THE LIFE OF Saint Dorothy of Kashin

THE LIFE OF
Saint Dorothy of Kashin
AND THE RIGHTEOUS WOMEN OF HOLY RUSSIA1

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1 Abbreviated from the weekly periodical, Russian Pilgrim, 1893, nos, 41, 42, 43, & 50; with additional information from Russian Ascetics of the 18th & 19th Centuries, by Bishop Nikodim of Belgorod, vols. 1, 2, & 13, Moscow, 1912. Other sources: Lives of Russian Saints, 2 Vols., Synodal edition of 1908 and 1916; History of the Russian Church by Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow, 1891; Vologda Patericon, Vologda, 1880; Pilgrims Guide in Imperial Russia by Pavlovksy, 1907; Orthodox Monasteries in the Russian Empire by L.I. Denisov, Moscow, 1908; Lives of Saints by Archbishop Philaret of Chernigov, St. Petersburg, 1892-1900; Holy Russia by Archimandrite Leonid Kavelin, St. Petersburg, 1891; The Mother of God by E. Poselyanin, St. Petersburg, 1905 (all in Russian).


LET WOMEN KEEP SILENCE IN THE CHURCHES.
1 Cor. 14:34


A WAY FROM THE TUMULT and noise of the world, in quiet monastic refuges, in deserted landscapes which evoke thoughts of eternity, women of Holy Russia worked out their salvation for a thousand years, striving to acquire first of all humility of wisdom. One of them was the forgotten St. Dorothy of 17th-century Kashin.

The spiritual fragrance of this key virtue in Patristic Orthodoxy, that of HUMILITY OF WISDOM, which is the joining together of humility and wisdom, has always been very close to true Orthodox women, and especially to the women Saints. Behind them there always shines forth the humble image of Her Who is the first Abbess of all monastics, the Most Holy Theotokos.

Particularly is this true of the women Saints of Holy Russia, who were so penetrated by this quiet, refined, and pure virtue that only very meager information has even come down to us about them. They strove to be unseen, unnoticed, concealed in quiet monastic cells behind monastery walls, located beyond distant lakes and rivers, in forgotten sketes hidden in green thickets, in the shadow of weeping willows and birch groves, which alone heard their quiet prayer and soft chanting and saw them beholding the bridal chamber of their Divine Bridegroom, Christ.


ST. DOROTHY OF KASHIN

Commemorated September 24 and February 6

TROPARION, TONE 8

IN THEE, O MOTHER, was truly preserved what is according to the image of God;+ for, having taken up thy cross, thou didst follow after Christ,+ and thou didst teach in act to despise the flesh, for it passeth away,+ but to be diligent over the soul, as a thing immortal.+ Wherefore thy spirit, O St. Dorothy, doth rejoice together with the Angels.


SAINT ANNA OF KASHIN

Convent of the Meeting of the Lord Across the River from Kashin, 1913

ABBESS ANTONIA

Above: St. Anna's Grave

Left: The Dormition Church


The number of women Saints known by the Church on earth falls far short of the number of men Saints, and there has come down to us a surprisingly small number of their Lives, many of which are brief and rather general. This does not, however, mean that their numbers were really so few or that they did not attain the spiritual heights of men but only emphasizes the surpassing beauty of their other-worldly humility and silence (hesychia).

The Orthodox women Saints, unlike Martha, sit at the feet of the Lord and pay heed to the words of Christ: Mary bath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her (Luke 10:42) – and they keep silence in the churches (1 Cor. 14:34).

THE VERY BEGINNING of Christianity in Russia occurred through a holy woman, St. Olga, Equal to the Apostles (+969, July 11), whose grandson, St. Vladimir (+1015, July 15) baptized his Kievan princedom in 988 and gave the whole of Russia the Orthodox Christian Faith at the very time when Byzantium had reached its highest point in all phases of spiritual culture. By this time all the basic heresies had been identified and uprooted by the Seven Ecumenical Councils, and monasticism was in full bloom, Thus, Russia from the very beginning was entrusted with the fullness of the pare Faith, Orthodoxy, and she treasured it throughout the ages as the supreme heritage in her hierarchy of values, herself thereby becoming, in the activities and hopes of her best sons and daughters, Holy Russia, the guardian of Orthodoxy. Such she has remained until this very day, even while in bonds and in the catacombs under the Communist Yoke.

Monasticism immediately captured the Russian soul and was practiced in Kievan Russia in monasteries and convents built by princes and noblemen. It flourished predominantly in the Kiev Caves, which began with a spark brought to Russia from Mt. Athos by St. Anthony. Monasteries both for men and women began to spring up in various places, being founded chiefly by princes, who saw them as treasuries of sanctity for their principality, but also by hierarchs, by monks, and by righteous women-some even being founded by women for men, as in the case of St. Euphrosyne of Polotsk, that great pilgrim-lover of Byzantium and the Holy Land, where she reposed in the Lavra of her beloved St. Theodosius the Canobiarch, her relics being later translated to the Kiev Caves.

The coming of the Tatar barbarians, who demolished Kiev, burning and destroying on their way all the monasteries and killing their inhabitants, did not cut off the growth of monastic communities. On the contrary, the number of communities increased. The astonishing impulse for the foundation of new monasteries, which now moved northward, was as it were an answer to the question of how to retain the Orthodox philosophy of life. In addition to providing a harmonious and economically independent communal life, these monasteries, which formed an Orthodox mentality in the full spirit ef the Church, opened up a mystical realm of spiritual perfection which trans figured earthly men, women and children into Angel-like beings. This inspired the newly-enlightened Russian people, and a whole network of monastic citadels sprang up around Novgorod, Pskov, Suzdal and, of course, Moscow, which, after the fall of the Second Rome-Constantinople became the Third Rome. Great Saints founded monasteries in this period: St. Anna of Novgorod (+1050, Oct. 4); three Pskov Abbesses: Evpraxis (+1243, May 8), Martha (+1300, Nov. 8) and Bassa (+1473, March 19); St. Charitina, Abbess of Novgorod (+1281, Oct. 5); St. Evdocia of Moscow (+1407, July 7), foundress of two convents; and many others in Moscow, both canonized and uncanonized.

