This pious mother was from Egypt, and formerly she lived licentiously and impudently, calling the souls of many to perdition in the enjoyment of fornication. When she spent seventeen years in impurity, because for the first time as a child she fell into bad deeds, then she gave herself completely to hardship and virtue. And so much he rose through passion, as the water of the Jordan passed over him and, when he sat on the ground in prayer, he was raised and lifted up. And the reason for her return was this: when it was at the time of the veneration of the holy Cross, many were going from many places to Jerusalem, she also went with promiscuous youths. Arriving there and being stopped invisibly at the entrance of the holy church, he warned the most pure Virgin Mother of God that if she was allowed to enter, she would live wisely, and would no longer serve the evil life, nor lusts and bodily defilements. Obtaining her desire according to her prayer, she did not lie to the promise she made, but crossing the Jordan and going into the desert, she suffered forty-seven years, having no man to see her, but only God, with whose help he departed from human nature and acquired the angelic party, the most superior to man, on earth.
And Saint Zosima, who shared and buried Saint Mary of Egypt, is celebrated on April 4.
Also on this day, the commemoration of our pious father and confessor Macarie, the abbot of Peleichit.
This among the saints, our father Macarie, being born in Constantinople, and remaining a poor child after his parents, was raised by a true grandfather of his, being given to the teaching of the Holy Scriptures. And having natural cleverness, and showing a lot of arrogance, in a short time spending all the Scripture, he knew the nothingness and the quick decay of temporal things, as well as the eternity of heavenly things. For this, leaving the city, he went to the Monastery called Pelechiti, and mixing with the monks there, rejecting the name Hristofor, because that’s what he was called before, Macarie from now on. So, serving all the needs of the kinovia and performing the virtues through much humility, he became a beginner and a wonderful miracle worker. For God through him healed unhealed passions; and rain from heaven descended upon the earth through prayer, and great and famous he became in those days, a great multitude flocked to him. Some mean soul pains by cleansing them, and others acquiring physical healings; but others, being spiritually and physically strengthened by him, returned to their homes. Hearing this news, Tarasius, the most holy patriarch of Constantinople, sent to heal Paul the patrician, who had a dangerous illness and was in despair of healing. The saint healed him. After that, his wife, also suffering from the same illness and being hopeless at the doctors, was again healed by the saint, whom the patriarch blessed and made a servant of the Lord, because she was not sick with the disease of disobedience, like many. Going to his monastery, the humility he had more multiplied put him to work. Then the swindler, the devil, installed a tyrant emperor in Byzantium, who burned the holy icons in fire and water. This was Leo the Armenian, who sent into exile the most holy patriarch Nicephorus, and who tormented the bishops and archimandrites with expulsions and imprisonments and with terrible beatings. Then also this wonderful man, being one of the above-mentioned holy fathers, was given to various torments, and spent in prison until the end of that emperor. And after that reigning Mihail Gângavul, and he being of the same impure faith, brought the saint out of prison, and by flattering him and terrorizing him a lot, he did not succeed in subduing him to his side. For which even by banishing him to Ostrovul Afusie he had him under guard. And the saint suffering all valiantly, the crowd of God. So, lingering in that banishment and struggling a lot, and performing miracles there, he moved to the Lord.
Also on this day, the commemoration of the holy martyrs Gerontie and Vasilid, who were killed by the sword.
Also on this day, the commemoration of the holy and righteous Ahaz.
Also on this day, the commemoration of Saint Varsanufie from Optina.
Paul I. Plikhanov, son of John and Natalia Plikhanov, was born in the city of Samara on July 5, 1845. His mother died when he was still an infant and his father remarried so that his son would have a mother. Although strict with him, the stepmother was like a real mother to him and the child loved her very much.
As a descendant of Orenburg Cossacks, Paul enlisted in the cadet army in Polotsk. He completed his studies at the Orenburg Military School, becoming an officer. He later graduated from the Cossack Officers’ School in Petersburg, serving in the Kazan military district and eventually becoming a colonel.
Once, sick with pneumonia, Paul felt that he did not have much longer to live. He asked the medical officer to read to him from the Holy Gospel and lost consciousness. Then he had a vision in which it was as if the heavens opened and he was frightened by that bright light. His whole life with all its sins flashed before his eyes and a feeling of repentance came over him. Then a voice told him to go to the Optina Monastery, but the doctors didn’t think he would recover. His health improved and the colonel visited the Optina Monastery. In August 1889 the abbot of Optina was St. Ambrose (October 10) who advised Paul to put his worldly affairs in good order. After another two years, St. Ambrose gave him a blessing to break all ties with the world and come to Optina in three months.
It was not easy for the colonel to leave the military service in only three months and he had many temptations with this obedience because he was proposed a promotion to the rank of general, and he was asked to postpone his retirement from the army. Some even tried to find him a wife, mocking his decision to become a monk. On the very last day of the three months, he finished solving his problems and returned to Optina. Already St. Ambrose was placed in a coffin in the church of the monastery.
