Alipiya Avdeeva. The path of acquiring the spirit

The holy fool Alipia (Agafya Tikhonovna Avdeeva) is a famous ascetic, healer and fortune teller. In terms of strength and holiness, it can be compared with Motrona of Moscow. Mother Alipia was a native of Mordovia. In Holy Baptism she was named Agathia. Out of a feeling of reverent love for the heavenly patroness, my mother carried her icon on her back all her life.

Since childhood, she experienced incredible sorrows and hardships. Her parents were shot and at the age of seven she was left an orphan. Such a baby, but she herself read the Psalter for her parents. From her youth, her wandering life began, accompanied by hard work, persecution and poverty. She lived on what God sent, spent the night in the open air; She often hired herself out for daily work in order to have a piece of bread and a roof over her head. She survived persecution, prison, hard times of war and persecution by the authorities.

Shortly before the Great Patriotic War, the wanderer Agathia came to Kyiv. They say that during the occupation she led many people out of the concentration camp. Small, unnoticed, she could penetrate into places where entry would be closed to anyone else, and, apparently, the Apostle Peter himself helped her penetrate into prisons and save people. During the war, the Pechersk shrine was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church, and Archimandrite Kronid clothed the servant of God Agathia in a small schema with the name Alypius in honor of the first Russian icon painter. All her life she remained committed to the Pechersk Fathers: “I am a Lavra nun.” The spiritual father blessed mother to labor in the hollow of a tree, following the example of the ancient ascetics. At the base of the nearby caves stood a giant oak tree, in which Mother Alipia henceforth settled. When Archimandrite Kronid rested in the Lord, Schemamonk Damian blessed his mother to move closer to people.

Alipia settled in an earthen cave and lived on alms. And so she was taken to prison again - for refusing to work on Easter. The memory of this prison remained a toothless mouth and a hunched back. They released mother when they had already dispersed the Pechersk stronghold. Mother Alypia settled on Demeevka (in a quiet area of ​​Kyiv, where there was an open Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross). The boys teased her and threw stones, but she endured everything and prayed. And then, with a blessing from above, she moved to the Goloseevsky forest. It is located on the outskirts of Kyiv, Lavra hermitages were built here - hermitages. Here the consoling elder Hieromonk Alexy (Shepelev) labored, as well as Hieroschemamonk Parthenius of Kiev. Mother settled in an abandoned, dilapidated house and lived there until her death, having neither registration nor passport. The police repeatedly tried to “deal with” the mother, but the Lord protected her, and they failed to evict her from Goloseev.

At this time, Mother Alipia went out to serve people in the feat of foolishness. She wore a plush blouse, a child's bonnet or a hat with earflaps, carried a bag of sand on her back, and a large bunch of keys on her chest: the sins of her spiritual children, which mother took upon herself, hanging a new key as a sign of this.

Mother saved her city, prayerfully protected it from destruction, walked around it like a procession of the cross. Before Chernobyl explosion She screamed for several days: “Father, there is no need for fire. Father, why is there fire? Put it out for the sake of the animals, for the sake of the little children.” She poured water on her: “Girls, the earth is burning.” The sun fell to the west and prayed: “Mother of God, deliver us from gas.” People could not understand her phrases: “The ground is burning, grief is coming.” She probably didn’t know such words as “reactor” and “radiation accident”. I started talking about the fact that “grief is coming” back in the winter, long before Chernobyl on April 26. And the day before the accident, she walked down the street, crying out in prayer: “Lord! Have mercy on the babies, have mercy on the people!” She advised the people who came to her that day: “Close the doors and windows tightly, there will be a lot of gas.” When the accident happened, they asked: should we leave? She said: no. When asked what to do with food, she taught: “Wash, read “Our Father” and “Virgin Mary”, cross yourself and eat and you will be healthy”...

Shortly before the Chernobyl disaster, Mother Alypia began offering “Goloseevsky feasts” (there were wooden tables on the street that gathered ten to fifteen people every day). All the food the Goloseevskaya ascetic had was a prayer. For the old woman, it was important who brought the food, whose hands touched the food, through whose heart the offering passed. She didn't accept it from everyone. “You need to level up your spirit,” mother would say, drop to her knees, and sing in her strong voice “I Believe,” “Our Father,” “Have Mercy on Me, O God.” She crosses the table: “Eat,” and she lies down on the bench and rests. The portions were huge, and everything had to be eaten. “As much as you can handle, I can help you,” and people with serious illnesses were healed at her table.

Mother accepted everyone: fornicators, liars, robbers, she only exposed the evil ones, she did not tolerate evil. She grasped even the shadow of a thought. One woman spoke. She went to her mother with her “ascetic husband” with the thought: to ask her mother if she should let him go to the monastery, especially since they had no children. She couldn’t ask this question in public, but she thought about it all the time. And so they began to leave, and each mother asked his name. So her husband comes up and calls his name: “Sergius.” And his mother corrected him: “You are not Sergius, but Sergei.” So that woman received an answer to a question she had not asked.

Another story: a priest’s wife came to visit my mother, who had dreamed of a monastery all her life and even before her marriage; now that all her children had grown up (and three of them had already become priests), thoughts about the monastery returned to her again. And so she went to Kyiv to ask Mother Alipia about this. When he and his daughter arrived at the Goloseevskaya hermitage and entered the courtyard, they saw Mother Alipia dozing in the courtyard of the house. They began to wait for her to wake up. They waited for a long time, decided to leave, and when they had already approached the gate, the old woman suddenly jumped up, blocked the path for her guests, and in front of the one who was choosing a new path of life for herself, she lowered a long pole onto the gate - this was a silent answer to her questioning: there is no way for her to enter the monastery. Although so many people received a blessing from Mother Alipia to become a monk, the sisters of the Florovsky Monastery took turns spending whole days in her hut, and Mother called them “relatives.”

Most often, people had no idea that their lightening of their burdens fell on mother. She hugs, kisses, seemingly blesses them, but she takes their illness upon herself. “Do you think I’m making the ointment? I’m crucifying myself for you,” she once admitted. She gave one patient Cahors to drink to heal her soul and body, and while she was drinking, she fell unconscious.