Monastic communities of virgins in Holy Russia were greatly esteemed and honored and not only as places where princes would put their wives away when they wished to get rid of them. The women's monasteries were always thought of as holy places, havens for ascetic labor, with a life centered about the cycle of beautiful and all-encompassing church services, for which refined liturgical arts were developed. The use of convents as hospitals, orphanages, schools, and workshops was always secondary, when it appeared at all. The ancient Byzantine models of asceticism, which were constantly pres ent through the reading of the Synaxaria, the Prologue, and the Lives of Saints, were the main source of monastic inspiration and it was here that the heart of the women of Holy Russia lay.

It is wrong to say,1 simply because no striking Lives of such women Saints have come down to us, that women in ancient Russia did not follow the severe anchoretic, hesychast practices of the desert-dwellers of old. There is sufficient indication in the sources that remain that there were indeed such heroines, who waged no less fierce battles with the prince of this world than the great holy men whose Lives are well known to us. The Lives of women anchorites in later centuries such as Abbess Evpraxis of Old Ladoga (+1823, Sept. 23) and Blessed Mary the Cave-digger of the White Mountains (+1822, June 22) – show clearly what was in the hearts of women Saints in that earlier time when the whole of Russian society marvelled at the anchoretic fervor of the dwellers of the unknown northern wilds.

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1 As does Fedotov, and also T. Manukhina in St. Anna of Kashin, YMCA Press, Paris, 1954 (in Russian).



SYNAXIS OF THE WOMEN SAINTS OF HOLY RUSSIA


ST. EUPHROSYNE of Polotsk

ST. SOLOMONIA of Suzdal 16th century icons

ST. FEBRONIA of Murom

[left to right]


The Holy Child, ST. ARTEMIUS OF VERKOLA,
folk-icon depicting his life and miracles according to his monastery tradition.


The monastic movement of the holy women of Russia, to be sure, took forms that were somewhat different from those of the holy men of the North. It was the men who in the steps of St. Sergius of Radonezh were fearless "pioneers" of the northern forests, braving the untrodden territories of Russia with their constant dangers from wild animals, roaming Tatars and robbers, and the sheer physical hardships of establishing a monastic settlement in an uninhabited forest. The great desert-dwellers, after founding a monastic community, would usually move northward to find a new solitary desert, followed by their disciples, and often their disciples themselves would leave the original monastery to found their own communities. Women desert-lovers would then settle near the village which had grown up around the monastery, or in the monastery buildings themselves, if they had been deserted by the monks; thus they would have the protection of an established place already carved out of the wilderness and surrounded by a fence or wall, Here the women desert-dwellers would continue the founder's rule and tradition. Often it would be little-known women ascetics who would hand down the only information we have about some Saint. Thus, when the relics of St. Cyril of Velsk (+15th century, June 9) were discovered incorrupt, it was a certain Righteous Nun Aquilina Nakapa (+1517) who gave information about the unknown Saint, having herself re ceived a miraculous healing from him, as had the Righteous Evlampia; and so the story of St. Cyril was handed down to us but nothing more is known of the Blessed Aquilina and her monastic tradition.

Another kind of desert-loving holy woman is to be found in ancient Russia in a place which might easily be overlooked today when Orthodox society has become so worldly and the fundamentals of Orthodox upbringing have been sargely forgotten. The primary duty which the Church lays upon woman is not merely the rearing of children, but, more importantly, the breathing into them of the sacred fragrance of bumility and mrekness of beart, which seals the spiritual bond between Christ and the child from infancy onward. This is no easy task, and never was. It is to this task that the spiritual energy of des ert-loving women went in ancient Russia. Thus it is that many great Saints of the Northern Thebaid had great Saints for their mothers. The love for the life of paradise in the wilderness, and the spiritual strength that comes from a hum ble heart capable of enduring the hardships of the desert, were first given to the ascetics of the North during the guilelessness of childhood by their angel-like mothers, who, being unable to go to the northern desert themselves by reason of their worldly obligations, raised up sons fit to be desert-dwellers.

The mother of St. Sergius of Radonezh was St. Maria, nun of Khatkow (+1337); of St. Alexander of Svir, St. Barbara, nun of Oyat (+1500); of St. Macarius of Kolyazin, St. Irene of Kozhin (+15th century, June 1); of St. Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow and monk of Solovki, St. Barsanuphia, schemanun of Moscow; the mothers of the fools for Christ of the North, Sts. Nicholas Kochanov and John of Ustiug, were the Righteous Juliana (+1384, Dec. 21) and Abbess Natalia; and there were others. The sister of St. Artemius of Verkola was the blessed Paraschera of Pirimin, venerated locally as a Saint, The widely-venerated St. Juliana of Murom (+1604), Jan. 2), who raised many children and grandchildren, was a desert-dweller at heart.

THE MONASTIC EXODUS into the Northern Thebaid, although unintentionally it resulted in the colonization of the forest wilds, was first of all an enormous movement of individuals who sought solely to acquire Christian pertection and other worldliness. It was the fruit of a deeply-rooted Orthodox world view, according to which fallen human nature was to be governed by the love of Truth, by means of a definite Patristic standard: non-acquisitiveness, the mental activity of the Jesus Prayer, Hesychasm. This produced such a flowering of genuine Orthodox sanctity in men and women that even children, caught up in the ascetic fervor, reached the spiritual states of men of mature years and worked miracles after their death. The child-Saints of the North include St. Artemias of Verkola (+1345, June 23), Sts. James and his brother John of Menuzh (+1570, June 24), St. Glyceria the young girl of Novgorod (+1522, May 15), and St. John of Ustiug (+1494, May 29), the fool for Christ who died at 18, having already achieved a height of Christian perfection.