Saint Anatole I (January 25) followed Saint Ambrose as abbot of the monastery and sent Paul under obedience to Hieromonk Nectarius (April 29) as a disciple and cellmate. In 1892 he was accepted as a novice and a year later, he was ordained a priest. In the ten years that followed, the rasophore went through different stages of monastic life, being ordained deacon (1902) and priest (1903). Monk Paul secretly received the schema in December 1900 due to a serious illness. When he was asked what name he wanted, he replied that it didn’t matter. Then it was given the name Varsanufia in honor of St. Varsanufia of Tver and Kazan (April 11). Although he recovered, he did not receive the mantle until December 1902, after the service of the Holy Liturgy in which it was discovered that he had been shorn on his sickbed.
On September 1, 1903, the monk Varsanufie was asked to help Father Iosif, the abbot of the hermitage, in the spiritual guidance of the brothers and sisters of the Shamordino monastery.
At the beginning of the Russo-Japanese war in 1904, the monk Varsanufie was sent to the East as a military priest with the mission of caring for wounded soldiers. After the end of the war in August 1905, St. Varsanufie returned to Optina on November 1 of the same year.
Father Joseph being too old and weak to be able to take care of the monastery’s problems, St. Varsanufie was appointed abbot in his place, restoring order, discipline, paying debts, repairing buildings, and the like in a short time, in everything combining strictness with parental care and gentleness for all those under his guidance.
St. Varsanufie, like all the fathers from Optina, acquired the gift of foreseeing and curing people’s physical and mental illnesses. One of his spiritual sons, the monk Inocent Pavlov, remembers how scared he was at his first confession to Father Varsanufie who knew his most hidden thoughts, even reminding him of things and people he had long forgotten. The saint spoke to him gently, telling him that God allowed him to see those things about him. “As long as I live, don’t tell anyone about what you saw, but after my death you can tell others,” the saint told him.
St. Varsanufia loved spiritual books, especially the Lives of the Saints. He used to say that those who read devoutly from those books will have much to gain. He also said that many questions of our life are answered in the lives of the saints because they teach us how to overcome difficulties, how to keep our working faith, to fight against the enemy and emerge victorious. Although the Lives of the Saints were available to everyone, the father was saddened to hear that many had not read them.
St. Varsanufie mentioned many saints in his daily rule and not by chance. Each saint, he explained, had a specific role in his life. If, for example, something important happened one day, he looked to see which saints were celebrated then, after which he mentioned them every day. Later he noticed that on the day of their feast, the saints protected him from troubles and dangers. On December 17, 1891, the feast of the prophet Daniel and the three young saints, he left Kazan and never returned. On that day he decided to die to the world and the saint then felt that God had rescued him from a furnace of passions, just like the three young men rescued from the fiery furnace because they did not worship idols, the old man was convinced that he left the world unscathed because he did not worship debauchery, pride, greed and other idols.
By 1908, St. Varsanufie seemed to get sick more and more often, talking more and more about the moment of separation from this world. In April of the same year, someone sent him a package containing the grand scheme. The monk Varsanufie wanted for a long time to be cut in the great schema before he died but he did not tell this to anyone except the archimandrite. Therefore, he saw in that a sign that he would go to the Lord.
One night in July 1910, Father felt so ill that he had to leave the church during the vigil and return to his cell. The next morning he could no longer stand on his feet. That night he was cut in the big scheme.
But God’s mercy saved him for days and the father recovered. But other problems arose at the monastery. The new monks who came were mostly from more relaxed spiritual backgrounds and did not understand the sanctity of monasticism or the notion of a priest, so they began to demand reform and change within the monastery. They were looking for positions in leadership positions and to close the hermitage. Due to the many complaints of the newly arrived brothers, St. Varsanufia was moved as abbot to the Golutvinsky Monastery. When he arrived at the new monastery, the saint found everything in ruins. However, he did not lose his zeal and soon the monastery regained its spiritual breath. More and more people came hearing that there was a parent from Optina, thus improving the financial problem. But the brothers who opposed the rules of the monastery had to be removed.
At the beginning of 1913, St. Varsanufie fell ill again and asked Metropolitan Macarie of Moscow to give him a blessing to retire to Optina, but it was not to be. The saint went to the Holy of Holies on April 1st and his body remained at the church in Golotvino until April 6th (which was also Lazarus Saturday). After the service, the relics were sent by train to Optina to be buried there. The train arrived at Kozelsk station on April 8 and the coffin was carried by the clergy to Optina.
The Moscow Patriarchate authorized the glorification of the Optina Fathers to take place on June 13, 1996. The exhumation of the holy relics of Saints Leonid, Macarius, Hilarion, Ambrose, Anatolia I, Varsanufia and Anatolia II began on June 24/July 7, 1998 and ended the following day. But, because the church feasts (the birth of St. John the Baptist and the others) were associated with the dates of the unearthing of the holy relics, Patriarch Alexei II set June 27/July 10 as the date of commemoration of this event. The relics of the holy fathers now rest at the new church of the Vladimir Icon of the Most Holy Mother.
With their holy prayers, Lord, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
Article and photo taken from calendar-ortodox.ro