Mother gave predictions in parables, in acts of holy fools, and sometimes explicitly, simply, without allegories - as it was more salutary for someone. Once, in the midst of a feast, she sent a nun into a ravine with a candle to read the Psalter. Then it turned out that at that very hour her brother was almost killed. A nun, who had previously labored in the Gornensky monastery, came for advice: should she return? “You will be higher here,” mother did not bless. Now she is the abbess of one of the ancient Russian monasteries.

Servant of God Olga, a psychiatrist, came to see my mother for the first time. The hostess showed her where to sit and went out herself. Suddenly they shouted at Olga: “How dare she?” It turns out that she sat in my mother’s place. I got scared and stood up. Returning from the yard, Mother Alipia sternly said: “Why are you standing, sit down where you are told.” Everyone understood that this was mother’s will. Now this servant of God is asceticizing in Jerusalem, in the Gornenskaya monastery.

One woman singer came to mother with her fiancé, and all the time while they were sitting at the table, mother pointed at them with her hand and said: “And the girl sings the funeral service for the boy, and the girl sings the funeral service for the boy.” Soon he drowned before her eyes, and she actually sang a dirge for him.

One day, as it were, the cover was removed from my mother, and she became different, not a holy fool - a concentrated, sad person. “A confessor is scary,” mother opened up. “We must pray for him, so that the Lord will give him help in the fight against the demons fighting against him and protect him from all evil, because the sins of the father fall on the child. We must build a spiritual foundation of communication with him.” The Lord reveals to the spiritual father His will for him..."

She more than once publicly spoke negatively about M. Denisenko ( Filaret), at that time the Kiev Metropolitan. Seeing Filaret’s photograph, she said: “He’s not ours.” They began to explain to her that this was the Metropolitan, thinking that she did not know him, but she again firmly repeated: “He is not ours.” Then the priests did not understand the meaning of her words, and now they are surprised how many years in advance Mother foresaw everything. Once in the Church of the Ascension of the Lord, which is on Demeevka, of which she was a parishioner, during the bishop’s service she suddenly exclaimed, foreseeing the future: “Glorious, glorious, but you will die a peasant.” That time she was kicked out of the temple. Once again she saw a magazine with a large photograph of Filaret. Mother grabbed the magazine, poked him in the eyes with two fingers and shouted: “Uh-oh enemy, how much grief you will bring to people, how much evil you will do. The wolf crawled into sheep's clothing! Into the oven, into the oven!” She crumpled up the magazine and threw it into the stove. Those present were taken aback by surprise and sat silently, listening to the magazine humming in the stove as it burned out. Mother was then asked: “What will happen?” Mother smiled her wide childish smile and said: “Vladimir will be there, Vladimir!” And when a schism occurred in our church, without any doubt or hesitation, we followed the one whom Mother showed us a year and a half before her death and almost five years before the events.

Like many blessed ones, Mother Alipia was surrounded by animals with whom she talked and pitied them. Mother’s cats and chickens were all somehow sick, tired, frail, with pustules and dry paws. “Why are your animals so sick?” - they once asked mother. - “People live fornication, commit incest, everything is reflected in the creatures of the earth.”

Shortly before her death, Mother Alipia gave birth to twelve kittens. Blind, they lay in a box, then they began to grow up and left one by one. Mother rejoiced every time: “Gone, gone!” Finally she said: “Almost everyone is free.” The last one remained, the strongest, the one who clung to his mother the most. After the death of the old woman, he lay down on her chest, stretched out and died.

A year before her death, Mother Alipia began to live according to one known number. She called this calendar the Jerusalem calendar. That's when it happened war prediction:

“The war will begin on the apostles Peter and Paul (the day of Saints Peter and Paul is June 29 or July 12 according to the new style). This will happen when the corpse is taken out... You will lie: there is an arm, there is a leg.... This will not be a war, but the execution of peoples for their rotten state. Dead bodies will lie in mountains, no one will undertake to bury them. The mountains and hills will disintegrate and be leveled to the ground. People will run from place to place. There will be many bloodless martyrs who will suffer for the Orthodox faith.”

“The Lord will not allow His people to die; He will keep the faithful on one prosphora.”

The predicted date for the start of the war may not correspond to the generally accepted calendar, since Mother Alipia, a year before her death in 1988, began to live according to one well-known calendar, which she called the Jerusalem calendar. Peter and Paul Day is marked on her calendar in the fall.

It is also curious that, since 2000, the church has celebrated November 2 as the day of remembrance of the New Martyrs Peter and Deacon Paul, killed during Stalinist repressions in 1937.

It is noteworthy that Nostradamus also mentions this episode in his quatrains: “when the corpse is taken out,” which will serve as the reason for the outbreak of the third world war.
She also taught: “When you drive along Khreshchatyk in Kyiv, pray, because it will fail.”

From the memories of nun Marina about Mother Alipia: “We cross the street, there are cars in three rows. Mother shook her fist at them - and the column faltered, but could have crushed us like insects. We are walking across the road without crossing, the cars are standing rooted to the spot. “Soon these turtles will completely freeze,” said the mother; “Don’t leave Kyiv,” mother punished, “there will be famine everywhere, but there is bread in Kyiv.”

To the question: when will this terrible time come? Mother Alypia showed half a finger and said: “This is how much time is left, but if we don’t repent, this won’t happen...”

In the year of the millennium of the Baptism of Rus', 1988, the blessed elder schema-nun Alipia departed to the Lord. She once mentioned that she would be buried in the Florovsky Monastery. And so it happened. After the first lithiums, the funeral services were taken to the monastery, where a conciliar funeral service was performed in the church. The burial took place on November 2. “As soon as the first snow falls, bury me.” And, indeed, that day the first snowflakes began to swirl.