Of all the hundreds of new monasteries which were founded each century in the vastness of the Northern Thebaid, at least a fourth were convents, some of them remaining small sketes with just a few virgins, others becoming much larger. Considering all the dangers of the uninhabited, almost impenetrable marshland of intertwining lakes and rivers, and also the sparseness of Orthodox habitation in these vast areas during the 14th to 17th centuries, it is indeed amazing what great fervor and zeal the women of Holy Russia manifested in following the anchoretic path of the ancient Saints of the Thebaid. Who can tell the full story of their spiritual heights? Who can enumerate their struggles, especially today when the very principles of True Orthodoxy are rapidly disappearing from the face of the earth?

The great Saints of the Thebaid, Anthony and Pachomint, and the great Orthodox Father of the West, St. Benedict of Nursia, founded monastic communities for women and placed their sisters in charge of them. So, in Russia, the great St. Evthymius of Suzdal, being in close contact with St. Sergius of Rad. onezh and St. Alexis of Moscow, even being called "the second Sergius," founded in 1364 a coenobitic convent, just like St. Pachomius', across the river from his monastery, entrusting its care to his niece. He directed his convent ac cording to a special monastic rule which he had from his elder the cave-dweller of Nizhni-Novgorod, St. Dionysius (later Archbishop) of Suzdal (+1385, Oct. 15), who was in the full tradition of Byzantine spirituality and twice travelled to Greece.

This same holy monk, St. Dionysius, blessed his spiritual daughter St. Theodora of Nizhni-Novgorod (+1375, April 16) to found a coenobitic convent in the latter city, and later tonsured her in it. In her we see the first clear example of a severe female ascetic Saint of the pure Byzantine tradition in the North.



ST. DIONYSIUS OF GLUSHITSA
and a Typical Convent of the Russian North


ONE OF THE GREATEST FATHERS of the Northern Thebaid was St. Dionysius of Glushitsa (+1437, June 1). Through him the spirit of Mt. Athos-that is to say, of traditional Byzantine spirituality-went deep into the North and entered the women's convents. Earlier direct contacts with Mt. Athos had been maintained throughout the centuries, beginning with the Kievan St. Anthony, but St. Dionysius is the first one known to us to establish a convent with an Athonite typicon. A native of Vologda, St. Dionysius was tonsured in the Spasso-Kameni Island Monastery by its Abbot, Blessed Dionysius (+1425, Oct. 18), who out of special love gave his disciple his own name. Having received hesychast training for many years in this monastery, which had an Athonite typicon, and feeling the need for silence, St. Dionysius went deep into the forest wilds of Vologda and there, near the wild river Glushitsa, began his anchoretic life, Soon he was followed not only by monks, but also by God-thirsting women, for whom he established a convent on a nearby hill and dedicated the community to St. Leontius of Rostov, since he had just returned from Rostov, where he received the blessing and instruction of his elder Dionysius, now Bishop of Rostov. This convent with its Athonite spirit flourished and spread the desert-dwelling ideal for women far and wide.

St. Dionysius was also an outstanding icon-painter, and it is known that he adorned the convent with his icons. One of them, a wonder-working icon of the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God, was given to the Monastery of the Seven Hills located on the same river, which had been founded by the Saint's disciples. When this monastery became deserted after a plague, the Most Holy Mother of God appeared in a dream to a righteous nun in a Moscow convent, Juliana of the Belozersk family, who had lain paralyzed for three years, promising her healing if she would go to the Seven Hills Monastery and rebuild the church there. This the Blessed Juliana promised, was miraculously healed, and went north and found the deserted monastery and the wondrous icon painted by St. Dionysius. In the midst of the total desolation, she built herself a tiny cell next to the church and thus refounded the convent, which existed for many centuries and became a seedbed of the spiritual tradition received through St. Dionysius. Later another Saint shone forth here: the Blessed Nun Mariamna (+1643).

Other convents became renowned in the Northern Thebaid. In the vi cinity of the St. Cyril of White Lake Monastery, following the tradition of this Saint, a convent was founded at Goritsy on a river bank by the noblewoman Evdocia in 1544; it became a Lavra for women in the North where many holy and renowned women worked out their salvation right up to Soviet times.

In Vologda, the Holy Nan Domnicia founded in 1560 the famous Dormition Convent, where a stone church was dedicated to St. Sergius of Radonezh, the Abha of the North.

In the Kargopol territory, a Dormition Convent was founded in 1592 by St. John the Hairy, who was "a laborer of the monastery of virgins," as the ancient chronicles describe him; he later received the schema with the name of Jonah and was buried in the convent.

In Soleychegodsk, the Holy Virgin Jaliana, refusing to accede to the unclean desire of a pagan, was drowned in the river, where the Ulianovsky convent was soon built, with her as its patron.

In the Arctic territory of Archangelsk, a Holy Trinity Convent was founded in 1604. In 1664 the Righteous Abbess Martha, who was known personally by Tsar Alexis Michailovich Romanov, turned it into a blossoming monastic citadel for women in the utmost North.

In Old Ladoga near Valaam, the renowned Dormition Convent existed from the 15th century. After being destroyed by the Swedes, it was rebuilt in 1617 and became one of northern Russia's most important contemplative centers, where later there shone forth the great Abbess Eupraxia, spiritual converser with Sts. Sergius and Herman of Valaam and St. Alexander of Svir.

