: one must approach Father Seraphim's monastery humbly. In the summer, the "bride of Christ" (who had not yet taken monastic vows) lived in the forest. When she arrived at the Diveyevo Canal, her body was completely covered in ticks.
Maria Fedina, a peasant woman in the Yelatom district of Tambov Governorate, had already turned 17, meaning she faced punishment for vagrancy under the 1861 law. According to the penal code, male vagrants who claimed to have no memory of their ancestors were to be sent to prison companies for four years, followed by exile to Siberia. Women faced four years in prison and the same "importation to the Siberian provinces."
However, the law was harsh only on paper. Volost authorities "overlooked" travelers traveling along the Volga highways (unless they turned out to be schismatics or sectarians, of which there were plenty in these parts), and the peasants considered it a blessing to shelter a man of God.
At the Seraphim-Diveyevo Convent, many sisters pitied the wanderer, giving her clean clothes to replace her worn-out ones. But Maria was already a fool for Christ. Not a week would pass before she would show up at the convent in a tattered new robe. But the worst part was that she "swore," denouncing sins, including monastic ones. Even at the Seraphim Convent, many rejected her, "disliked her, and persecuted her." The chronicles of Diveyevo contain an episode: one of the sisters complained about a beggar to the village police officer.
The police officer "took Maria, but since she was playing the fool, he couldn't do anything and let her go." The cruelty of the imperial laws was offset by the kindness of the Diveyevo police officer. And the holy fool began to "swear" again.
"AND ANOTHER ONE IS ALREADY SCURRYING AROUND..."
The one who welcomed Maria was the famous Sarov elder Paraskeva, whom those who "disliked and persecuted" called Pasha the Fool-for-Christ. Her life tells us that before her death, Blessed Paraskeva Ivanovna repeated: " I am still sitting at the camp, while another is already scurrying about; she is still walking, and then she will sit down."
But on the day of the death of the future Saint Paraskeva of Sarov, the nuns expelled another future Saint, Maria of Diveyevo, from the monastery for her "oddities." Even stranger, their opinion was changed by the story of a layman.
Blessed Maria Ivanovna with a sister of the Seraphim-Diveyevo Monastery
A peasant from one of the surrounding villages came to the monastery in tears: he said that he had met a blessed woman who “told him his whole life story and exposed all his sins,” and asked “to return the servant of God to the monastery.”
She was returned and allowed to live in a cold, damp room. She lived there for eight years and developed rheumatism—just as Paraskeva of Sarov had predicted. But Maria—now Marya Ivanovna—never complained about her fate. This, however, did not prevent her from seeing the sins of the pious clergy and laity.
She could offer advice, but also "do something funny." Her voice was simultaneously stern and full of love, and after such conversations, people left either in tears of repentance or with a quiet hope in their hearts. But one eccentricity was truly frightening.
Blessed Onesimus lived at the monastery for many years, and it was said he had the intelligence and speech of a child. Maria Ivanovna called him her fiancé, as if in jest. One day, the nuns noticed the "bride and groom" walking arm in arm through the monastery, singing "With the Saints, Rest..."
It was the peaceful spring of 1914. Memorial services for those killed in the Great War, and then for the victims of civil strife, soon became commonplace at the Diveyevo Monastery.
And on the night of July 16-17, 1918, Eldress Maria woke up the entire monastery, "cursing terribly and raging." "What's the matter?" asked her cell attendant, Sister Dorofey. "The princesses—with bayonets!" Maria Ivanovna replied tearfully.
Only a few weeks later did news reach Diveyevo about the murder of the royal family in Yekaterinburg on the night of July 16-17.
THE KEY TO ALL DOORS
At the height of the Civil War, in August 1919, the village of Puza (now Suvorovo in the Diveyevo district) was occupied by a Red Army detachment. Several local residents hastened to report "counterrevolutionary elements." The village was inhabited by a nun, Evdokia (Maria Ivanovna called her Dunya and valued her kindness), and three cell attendants: two named Darya and one named Maria. For some reason, neighbors suspected the nuns might be hiding valuables—and following the denunciation, the Diveyevo sisters were executed.
When Maria Ivanovna learned of the tragedy, she uttered a strange phrase: "Dunya's rags are burning, her blood is burning away!" And of the murdered Evdokia herself, she said, "Four bishops will carry her, there will be four coffins, and the unbelievers will believe."
A few days later, as the life tells, the house of "the woman who had robbed Dunya's property most of all" burned down. And in our own time, the four deceased nuns—Eudokia and her novices Daria, Daria, and Maria—were canonized.
In the early 1920s, people continued to visit Maria Ivanovna, who lived in Paraskeva of Sarov's house near the monastery gates. Party and Soviet authorities, following central orders, sought to "suppress religious propaganda."
The abbess of the still-open monastery was summoned to the district and ordered to isolate Ms. Fedina from visitors. The blessed one was transferred to a locked almshouse, but secret notes continued to be passed to her, which she responded to.
One day, Nun Praskovia (Grishanova) was passing by the Eldress's locked cell. From behind the door, she pleaded, "Pasha, let me out..." Praskovia felt sorry for the blessed one, but was at a loss:
- How can I let it out?
— Open it with the key. You have a keychain on your belt.
Indeed, Praskovia had many keys with her, but which one would fit the door? "Any!" said Maria Ivanovna. And indeed, the first key she came across opened the door. The old woman took a stroll in freedom and returned to her place of confinement—"Close it!" Praskovia admitted she couldn't remember which key she used. And again, "by chance," the first one she came across worked.
"IT WILL BE! IT WILL BE! IT WILL BE!"
The elder, who was under arrest, warned that it would not be possible to reach an agreement “amicably” and spoke of the near future: “The monastery will be closed, the sisters will scatter, many will be arrested, sent to camps and exile, the faith will be persecuted.”
But when the monastery was closed in 1927 and the nuns went into hiding, Maria Diveyevskaya kept repeating to those who came to visit: the monastery in the fourth lot of the Mother of God will still exist. Not everyone believed the blessed one. And one day, she couldn't bear it any longer and, in response to doubts, cried out, "It will! It will! It will!" and slammed the table with all her might.
The elder predicted to one of the novices, Maria Savosina, that she would live to see the monastery's restoration. The novice, who took the name Seraphima in schema, lived to be almost a hundred years old and witnessed the restoration of the Diveyevo Monastery from ruins in the late 1980s. In 1991, when the relics of St. Seraphim of Sarov were brought to Diveyevo, it was Seraphima who greeted Patriarch Alexy II with bread and salt.
The elder consoled those sisters who, as Maria Diveyevskaya knew, would not survive the persecution:
"Fear nothing. The Queen of Heaven will not abandon Her lot. All will be destroyed, but the monastery will rise again."
On September 8, 1931, Blessed Maria Ivanovna died. She was not yet 60 years old, but the veneration of an eldress (or elder) is not dependent on age. She died as she had lived—in abject poverty, surrounded by only a few faithful. She was buried in the village cemetery in Bolshoye Cherevatovo.
In 2004, Blessed Maria (Fedina) was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church along with other Diveyevo blessed ones. Today, her holy relics rest in the Seraphim-Diveyevo Monastery, in the church named after her.