After the death of mother, her house in the Goloseevsky forest was demolished, but in its place a wonderful, miraculous spring appeared. Mother’s enemies completely filled up this source and hammered the stake in such a way that it was impossible to pull it out. The nuns of the Florovsky Monastery tried to pull out the stake, but, alas, nothing worked. And suddenly one day the fountain rushed three meters into the air. So Mother Alypia, even after her death, assured her faithful children that she had found favor with the Lord, and “rivers of living water” flowed through prayers to her.

On May 18, 2006, with the blessing of His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir of Kyiv and All Ukraine, the honorable remains of nun Alypia were reburied in the Holy Protection Goloseevskaya Hermitage, in a tomb under the church in honor of the icon of the Mother of God, called the “Life-Giving Source.”

When the coffin with the remains of the ascetic was brought into the church, a cross appeared above the temple. On the same day, two healings of seriously ill patients from cancer occurred. Since the transfer of the blessed relics to the Goloseevsky Monastery, many testimonies of healing from serious illnesses have been collected.

Every day hundreds of people come to the grave of nun Alipia. Every 30th, and especially October 30th, the day of the blessed one’s repose, thousands of admirers of her memory come to Goloseevskaya Hermitage. As popular wisdom says, people do not go to an empty well.

How to get to the Holy Intercession Monastery (Goloseevskaya Hermitage) in Kyiv.

To the left of the main entrance to the monastery is the bell tower, to the right is the “Store”, where you can buy candles, icons, and the biography of Mother Alipia. For example, this photo of her in a frame costs 20 UAH:

We move towards the temple, on the right side of the temple there will be steps down to the tomb in honor of the icon of the Mother of God, called the “Life-Giving Source”. There you can pray to Mother Agapia, write her a note with a request, put food on the table so that it is sanctified.

Goloseevskaya Hermitage... My heart rejoices once again when, by the grace of God, through the incomprehensible paths of His Providence, you come to this blessed land, abundantly watered with the sweat and blood of those who lived and prayed on it. Time dissolves, disappears, and high Eternity extends its blessed Cover.
Here you feel Eternity in your heart.
Here the memory of centuries is alive.
The wind and darkness whisper to us
Holy words prayers.
And it doesn’t matter at all whether the sun is shining, raining or snow is falling - you simply don’t notice it, because here, in Goloseevo, special grace reigns... An amazing monastery with a unique destiny - a place of solitary prayers of the great Kyiv metropolitans, monastic asceticism and the intense labors of Kyiv ascetics piety, the names of many of which are hidden by inexorable time.

Kyiv, October 30, early morning, the weather leaves much to be desired. It would seem like wrapping yourself in a warm blanket and sitting at home, burying your nose in a wonderful book. But few of the Orthodox Kyivans stayed at home this morning reading a book - the road to the Holy Intercession Goloseevsky Monastery was already crowded early in the morning. People rush not only to the deserts, but also from there.

October 30 has become a special date for many Orthodox Kievites, and not only Kievites, over the past 28 years. It was on this day in 1988 that the prayer book Mother Alipia Goloseevskaya, especially revered among the people, passed away to the Lord. That’s why people rush to the Goloseevskaya hermitage - and no torrential rain can stop them. Fortunately, on this day, so that everyone could pray to the unforgettable mother, the gates of the monastery were open almost all night.

Just think: tens of thousands of pilgrims from different parts of Ukraine and neighboring countries came to pray to Mother Alipia on the 27th anniversary of her death at the Goloseevsky Monastery. After all, it was on the territory of this monastery (then destroyed), in a dilapidated tiny house, that she spent her last years of life - from 1979 to 1988. - nun Alipia (Avdeeva).

“Kiev Matrona”, “blessed”, “mommy” - this is how Orthodox Christians call Mother Alypia and go to her for prayerful help with the most secret things and, of course, with flowers or bread.

As Tatyana from Kyiv said (she heard a lot about mother from the nuns of the Florovsky Monastery who knew her. - Author), on the way to church Mother Alipia always brought a lot of bread to the temple. She put it on the funeral table and said: “Always have at least a piece of bread with you.”

“That’s why I always try to bring some bread when I go to my mother. And in general, when I go to church,” added Tatyana, standing in line at the tomb of Mother Alipia with bread and flowers.

While an endless stream of people went to venerate the tomb of their mother, other believers hurried to the Liturgy in the main church of the monastery, consecrated in honor of the “Life-Giving Spring” icon of the Mother of God.

“There will be a bishop’s service, let’s go in, don’t get lost,” the pilgrims who arrived in Kyiv from neighboring regions whispered to each other.

The funeral Liturgy on the occasion of the 29th anniversary of the death of nun Alipia (Avdeeva) was celebrated today at the Holy Intercession Goloseevsky Monastery in Kyiv. The service on the square in front of the main church of the monastery was led by the abbot of the monastery, Bishop Isaac of Vorzel.

Despite the drizzling rain, which weakened during the “Mercy of the World” and stopped before communion, many people prayed at the Liturgy - believers received communion from 15 Chalices.

During the service, special petitions were heard for the repose of the ever-memorable ascetic.

“Dear brothers and sisters, today is the day of memory of Mother Alipia... With her life, she showed us an example of how to live in the modern world. If other saints lived in other times, then she is our contemporary and knows the problems, temptations that modern people experience, and most importantly, how to fulfill the Christian commandments that the Lord left us in the Holy Gospel,” Bishop Isaac said in his sermon.

After the Liturgy, the clergy went down to serve a requiem mass in the tomb under the temple, where a long line of pilgrims had been standing for a long time.

After the service, a funeral litany was served for nun Alipia, who rested in the lower chapel of the monastery. Funeral services were served throughout the day. And the pilgrims kept coming and coming, and the tail of the queue to the tomb had long gone beyond the monastery.
A line of Orthodox Christians lined up around the cross, erected on the site of the old woman’s house, near the chapel. People left notes with the most secret requests, asking the old woman for intercession, or thanking Mother Alipia for her help and prayers.

Miracles through prayers

“I came to my mother for the second time,” said Raisa Romanova from the village. Sokolovo, Zhytomyr region. “Three months ago I didn’t even know that here, in Goloseevo, there was such a chapel for Mother Alipia. For the first time, we were brought here by Father Vasily, the dean of the Chervonoarmeysky district. He told us about Mother Alipia.