SPIRITUALLY ORIENTED WOMEN would never plunge into the wilds absolutely alone, but would always approach the monastic calling with the sole purpose of saving their soul with caution, self-distrust, and meekness. They would settle by twos and threes in humble abodes, often abandoned cabins, in forlorn areas, near churches on the outskirts of town, or near cemeteries. They would provide themselves with God-pleasing deeds: reading the Psalter over the dead, baking prosphora, painting icons, making candles, or mending; they would remain in silence while one sister would read soul-profiting texts from the Lives of Saints or the Holy Fathers, or they would chant canons, akathists, or "psalms" (religious songs), shedding tears of contrition and repentance. Their common sharing of the basic necessities of life would give them spiritual growth and strength, providing an active experience in sobriety of life, something especially essential for those who might be called by God for a life of seclusion after years of trials and sufferings.

Their cells would consist of a one-room cabin with anterooms. It would have an iconostasis or icon-corner, before which vigil lamps would be burning at all times, and an analogion with all the books necessary for the indispensable reading of the daily cycle of services. There would be the smell of incense and home-made bread, a hooked runner rug, flowerpots on the wide window sills, neatness, and a reigning quietnessall this would add to the warmth of a typical cell of the "God-workers." Here the all-night vigils would frequently be conducted, and a devout, God-fearing eldress would console suffering hearts with words of contrition, softer than oil,

The whole touching atmosphere of these "workers for God" spoke of deep warmth, simplicity, and inward tranquility and peace with God and His transfigured world. This was the most popular and beloved way in which living Orthodox piety was disseminated among the people throughout Russia. This way of life has withstood all historical temptations. The "babushkas" of today, who have saved Orthodox piety from the Communists, still get their leaven from this heart of Holy Russia.

ST. DOROTHY OF KASHIN

ST. DOROTHY was born in 1549, in the prosperous early part of the reign of John IV (the Terrible), and died in 1629 during the peaceful reign of the first Romanov Tsar, Michael Theodorovich; but her whole life, beginning when she was twelve years old, passed in the midst of the most frightful conditions of rebellion, anarchy, famine, plague, and foreign invasion.

This holy nun of the latter times was of noble blood, and some say that she was of the family of the Princes Korkodinov, but neither her place of birth nor her name before receiving the monastic tonsure are known to us, She was given in marriage to Theodore Ladygin and by him had a son, Michael; they lived in the region north of Moscow, where the city of Kashin is located. In the first decade of the 17th century, Kashin was laid waste by invading Poles and Lithuanians, and St. Dorothy's husband fell on the field of battle in defence of the city.

Thus it was that, having lost her husband and her earthly happiness in the midst of the terrible misfortunes of the Russian land, St. Dorothy, already a woman of mature years, resolved to abandon the world and seek, in prayers and struggles, not a temporary happiness which is so often darkened by various evils, but rather a heavenly and eternal blessedness. By Divine inspiration she chose for herself a peaceful and soul-saving refuge in the Convent of the Meeting of the Lord in Kashin. This monastery, renowned for treasuring the holy relics of St. Anna of Kashin, the Princess Schema-nun and miracle-worker (+1368, Oct. 2 and June 12), had just been laid waste together with the city, and how many labors and deprivations and struggles stood before her when she entered it! With great effort she made for herself a humble, confining cell in the midst of the ruins, and here she devoted herself to prayer, fasting, obedience, and other holy struggles known to God alone. Here amidst the ashes she found a large Icon of the Korsun Mother of God, which she kept in her cell, and which later became celebrated for working many miracles.

The whole territory where this peaceful hamlet once lay presented itself as a virtual wilderness of dark forests, endless birch-groves and desolate lakes and ponds abundant with birds and freely-roaming wild animals. This was also the native country of highly-esteemed desert-dwelling saints whom St. Dorothy could not but hold very dear to her heart; for she did not retreat, to console her old age, to one of the well-established convents which abounded at that time in Moscow, bat chose the silence of the Kashin wilds, for which she had been preparing her whole life long. Just eight miles from Kashin had lived St. Macarius of Kalyazin (+1483), who had the custom to roam the woods like a new Adam amidst wild beasts who walked with him like sheep. His nephew, St. Paisins of Uglich (1504), joined him as a boy and reached such heights that the Most Holy Mother of God visited him when he was at prayer with his disciple St. Adrian and St. Cassian (1504), the friend of St. Nilus of Sora. Not far away also was Seliger Lake with St. Nilus (1554) living in it on Stolobensk islet. Another native of Kashin, St. Sabbas of Vyshera (1460), having returned from Mt. Athos, became a stylite. All these angel-like men founded monasteries, and the fragrance of their life spread far and wide and inspired ascetic exploits. All this constituted St. Dorothy's spiritual inheritance in her melancholy abode and raised her mind to higher visions and thoughts divine.


A Schema-nun of the Norehern Thebaid – painting by S. Zhivotovsky


ILLUSTRATIONS OF ORTHODOX CONVENT LIFE


A Typical Nun's Cell with Iconostasis in a Well-to-do Monastery


Nun and Novices Singing Antiph onally on the Right Cliros


BLESSED FR. PETER OF UGLICH +1866 (see p. 229)


A typical convert priest with his matushka drinking tea at home


The Kashin Convent, seen from the town, as it appeared 150 years ago


Kashin Convent: The Dormition church and the new cathedral in 1912


SPRINGTIME IN THE NORTHERN BIRCH-GROVE SKETE

A nun stoops in Jesus Prayer on the steps of a typical skete chapel, beholding the rushing torrent of the awakening spring, a prefiguration of our future resurrection.

A painting by E. E. Valbon from RUSSIAN PILGRIM, 1913.