I coughed for three months, nothing helped. And I wanted to sing in the choir, but I couldn’t. I no longer knew what other medications I should take. And so I came to my mother’s tomb and very tearfully asked: “Mother, heal me so that I can sing in church” (crying). And about 7 days after the trip to my mother, the cough stopped!

Now I can sing in the choir. And today is the day of Mother Alipia’s death, and I came here to thank her and ask for help for my children and grandchildren. She heard my tearful request, and I am very grateful to my mother. And I will always go to her, thank her for her prayerful help before our Lord.”

“Only a couple of photographs of my mother and a 10-second video, miraculously found, have reached us.”
Surprisingly, there is practically no documented information left about the life of the nun Alipia (Avdeeva), who is known even far beyond the borders of Ukraine. And she didn’t like talking about herself or being photographed. We have reached only a couple of photos of mother and a 10-second, miraculously found video, which the children shot on an old film, where mother blesses the parents of these children. So all information about the old woman is, to a greater extent, based on the memories of people who were lucky enough to be her spiritual children, or who simply knew her.

However, even those insignificant facts that we know do not fit well into our consciousness. Even in early childhood, Mother Alipia was left an orphan and soon began to wander around the world - she visited all the abodes of God. Then she was arrested - she had to count the days in a prison cell for 10 years. Then came the Great Patriotic War - and she had to fight for the lives of her neighbors and herself in Nazi Germany, where she was taken to forced labor.

Her spiritual children recalled that Mother Alypia wore strange chains around her neck - a large bunch of keys. According to the nun’s stories, these chains were connected with Nazi Germany. While in a German camp, my mother worked at some factory and at night, according to her stories, she went to the bars, cut them and let people out.

“Everyone would leave and remain alive, and no one knew where they went,” mother said. And supposedly for every person she saved, a key was added to her neck. The old woman wore this heavy bunch of keys around her neck until her death.

Many more who saw this slightly strange hermit nun during her lifetime thought that she had a hump. However, it was not a hump at all, but an icon of her heavenly patroness - the holy martyr Agathia, which Mother Alipia wrapped in canvas and carried on her back.

And one more detail that does not fit into our consciousness. How can you live in a linden tree hollow? But this was also the case in the life of the nun Alipia (the feat of stylite life), for which she was blessed by the then governor of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, Archimandrite Kronid, who, by the way, tonsured her as a nun.

“The facts of her life raise puzzling questions - the facts of her helping people do not raise questions”
Of course, many facts from the life of nun Alipia raise puzzling questions and discussions among scientists and even clergy. But the facts about mother’s help and about various cases of healing through prayers to her do not raise questions among those who have experienced this help themselves.

Svetlana LICHKOVSKAYA from Vishnevoye

“MOTHER ALPIA HELPED CURE YOUR BACK”

“I had a spinal hernia - terrible pain, I couldn’t even bend over. I came to the church, prayed to Mother Alipia, and I felt that by the end of the service I was feeling better. I left the temple and my back started to hurt again. I come again to Goloseevsky and ask: “Mother Alypia, pray to Christ our God, help me, I want to bow to the ground, but I can’t.” I didn’t notice how I was bowing to the ground, my back sank. I bend over and it doesn’t hurt. I left the temple and bowed to the Mother of God. As soon as I left the monastery, my back hurt again.

Next time I come here and ask: “Mother Alipia, if God heals me through your prayers, give me a sign so that my back won’t hurt for three days.” So I prayed, and, imagine, I didn’t get sick for exactly three days. And again then terrible pain. And then I prayed again: “Mother Alipia, pray to the Lord God that the Lord will give me strength, so that I can travel to the churches of God and believe.”

You know, from that time on I let it go and never had enough again. But I had a hernia in my back. I go to the monastery all the time now. But the first time I came here, I especially remember - such grace, such a flight of soul.

And there was also this. My friend’s blood pressure remained at 300 all the time. A terrible condition. He and I come here - and his blood pressure drops to 140. With medications, his blood pressure never dropped below 170, but here - here! We’ll come here and everything will be fine right away.”

Ekaterina and Ksenia (mother and daughter), Kyiv

“WE HAVE BEEN GOING TO MOTHER FOR 8 YEARS – WE ARE ASKING FOR HELP, THEN WE COME THANK YOU”

“We have been going to Mother Alipia for a very long time - even when Mother’s grave was in the Forest Cemetery. She helps with everything. We always try to bring flowers to her. We miraculously entered the university, we are already receiving our second education - all with my mother.

We’ve been going to my mother like this for eight years now—we ask her for help, then we come back and thank her. And so it is in everything. All children, I have three of them, always need help with something. Help that does not always depend on ourselves. And somehow God controls. Of course, also through mother’s prayers before the Lord for us.”

Igor and Irina, Kyiv

“IN THE MORNING MY WIFE AND I WAS WITH MOTHER, AND IN THE EVENING OUR SON WAS BORN”

“On the eve of Mother Alipia’s memorial day, our family friend told me about her. My wife and I have been living in Kyiv for many years, parishioners of the Vvedensky Monastery, but we knew nothing about this ascetic. On October 30, we arrived in Goloseevo for the first Liturgy, at 3 am. On the same day, a few hours later, everything started - and at 20.08 our son was born: 4 kg. 660 gr., 55 cm. We were very worried throughout my wife’s pregnancy, as she had health problems, but everything went well. I immediately called all my relatives and told how Mother Alipia helped us.”

Mother has not yet been glorified, but people have long called her “blessed” or “saint”
It is a known fact that mother has not yet been canonized as a saint - the documents for the canonization of nun Alipia are still being considered by the Commission for the Canonization of Saints at the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Although Orthodox Christians among themselves have long been calling Mother Alipia “blessed,” “fool for Christ’s sake,” or even “saint.” How do those who were lucky enough to walk “the same roads” with her or communicate with people who knew her closely relate to mother?

Archimandrite Isaac (Andronik), abbot of the Holy Intercession Monastery (Goloseevskaya Hermitage):

“BEFORE BEING GLORIFIED, 30 YEARS NEED TO PASS, BUT SOMETIMES THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS”

“People say that Mother Alipia is the Kiev blessed Matrona of Moscow. We see this veneration with our own eyes: despite the bad weather, already at 3 o’clock in the morning there was a line to her tomb. And the voice of the people is the voice of God.

The fact that people call her a saint, then, in my opinion, they have every right to do so. Because by turning to Mother Alipia with prayers, they receive help. After all, we know that if a person does not please God, then through him we will never receive help. And we see not tens, but hundreds of thousands of people who received help through their prayers to mother. And all these thousands of people who came to mother today came to thank her.

I have been serving at the monastery for more than 20 years. At first, I admit, I was not a fan of Mother Alipia. I have always been careful in such matters, because in life you don’t need to go blindly, but analyze everything, separate the wheat from the chaff. But about 15-17 years ago, I saw that the life that my mother lived before her departure into eternity, she dedicated to God. I saw that people really receive help through their prayers, and this proves that she is a servant of God.

After all, what do people say? That they don’t go to an empty well, but if they came after drawing water, they come to this well again and again. And when 8-9 years ago I stood in line to see Mother Matrona of Moscow, turning to her with my everyday requests, I suddenly realized that in my prayers I remembered not the name of blessed Matrona, but the name of Mother Alipia. I got scared. I think: I wonder how it is? I then realized: “My dear, why are you running to the Moscow blessed one, you have your own Matrona in the monastery, contact her, she will help.” And indeed, no matter how many times I turned to Mother Alipia, she always helped.

If I tell you how she helped me, people will say: “Yes, this is an advertisement.” So I won't tell you. I will remain silent and say one thing: look what is happening in the monastery - tens of thousands of people are standing in line to see their mother. So, last year, on the day of her death, 100 thousand people visited Mother, and this year about 80 thousand, no less. This is proof of her acceptance before God.

The fact that Mother Alipia is a saint of God is a fact; the time has simply not yet come to canonize her. Before glorification, 30 years must pass. But sometimes there are exceptions."

The flow of people to Mother Alipia did not stop until the evening. Another line stretches to the chapel at the site of the nun’s exploits. Many people came with flowers. Every year, starting from the evening of October 29, more than 100 thousand believers from different parts of Ukraine and from abroad visit the Goloseevsky Monastery per day. In 2016 there were about 130 thousand of them; this year, during severe bad weather, according to preliminary estimates, there were more than 80 thousand.

“On this day, people come to nun Alipia no longer to ask, but to thank her for the help that is provided to us. In past years, more than 100 thousand people came to thank Mother for her prayers. And these are only those few who have the opportunity to come on this day,” Bishop Isaac told reporters.

“Mother Alypia continued the spiritual exploits of the Goloseevsky elders. She carried out the feat of foolishness for the sake of Christ, prayed day and night, received people, treated their soul and body. By humbly bearing sorrows, the Lord gave her the gift of healing and insight. People with their troubles and pain still come to the nun every day. In the tomb where the blessed old woman rests, at any moment, on any day, 20-30 people stand on their knees in prayer. And today, through Mother Alipia, people come to God,” said Bishop Isaac. When asked when the canonization will take place, he replied: “We are still collecting materials. When God pleases, then canonization will take place.”

Among the pilgrims are both adults and children.

“We came to honor the memory of Mother Alipia. She helps us a lot, protects us. We love her very much and respect her,” said Maria and Alexandra from Vasilkov (Kiev region). Mary came to the funeral Liturgy on October 30 and last year. Together they visit the Goloseevsky Monastery also regardless of the date. “We feel very good here,” the women shared.

Biographical milestones

Let us remind you that Mother Alipia (Agafia Tikhonovna Avdeeva) was born on March 16, 1905. At the age of about forty, she was tonsured a monk at the Holy Dormition Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. In 1979, she settled on the ruins of the Goloseevskaya Hermitage, where she carried out her spiritual feat.

The nun died on October 30, 1988 and was buried in the Forest Cemetery. On May 18, 2006, the body of the blessed old woman was reburied in the Goloseevsky Monastery, in a tomb under the temple in honor of the icon of the Mother of God “Life-Giving Source”.

Nun Alypia has not yet been canonized, but her veneration can be compared with the veneration of Blessed Matrona by Orthodox Christians. Days of special commemoration of nun Alipia are celebrated on the 30th of each month (in February - the 28th), March 16, May 18 (the day of the discovery of the relics).

Through the prayers of St. Alexy Goloseevsky and Mother Alipia, and the labors of Archimandrite (now bishop) Isaac (Andronik), on the site of the monastery of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, which was destroyed during the Soviet years, a monastery grew - the Holy Intercession Goloseevskaya Hermitage.

The monastery continues to develop. A new Holy Trinity Church is being built. The spiritual and vocational school named after St. John of Damascus, which has been operating on the territory of the monastery for 7 years, recruited girls for the first time this year.

Yuri MOLCHANOV, music and TV producer (while making a film about Mother Alipia, he talked with people who knew her closely)

“THE LORD, THROUGH PEOPLE LIKE MOTHER ALIPIA, BRINGS PEOPLE TO THE CHURCH...”

I witnessed the discovery of the remains of Mother Alipia. The story of the acquisition, by the way, was a little wild. The fact is that Father Isaac called me just after my birthday and said that I had to go to the Forest Cemetery at night. Mother’s remains were transported specially at night so that the believers would not be alarmed.

When I called the TV channel and said that I needed a car, a cameraman, an assistant and a camera at three o’clock in the morning at the cemetery, my colleagues thought that I must have celebrated my birthday too brightly.

“Of course, Molchanov, but what if we go to the cemetery at three in the morning.” But I insisted that I needed a camera. Until the end, the guys thought that we were going to film in some club (smiles). When they saw that we were going to the cemetery, we asked in fear: “Molchanov, what’s going on?”