At the same time she strove to help all the many inhabitants of the city and the surrounding area, who lived in great affliction and misfortune. By her word of consolation, by her heartfelt kindness, and by gifts of money, she strove to help everyone and encourage and raise up all those who suffered in this most oppressive time, All the possessions remaining to her after the death of her husband she either spent for the restoration of the convent or distributed to the poor. For herself she kept nothing except prayer, tears, and struggles. Having been accustomed to live amidst wealth and abundance, now she did not even know where to find her daily bread, and she had to endure every kind of deprivation and need, But with God's help she endured everything with greatness of soul and with firm faith in Divine Providence. In her small, one-windowed cell she had a place hidden from the eyes of men, where she wept, prayed, and sighed before the Lord God day and night over her own salvation and that of her fellow men. Especially did she pray for her husband, for the suffering city, and the holy convent. She sought one thing: the most difficult and sorrowful struggles, in order to cleanse her soul of sins and prepare herself for blessed eternity.

The Lord heard the fervent prayer of St. Dorothy for the restoration of the Convent of the Meeting of the Lord. Soon after she had settled in the ruins, they began to resound with the spiritual rejoicing of the sisters, who little by little returned to the convent when the danger had passed. The rumor of the exalted spiritual life of St. Dorothy and her deeds of mercy attracted to the convent also many other virgins and women who were seeking the salvation of their souls. Thus the monastery was re-established, and when enough sisters had gathered together, an abbess was needed for them. But St. Dorothy, who by her numberless labors and struggles and gifts had been responsible for the restoration of the monastery, hated all glory and outward honors, and in her great humility she decisively refused the high position of abbess, preferring to continue her ascetic life in the calling of a simple nun. Thus, for the rest of her life the Saint served for all as an example of love of labor, patience, self-sacrifice, and flaming love for and trust in God, Her whole life exhaled the fragrance of the great women-strugglers of Christian antiquity, and likewise of those who preceded her in her native land: St. Anna of Kashin, St. Euphrosyne, the great foundress of convents and monasteries in Polotsk (+1173, May 23), St. Febronia of Murom (+1228, June 25), Sr. Euphrosyne (+1250, Sept. 25), the great virgin-ascetic of Suzdal, daughter of St. Michael of Chernigov, and others.

Such a life did this holy woman live almost in our own days. For it is not the times that are at fault if we do not see now the abundance of holy men and women who flourished in earlier centuries; it is rather our evil will, and lack of determination, and want of faith. But Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever (Heb. 13:8).

In the year 1615 St. Dorothy received the Great Angelic Schema and redoubled her labors of ascetism and piety. Finally, after twenty years of struggles in the Convent of the Meeting of the Lord, the holy Dorothy came to the end of her much-suffering life, in the eightieth year of her age. On the eve of the feast of the great and holy inspirer of monastic struggles in the Russian North, St. Sergius of Radonezh, on September 24, 1629, St. Dorothy peacefully reposed in the Lord. From that day she has stood before the Lord with the burning lamp of flaming love for God, and with the oil of good deeds done for her neighbor and of the grace of the All-Holy Spirit which she acquired by her holy life. She passed over from death unto the life prepared for all who love God, from an earthly into a heaverly habitation, where she has yet greater boldness of intercession before the Almighty.

The holy remains of St. Dorothy were buried near the main convent church of the Meeting of the Lord, on the north side. Over the grave a memorial of white stone was erected with pillars carved out of it, and the inscription on this memorial survived in almost perfect condition until the 20th century.

St. Dorothy remained in spirit with her monastery even after her repose, Her memory was kept sacredly by the sisters down to our own times. Many have been the miracles of healing and supernatural help worked at her grave for those who have come with faith in her intercession before God. A list of these miracles was kept in the monastery. But her merrory became es-ecially revered over two centuries after her repose because of her appearances to Abbess Antonia of the Saint's convent.

ABBESS ANTONIA MEZENTSOVA (+1875, Jan. 26) was truly a saint. A spiritual daughter of the great 19th-century saint, Priest Peter of Uglich, she was so penetrated with true Orthodox monastic spirit that St. Anna of Kashin would appear to her and tell who of the sisters ought to be tonsured into the great schema and even where the ancient schemas were to be found.

Abbess Antonia had been a sister at a convent in Suzdal and had agreed, at the persuasion of her godmother, to transfer to the Kashin Convent of the Meeting. But the 20-year-old novice grieved greatly at leaving her first monastery, where the relics of the pious Princess Sofia (wife of John IV) reposed, supposing that she would be deprived of the grace which she had known there, for St. Sofia-Solomonis of Suzdal (+1542, Dec. 16) worked many great miracles in her Protection Convent, which was founded and spiritually directed by the great St. Euthymius of Suzdal, friend of St. Sergius of Radonezh

But then, after tearful prayer at night, she saw in a dream that she was entering the Convent of the Meeting in Kashin, which she had not seen before; but by reason of the great crowds of people she could not enter the monastery. After many efforts she finally entered, and being astonished at the great numbers of pilgrims, she asked the reason for this; she was told that the relics of St. Dorothy (of whom she had never heard) were being opened for her canonization. This vision cut short the grief of the future Abbess Antonia and gave her the assurance that there was a righteous one reposing in the Convent of the Meeting also, and that her transferal there in 1839 was not without the will of God.

After some years in the Convent, the novice Alexandra (as she was then called) entered a particularly difficult period of spiritual trials. One day in this period, when she had not slept for several nights out of sorrow, she went to the monastery church for Matins, and after sitting down for the reading of the kathismata, she fell into a light sleep. Suddenly an unknown Schema-nun stood before her after coming out of the northern door of the Altar, She held in her right hand a wooden cross and a lighted wax candle, and in her left hand a smoking censer. Her mantle was gathered up and hung over her left arm. She stood right in front of novice Alexandra and directed a penetrating glance at her, as if seeing through her inward grief. Immedi ately the novice arose, but the vision had already vanished, and no one around her had seen it; and in her heart she felt an indescribably joyful feeling, as if she had never been in a sorrowful state. When she returned to her cell after Matins, she hastened to sketch with a pencil on paper the Schema-nun she had seen, whom she recognized as St. Dorothy, whom the deeply revered and often called upon in prayer. Several years after this she painted the Icon of St. Dorothy in full stature, exactly as she had sketched it that morning under the impression of that wonderful vision, only adding the Kashin Convent churches and other buildings behind the figure of St. Dorothy (the little chapel on the left of St. Dorothy is the stone chapel built over her grave; see page 211).