And when the cameraman had already filmed everything, he said a brilliant thing: “If it weren’t for this camera peephole, I probably would have gone to the psychiatric hospital. I decided for myself: I’m making a movie, so I don’t care about all this.” When the remains were already in the church in Goloseevo, and we filmed everything, we realized: something had happened to us. There were no special effects - the Angels did not descend, the Cherubs did not sing, but the state inside was blissful. We understood that something historic had happened.

As for my mother’s influence on me... I can’t say that I had healings or prophecies, but I witnessed a lot of amazing things associated with her.

For example, a very close friend of mine could not have children with his wife for a long time. And so, after spending half a day in line to see his mother under the completely unoptimistic accompaniment of his wife, because they were late for a trip to the sea, they had a child. For 13 years they could not conceive a child - and such a miracle. Now a wonderful girl is growing up.

And I know a lot of such examples. But there are healings, mother’s help, and there is how this should be understood. It must be remembered that Mother Alipia is not a “miracle shop”, not an “emergency room”, not an “emergency repair bureau for human bodies”. But, thank God, that even coming here, as if to a pharmacy, having felt the grace of God on themselves, people change their lives and no longer return, as Father Andrei Tkachev said, to “cinema, wine and dominoes.” I will also say that the Lord, through people like Mother Alypia, brings people to the Church, who then remain in It forever.

And I am very happy that the Lord allowed me to touch the feat of my mother. After all, this is fantastic: what an ascetic man was! This is the feat of the pillar, and the feat of confession, and the feat of foolishness. She lived a very difficult life - the death of her parents, arrest, war, life in Soviet times without documents, with the mask of madness. But back then homeless people were caught and arrested. I think that with her feat she deserved to serve people like this after her death. I am sure that the Commission for the Canonization of Saints will still canonize her. But don't let this scare people away.

Of course, praying “Pray to God for me, pleaser of God Alypia” is not entirely correct according to the canons of the Church, but praying “If you are a pleaser of God, then pray to God for me” is possible. But these are probably formalities, because turning to God, to the saints may not be contained in canons and rules, the main thing is that these prayers contain the soul of the person praying.

I understand that such veneration of mother, akin to veneration of a saint, can irritate someone. Even within the Church there are discussions about whether she is a saint or not. However, this type of feat - foolishness - does not allow one to recognize holiness the first time. Although people who communicated with Mother Alipia recognized that holiness in her. Well, you will know by the fruits... And the fruit of deeds and the main evidence of the “difficulty” and foolishness of mother are kilometer-long queues to see her - from early morning until night.”

...The long autumn day was rolling towards sunset. And people kept coming and going to Mother Alipia Goloseevskaya until late at night. With flowers and the most intimate – faith, prayer and hope.

Who is Mother Alipia? Did her prophecies come true? Why is she so revered in the Goloseevskaya Hermitage? You can find out about this by reading our article!

Without a passport

Almost all biographical information about her is only approximate, drawn from the little that she sometimes told about herself.

The year of her birth is now given as 1910. But in some biographies you can find both 1905 and 1908.

Mother Alipia lived her life without a passport and without registration. She never had her own shelter or reliable housing. She did not allow herself to be photographed. This explains such a small number of her images - literally a few. A few more moments of newsreel have been preserved...

She is our contemporary. Mother Alipia left earthly life on October 30, 1988. She predicted the Chernobyl disaster, the Filaret split (five years before the event) and times, it seems, of new monstrous trials; war is predicted.

Wanderer

She was born in the Penza province, into the Orthodox Mordovian family of the Avdeevs. At baptism she was given the name of the holy martyr Agafya, whose icon she carried on her back all her life.

In 1918, the girl miraculously remained alive: she went out to her neighbors. She returned - her parents were killed. An eight-year-old child, she spent the entire night reading the Psalter over their cold bodies...

Wandered to holy places. When talking about something, Mother Alipia referred to herself in the masculine gender: “I was everywhere: in Pochaev, in Pyukhtitsa, in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. I've been to Siberia three times. I went to all the churches, lived for a long time, and was accepted everywhere.” Let us remember that there are thousands of kilometers between the Pukhtitsa Assumption Monastery in Estonia and Siberia... She said that she was in prison for a long time: “They pushed me, beat me, interrogated me...” They starved her... Usually they didn’t ask her about the details, and here’s why: “in In mother’s presence there was such a reverent silence and it was so good to be with her that they were afraid to break this silence.” But she also told other people the details: “One day she was arrested and put in a common cell. There were many priests in the prison where she was kept. Every night 5-6 people were taken away forever. Finally, only three remained in the cell: one priest, his son and mother.

The priest said to his son: “Let’s serve a memorial service for ourselves, today they will take us away by dawn”... And he said to his mother: “And today you will leave here alive.”

They served a memorial service, father and son performed the funeral service, and at night they were taken away forever...” Mother Alypia said that the Apostle Peter saved her - he opened the door and led her past all the guards through the back door, and ordered her to walk along the sea. She walked without deviating from the coastline, “without food or water for eleven days. She climbed steep rocks, broke off, fell, rose, crawled again, tearing her elbows to the bone. She had deep scars on her hands...” It is believed that it was at that time that she visited the elder hieroschemamonk Theodosius (Kashin; 1841-1948), who lived in the mountains near Novorossiysk. She said: “I was with Theodosius, I saw Theodosius, I know Theodosius.” It is believed that at the same time the wonderworker Theodosius blessed her for the feat of foolishness.

There is no information about how and where she studied. But she read Church Slavonic and Russian well, and sometimes spoke and prayed in Mordovian.

During the war, Agafya Tikhonovna Avdeeva attended forced labor in Germany. Her cell attendant Martha recalled: “Mother told me that when she was at work in Germany, at night she read the Psalter for women who had children or sick old people at home (in their homeland), and took them outside the barbed wire and they left safely home. Mother herself left even before the end of the war, crossed the front line and went on foot to Kyiv ... "

In Lavra

In Rus' there are no easy ways out of the traps of history. The Kiev Pechersk Lavra, after the defeat in the 1920s, came to life in the fall of 1941, under the Germans. Hitler's authorities opened churches, of course, not out of secret sympathy for historical Russia, but out of situational conjuncture, wanting to present to the population the advantages of the new world order, contrasting it with Bolshevik attitudes.