Later Mother Antonia became Abbess in the Convent of St. Dorothy, and out of her reverence for the Saint she desired to show some special veneration for her memory. Many times, when visiting her holy Elder, Father Peter the fool for Christ's sake of Uglich, she would hear from him these words of reproach: "Dorothy is not honored among you!" This greatly grieved Mother Antonis, and finally she asked the Elder what she should do to venerate the holy one. He replied sharply and decisively: "Build a chapel!" In obedience to her holy Elder, she had a small chapel erected out of sheets of metal in a single morning in the summer of 1857, fearing that someone might tell the local bishop and he might forbid the construction if it were long underway. The bishop, however, when he found out about it, approved this veneration of St. Dorothy, and in 1870 Abbess Antonia was able to build a larger, stone chapel over the Saint's relics.

During these years St. Dorothy appeared many times and worked many miracles in her convent. A certain nun, Mother Seraphima, loved to spend the midnight hours with her cell attendant in the convent church. One night they came to the church at midnight and to their amazement saw a strange nun praying by a window, even though the church had been locked and no one could have entered. Another time at midnight they saw in the church an extraordinary light, all the candles were burning, and a nun was praying before the Altar, Many other sisters also were vouchsafed such visions of St. Dorothy.

We do not know the fate of the Convent or of the veneration of St. Dorothy after the Communist Revolution. But among those who love God's Saints she will not be forgotten, and in heaven she continues to pray for the newly-devastated Russian land and for all who venerate her with faith and love.

In order to obtain a more detailed glimpse of the inward spiritual world of a female representative of the Northern Thebaid, we may look at the life of the 19th-century Blessed Anastasis. Although two centuries separate her from the time of St. Dorothy of Kashin, nevertheless, in all essential respects their lives are quite revealingly similar.

IN THE FOGGY REGION of Olonets with its innumerable lakes and dense forests, from ancient times many monasteries for men and women have taken refuge, small in numbers and little known. The Padan Hermitage of the Entry of the Most Holy Mother of God into the Temple, which ceased to function as a monastery in the 18th century, retained up to this century an appearance very similar to that of the ancient skete. At the exit from the forest, in the meadow, there were only three small cells at various distances one from the other, the church was not immediately visible, being very small and standing in a splendid birch forest, such as abound in this region. The charming birches and the splendid meadows, the quiet river Padan, the joyful playing of the fish in it, and the most pleasant, fragrant aroma from the biches, involuntarily forced one to think of the beautiful things of the future life, and inspired one to quiet and fervent prayer to the merciful Creator.

Founded by St. Cornelius of Padan, one of the disciples of St. Alexander of Svir, this monastery existed for 221 years, before being closed in 1764 and turned into parish property which was rarely frequented due to its isolation. The restored church of the Entry represented the remnant of a venerable antiquity, a memorial testifying of the holy ascetics who performed their God-pleasing struggles in simplicity of soul and purity of thought. This church has one wooden dome. Its roof, like a peasant hut, has two slopes and resembles more a chapel or a peasant farm than a church. The entrance to it is from the north, the altar is lower than the church itself, and the log cabin which has been placed next to the church is on the side. The small windows are placed one above the other. There are a few icons in this church: the icon of the Entry into the Temple of the Most Holy Mother of God, which is venerated in the neighboring villages, and the icons of Sts. Cornelius, Dionysius, and Misail, the founder of the monastery and his disciples. The small bells are hung on pillars near the church.

Around the church and the river, there were four small hut-cells. Before Anastasia settled there with her sisters, a watchman lived in one of them, and in another one a blind man, while the remaining two huts were empty. The watchman used to tell pilgrims that an Elder-schema-monk had been seen there many times; sometimes he sat in thought on the slope and sometishes elsewhere. It was the founder of the Hermitage, St. Cornelius, who appeared and grieved over the desolation of the monastery which he had founded.

The nun desert-dweller Anastasia was born in the year 1819 in the Province of Kharkov and was named Anna. Her relatives were simple, pious people from Kiev. Anna was a year old when her mother died and grew up under the guidance of her grandmother Euphrosyne, who lived 114 years, 84 years in chaste widowhood. She was a strict faster. On Fridays she would eat nothing at all, except a little bread and water after the setting of the sun. Every year she twice went on a pilgrimage to Kiev. Only for the three years previous to her death did she cease to go on her pilgrimage, when she was 111 years old. Anna obeyed her grandmother in everything and accompanied her from her earliest years on her pilgrimages to Kiev and the surrounding region. Being tauglst early to read, Anna from her childhood became accustomed to soul-profiting reading and began to be zealous for a holy, ascetic life. She liked especially the Life of St. Mary of Egypt.

At 17 both her grandmother and father died and this was the last impulse causing her to break with the world. She gave away all the meager property of her parents to the poor, bought some bread for five pennies, and went to save her soul in the desolate region of the Golosevevsky Hermitage near Kiev, where in complete seclusion and in prayer she could endure only sixteen days. She thought naively that she could quickly acquire holiness and dispassion, but soon she came to understand the falseness of this feeling. Therefore, she entered one of the women's monasteries in the region of Kiev and lived there for quite some time, acquiring well the basic monastic training, learning to cut off her own will and understanding.