In the churches of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, lamps were lit again, services resumed, attracting the surviving devotees of piety who had gone through arrests, exile, and camps. Mother Alypia said about her stay in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra: “I was in the Lavra for 20 years. I sat in a hollow tree for three years, it was cold, there was snow, I was hungry, but I endured everything.” Twenty years are exactly the years when the Lavra was opened, from the occupation of 1941 to Khrushchev’s March of 1961.

Fr. became Agafya Tikhonovna’s spiritual mentor. Kronid (in the world Kondrat Sergeevich Sakun; 1883-1954; since 1945 archimandrite, since 1947 - rector of the Lavra). At the right time, Fr. Kronid tonsured Agafya into monasticism with the name Alypius - in honor of the Monk Alypius of Pechersk.

According to memories dating back to 1947, Mother Alypia was thin, slender, and neatly combed. Her long brown hair was braided in a basket braid around her head. Everyone called her Lipa, she lived “in a ravine behind the Lavra fence right under the open sky... Lipa had an unusually deep, pure, warm, affectionate, loving gaze of light gray eyes that made her look young, transforming her into a teenage girl... Into a simple , modest clothes, she was always neat and clean. There was no unpleasant smell coming from her, which usually happens from people traveling, spending the night at train stations, and not washing for a long time.”

It was no less striking to those who watched her that she lived in a hollow in which she could not grow tall, near which hungry dogs howled on snowy, frosty nights.

This period probably dates back to the post-war period, when whoever received the passportless Mother Alipia took administrative risks. She recalled: “When it was very cold, I went into the corridor to the monks to warm up. One will pass by, give bread, and another will drive away - there is no need for you, woman, to sit here. But I wasn’t offended by them...” In particularly severe frosts, some were allowed to bask in the canopy. And then: “Are you warm? Well, go save yourself”...

"Special Forces"

The fool is an imbecile, a homeless person, a “miracle in feathers.” Who hasn't met them? And they won’t let someone like that on the bus, and on the street children will throw snowballs, or even stones. In this environment, very dubious for a “pure society”, among the masses of mentally ill or degenerate people, almost indistinguishable from them, an ascetic can live, consciously renouncing the benefits of civilization, possessing the gift of extraordinary love, and perhaps miracle-working - healing, divination.

The famous Kyiv priest Fr. Andrei Tkachev, a wonderful preacher and writer, in one of his speeches (intelligibly for a modern person) explained in this way who a holy fool for Christ’s sake is.

Using an analogy with the army of the spiritual army, he called the holy fools “special forces,” as it were, a “special unit” among a host of other saints - martyrs, confessors, hermits, hermits...

First, go to Alexey...

After the closure of the Lavra, Mother Alipia lived for many years wherever she had to. In 1979, on the eve of the Olympics, a passportless nun was taken to an empty house in the Goloseevsky forest, in an area remote from city highways.

Many well-known ascetics of the faith are associated with the monastery, among them the Monk Alexy Goloseevsky (Shepelev; 1840-1917), a perspicacious elder revered throughout imperial Russia.

To the grave of Fr. Alexia Mother Alipia sent everyone who came to her: “First go to Alexei and bow, then to me.” Or: “Go, the priest is serving there”...

Miracle Worker

Many noted her absolute selflessness e nie, extraordinary love and compassion for people.

Those who knew her have no doubt that the spiritual world, invisible to us, was opened to her, that she read in the hearts of people as in an open book.

Almost everyone remembers that she treated people with an ointment that she prepared herself. This treatment, at times, was so miraculous that others believe that the healing power was not in the ointment itself, but in the prayer of the amazing nun. There is evidence of cures for the most serious illnesses. Moreover, miracles are still happening today...

Everyone remembers her abundant treats. No matter how many people came to her, even three dozen, she fed everyone. Alexey A. says: “At the table, during lunch, she took care of everyone, and when there was not enough space for everyone at the table, she walked away, sat down on the board, and said: “I’ve already eaten.” She always put a lot of food on the plates and demanded that they eat everything. When they left her, she asked if they needed anything for the trip. Several times she offered me and my friends money, as if predicting an imminent need for it...”

Nun L. recalled: “We were going from church with Mother in a trolleybus, and one woman (fellow traveler) seemed to say to herself: “This old woman has a lot of money, they give everyone.” Mother heard and simply answered in a childish way: “They say that the chickens are milked, but whoever gives me a penny, I’ll take it to church, I’ll buy candles and light it for him.”

She always brought a lot of rolls and bread to church for the funeral table, bought large candles...

One day three young men came to her. One was skeptical.

Mother Alipia looked at everyone carefully, and suddenly said to the skeptic: “It is a terrible sin to get married; The soul will go to hell if it does not repent.” The guy's face changed. It turned out that she exposed the sin of Sodom.

The young man stayed to talk. It is unknown whether there was repentance. But a month later he died suddenly.

She told someone: “You’ll be lost without a wife.” To two young people who, having read the lives of the saints, wanted to go to the Caucasus, to save themselves in a deserted place, she suddenly said: “Here are the ancient ascetics!” And then she added: “Now is not the time and not for you!” And she tried to stop another young man, who was dreaming of a feat of foolishness: “Don’t you dare, they’ll kill you.” He didn’t listen and died.

Alexey A., who once did not even think about spiritual education, once said: “You will graduate from the seminary and you will be a sexton here not far from here.” Alexey was surprised and began to argue. Two years later, a seminary opened in Kyiv, he graduated from it and then served as a sexton near Goloseevo, in the Chinese desert.