But Anna was drawn by the solitude of the desert. Fearing to act according to her own false understanding, she hastened with fervent prayer to the Mother of God, begging Her help, asking for an indication from Her as to whether the path for which her soul was striving was pleasing to the Lord. As a reply to the girl's flaming prayer, she had the following remarkable dream. She saw that she was holding an icon of the Mother of God in her hands. From the icon was coming forth a gentle voice which enveloped the girl in a pleasant warmth. This warmth entered within her, and although it was pleasant at first, later it became heavy and bitter. Understanding from this dream that her labor was pleasing to God, but from having been pleasant at first it would then become difficult and bitter, she went on a pilgrimage to Pochaev Lavra to venerate its holy Icon.


BLESSED ANASTASIA


ELDER IGNATIUS (ISAIAH)
+1852, April 20


A Typical Northern Skete: Leushino Convent


A Church of the Olonets Territory, Blessed by St. Alexander of Svir in 1522, in a Skete near the Village of Shemensic.


The building of a half-carthen birch hut, typical of the one Anastasia lived in.


And from now on the Most Holy Mother of God began to help her. At this time she met three holy persons who shaped her life. First, she met a great ascetic, FATHER THEODOSIUS LEVITSKY, a lay priest who, like the later St. John of Kronstadt, led a monk's life in the world, was a highly experienced spiritual director, and had a hospice for the poor, the lame and pilgrims; she worked for him for a while, and he prepared her for her desert life. Second, upon his death she met a girl of like mind, MARIA, later DESERT-DWELLER OF OLONETS. The two girls went north into the Olonets region and lived a secluded anchoretic life in mutual obedience near the village of Maria's family. Finally, she came into contact with the great ELDER IGNATIUS of ST. NICEPHORUS OF VAZHA LAKE HERMITAGE, who was Maria's uncle. This holy Father of latter times, a monk of Mt. Athos and a close friend of BISHOP IGNATIUS BRIANCHANINOV, at first did not encourage the two girls to live alone in the forest, upon their request to guide them. But after their pilgrimage to Solovki their desire became more realistic. Fr. Ignatius, finally convinced of their determination and firmness, himself helped them with a cell in the vicinity of his monastery. After his death, when they had to leave this cell and to do everything themselves, they came to taste much bitterness, being persecuted and terrorized Then with great labor they dug the frozen ground to build an earthen cell. This work was difficult for these weak girls, inexperienced in physical labor. All they had to eat was mushrooms, and they had "worms instead of salt." The whole summer they went barefoot, out of necessity, and there were many poisonous snakes. They had one axe which was dull and would constantly fall off the handle. With great difficulty the two of them cut down several dozens of spruce trees. Their half-chopped spruce trees would bend over but for a long time would not fall; and weeping and praying, the girls would again undertake the work. Somehow they built a cell out of these trees. They had to bail the water out of the leaking hut, and in place of a door they hung up their dresses. They made a poor stove: the top of the chimney was resting on sticks which were covered with clay, and they burned with the first fire in the stove. After a time there came a peasant who brought them an axe, saw, and some flour, and made them a door. The smoke and cold filled this poor hut where the girls lived a whole winter, praying to God and enduring all these difficulties. Later, in place of the grass roof they made a better one, using their observation of a typical peasant board roof. It became warm, but now there was a new inconvenience: the trees, on becoming damp, began to grow, sending out long shoots. With the spring, when the earth thawed, their cell totally collapsed. But these lovers of struggle bore all these sorrows without murmuring, both then and for many years afterwards. The solitude of the desert was dear to their spirit, and for its sake they were ready to endure everything.

Once Anastasia went for mushrooms and, becoming lost in the forest, was forced to sleep under the spruces in the rain and wind. In another place of their settlement there were very many poisonous snakes, there being a snake pit near their cell in the hollow of an old tree. Once, when returning from gathering mushrooms, Anastasia entered her hut and found a large snake lying on the mat where she slept. Another time she went to the wooden barrel for bread, and in the barrel she discovered an immense hissing snake. When going after mushrooms another time, Anastasia, seeing a number of fallen trees, thought of making a turnip garden. Thus, she brought some dried twigs and began to burn them so as to clear the area; but the day was dry, and a veritable forest fire began. She fell to the earth and was entreating the Lord for help, when suddenly a cloud appeared and drenched everything, putting out the fire.

The Church authorities did not approve of Anastasia's desert-dwelling, and she had to flee farther north. She was living with a disciple when two masked thieves fell upon them, looking for money. They bound the desert-dwellers with ropes so tightly that their arms turned dark and remained so long afterward. Only when the thieves got into the storage shelf and found there only a few mushrooms and one measure of flour were they convinced that the desert-dwellers were non-acquirers. They untied them, bowed down to the ground asking their forgiveness, and left. Thus Anastasia endured great trials on her narrow path.

But with these misfortunes her voluntary suffering by no means came to an end. When the difficulties of life did not chase her away from the desert, the enemy of the human race began to disturb her with despondency, boredom, inexplainable fear, voices, threats, visions. But the Lord did not leave her, for the sake of her profound humility and her firm faith. He consoled her with visions during sleep.

Once she saw a black servant of the prince of the air. He was sitting and writing in a book and spoke of the necessity of destroying all the monasteries. With hatred, he threw himself on the desert-dweller Anastasia when she began to defend the monasteries and speak about their prayer for the world. "And they would even pray for you," she said. But this only evoked a new and frightful explosion of anger; however, an invisible power saved her from the fierceness of the enemy. Then Anastasia saw choirs of monastic virgins and women walking and mightily singing a sacred song and bearing lamps in their hands. Anastasia with her thin voice began to sing with them and to follow after them. And with this she woke up.

Another time when Anastasia in exhaustion from a difficult infirmity was lying down and reading the Philokalia, she fell asleep and saw coming towards her a legion of demons from which she was preserved by the Saviour, Who has commanded us to cleanse the heart and strengthen it by imperturbable prayer, something which is not given to a man immediately and without difficulty. Another time she saw in unutterable beauty the Mother of God as She is depicted on the icon "Joy of All Who Sorrow," after which vision she immediately felt herself healed from her severe disease.

The enemy strove, in his attempts to upset the desert-dweller, to strike also in visions during sleep, assuming the appearance of an angel of light. But Anastasia felt always at the beginning of such dreams an oppression of spirit, and she would wake up and begin fervently to pray, and the temptation would pass without harm to her.


Once Mother Anastasia was very sick, as is related by a certain nun who lived alone half a mile from her and would go to her and serve her. She was grieved that it was so far to go, but Anastasia saw this and strengthened her by her prayers and with the assertion that this labor was pleasing to God. Once this nun saw in a dream that someone had given her shoes all made out of won derful, unearthly flowers. She looked inside them and there were wondrous flowers, and they were fragrant. "These shoes are for you, for your labor and serving of Mother Anastasia," a voice said to her. She awoke with joy and continued to serve her Eldress without grief until the end of her life. The Eldress herself, a constant doer of the Prayer of Jesus, taught her fellow-strugglers also this spiritual art. The nun Eudocia could not grow used to this and was not convinced in the power of this prayer. And then she saw a dream: there was an immense number of people, and among them the demons were walking and attracting them to evil things. The unarmed people immediately went and fulfilled the orders of the enemy. The demons came up alsotto her. She began to do the Jesus Prayer, and saw a sword next to her, which was formed entirely out of the Name of Jesus, long and flaming. Wherever she turned the sword, the demons fled. She woke up and became a fervent doer of the prayer.

Anastasia's food was poor. They cooked only cabbage soup, or soup made of potato greens. When the nuns were working at handiwork in the cells one would read while the others would listen while working. The daily readir was the Lives of Saints. All the places which were not understandable, the Eldress herself would explain, and spoke so from the heart, that almost all the sisters would weep

When a sufficiently large sisterhood had been formed around Mother Anastasia, she finally built a monastery. But the Eldress to the end remained faithful to her love of the desert. The renewal of the ancient monastery of Padan as a women's monastery was the work of another person, whom Mother Anastasia blessed to act in her name and under her personal supervision.

After some period of sickness, Blessed Anastasia quietly passed away on July 11, 1901. Her grave, after the reliquary of St. Cornelius itself, was the dearest treasure of the convent.

DO NOT OPEN your heart to another without need; out of a thousand you may find only one who would keep your secret. Strive by every means to keep the treasure of your spiritual gifts. Otherwise you will lose it and not find it again." Such was the counsel of St. Seraphim of Sarov to his "orphans," based on the patristic teaching to gather spiritual treasure in silence. And precisely such was the spiritual fervor of holy women in Russia: concealed humility, the hiding from the human eye. This is so evident from the great Lives which have come down to us: for example, the above-mentioned co-struggler of Anastasia, Maria of Olonets; the virgins of St. Seraphim: ANASTASIA LOGACHEV((+1815); Neonilla (1875); Pelagia (1884); "Pasha" of Sar;; (1915); and, especially inspiring, as revealed in her own autobiography, Abbess Thais of Leushi (1915), who with the help of St. John of Kronstadt revived the great monastery of St. Therapontes of Belozersk, whose Abbess, Seraphima, met a martyr's death at the hands of Communists.

One of such silent ones, literally hidden from the world, a contemporary of St. Dorothy, who blossomed in the uttermost North of the Russian Thebaid, was the Righteous PARASCEVA OF PINEGA.


Interior of the refectory, with Russian stove at left


A typical scene in a women's skete of Northern Russia.
A genuine duplicate in our days: Protection Skete at Bluffton, Alta, Canada.


In the Far Northern Skete, a novice in summer habit.
A 19th century Painting.


PARASCEVA OF PINEGA

THE PINEGA is a dreamy river, not broad like the Dvina, of which it is a tributary, but like a placid pond, and its many reeds and lilies are still and unmoved upon the surface of the stream. The river is so narrow, one could often throw a stone across it, and on each bank is forest, forest, and again forest, forest without end. This is the land of tundra, the most dangerous region in Europe," as it was described by Stephen Graham at the turn of this century in his travel journal of the Russian North, Undiscovered Russia.

In this land, in the village of Verkola near Kevrola, a boy Artemius was born in 1532 to pious parents Cosmas and Apollinaria. He was God-fearing and unusually meek and holy. At the age of twelve, when ploughing with his father in the field, he was struck dead by thunder, which the simple villagers took as a sign that God was angry with him, and they left him unburied in the forest. One can well imagine how the village opinion affected his already Godfearing and extremely pious family. In this atmosphere of awe and silent trembling before God grew up St. Artemius' sister, Parasceva, who matured into sanctity without knowing it. Shunned by the world, but surrounded by God's beauty of the flowering northern spring and preserved by the snow-swept winter, she herself became a saint and a wonderworker, for, like her brother, she was a chosen vessel of God. When after 32 years the body of her holy brother was discovered incorrupt, and he worked many miracles and was esteemed by all, so that even a whole monastery was established over his relics, Parasceva was already formed spiritually, and to avoid the pitfalls of pride, she withdrew to silence and oblivion. Thus we do not even know whether she entered a convent or when she died. We only know that she died a righteous virgin.1

___
1 On her (in Russian) see the monthly Strannik, 1878, no. 12; for the Life of St. Artemius see The Orthodox Word, March-April, 1974.


In 1619 the relics of St. Artemius were examined by Metropolitan Macarius of Novgorod, his Life was written and a Service was composed to him. The same year a coffin with the fragrant relics of a virgin was discovered in the Pirimin church of St. George, and a certain man was granted a vision; a fair virgin appeared to him, informing that her name was Parasceva, that sick people should come to this church and pray to St. George and the newly-revealed Wonderworker Parasceva, and that help would be granted, which indeed began to happen abundantly. Later a special chapel was built to treasure her relics, an old icon of her was placed there, and her memory was celebrated on October 28. Such is the power of sanctity hidden in God.