Five years before her death, she also spoke about the revival of the Goloseevsky monastery. Once I was walking through the monastery ruins, accompanied by the sisters of the Florovsky Monastery, and suddenly exclaimed, as if they could see: “Girls, look: there will also be a monastery and service here...” It was hard to believe it. The Goloseevskaya Hermitage began to come to life in 1993. In the same year, St. Alexy Goloseevsky was glorified by the Church as a saint (on the feast of Equal-to-the-Apostles Grand Duke Vladimir).

Grief is coming

People could not understand her phrases: “The ground is burning, grief is coming.” She probably didn’t know such words as “reactor” and “radiation accident”. I started talking about the fact that “grief is coming” back in the winter, long before Chernobyl on April 26. And the day before the accident, she walked down the street, crying out in prayer: “Lord! Have mercy on the babies, have mercy on the people!” She advised the people who came to her that day: “Close the doors and windows tightly, there will be a lot of gas.” When the accident happened, they asked: should we leave? She said: no. When asked what to do with food, she taught: “Wash, read “Our Father” and “Virgin Mary”, cross yourself and eat and you will be healthy”...

She more than once publicly spoke negatively about M. Denisenko, at that time the Kiev Metropolitan. Alexey A. recalled: “Seeing Filaret’s photograph, she said: “He’s not ours.” We began to explain to Matushka that this is our metropolitan, thinking that she did not know him, but she again firmly repeated: “He is not ours.” Then we did not understand the meaning of her words, but now we are surprised how many years in advance Mother foresaw everything.”

Once in the Church of the Ascension of the Lord, which is on Demeevka, of which she was a parishioner, during the bishop’s service she suddenly exclaimed, foreseeing the future: “Glorious, glorious, but you will die a peasant.” That time she was kicked out of the temple.

N.T. recalls: “We were sitting at Mother’s, talking. The stove had long since burned out, dinner was cooked. A.R. showed a magazine in which there was a large photograph of M.A. Denisenko. Mother grabbed the magazine, poked him in the eyes with two fingers and shouted: “Uh-oh enemy, how much grief you will bring to people, how much evil you will do. The wolf crawled into sheep's clothing! Into the oven, into the oven!” She crumpled up the magazine and threw it into the stove. Those gathered were taken aback by surprise and sat silently, listening to the magazine humming in the stove as it burned out. Having come to my senses, I asked Mother: “What will happen?” Mother smiled her wide childish smile and said: “Vladimir will be there, Vladimir!” And when a schism occurred in our church, without any doubt or hesitation, we followed the one whom Mother showed us a year and a half before her death and almost five years before the events.”

There is also a prophecy about the coming war. “States will differ in terms of money.

This will not be a war, but the execution of peoples for their rotten state. Dead bodies will lie in mountains, no one will undertake to bury them. Mountains and hills will fall apart and be leveled to the ground.

People will run from place to place. There will be many bloodless martyrs who will suffer for the Orthodox Faith.” “The war will begin against the apostles Peter and Paul. You will lie: there is an arm, there is a leg. This will happen when the body is taken out.” A corpse is usually understood as a mausoleum deceased. About the date “on Peter and Paul,” as it was later understood, it was not said about the Day of the Chief Apostles, which is celebrated on July 12/29. In 1987, according to her calendar, which she called the Jerusalem calendar, this day was on the Transfiguration - August 19/6.

She also taught: “When you drive along Khreshchatyk in Kyiv, pray, because it will fail.”

Shine

She knew about the day of her death and warned her in advance. Nun F.: “In April 1988, I brought Mother the Church calendar, and she asked: “Look what day it will be on October 30.” I looked and said: “Sunday.” She somehow repeated meaningfully: “Sunday.” After her death, we realized that then, in April, Mother revealed to us the day of her death - more than six months before her.” She was buried at the Kiev Forest Cemetery, on the site of the Florovsky Monastery. Without a passport or registration – that also seemed like a miracle...

There are documented cases of healing through prayers to her. At least once, people saw an extraordinary glow around her cross in the evening.

Mother’s relics were raised and transported to Goloseevo on May 18, 2006. On that day, the author of these lines, by a lucky chance, ended up in Goloseevo. The relics were already hidden in the lower part of the “Life-Giving Source” temple under construction. And where the old woman’s house once stood, near a symbolic grave with a cross, the priest began to serve a memorial service. I raised my head up. In the May blue sky - high above the cross - a thin ring of the sun, called a “halo” by scientists, sparkled widely. Has anyone else seen it? Everyone was praying, no one looked up. Later I learned that in the morning, when the first funeral service was served at the Life-Giving Spring, people saw a glowing cross in the sky...

Oleg Slepynin

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Revered Tomb

On the northern outskirts of Kyiv, among pine trees and old birches, the Forest Cemetery stretches for several kilometers. In the depths, to the right of the central gate, one of the cemetery plots seems to have escaped from oblivion and atheistic captivity - it differs sharply from the already familiar marble dominance of black and brown monuments and tombstones. White crosses on humble graves speak of eternal, transformed and joyful life. This cemetery land belongs to the ancient Florovsky convent: nuns and priests who died in the second half of the last century rest here.

The Forest Cemetery arose in the 1960s, and at the same time the abbess of the Ascension Florovsky Monastery, Antonia, contributed money to the city executive committee for the 8th cemetery plot. The abbess did not imagine, of course, that this place would eventually attract pilgrims from different parts of Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and even from overseas. In the fall of 1988, the blessed nun Alipia (Avdeeva), known in the world as the holy fool for Christ's sake, the perspicacious old woman, was buried here. Nowadays, the veneration of her by the people of Kiev can only be compared with the veneration of Matryona of Moscow, although Blessed Alipia has not yet been canonized. Documents are only being collected and studied, but, according to the abbot of the Intercession Goloseevsk Hermitage, Archimandrite Isaac (Andronik), who headed this monastery revived in the 1990s, the canonization of the blessed one will take place soon. In passing, we note that Blessed Alipia asceticised precisely on the ruins of the Goloseevskaya hermitage destroyed in 1926, prayed to the saints of God who labored here in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and some were buried here: Metropolitan of Kiev Philaret (Amphiteatrov; † 1857; his relics rest in the caves of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra) and his confessor Hieroschemamonk Parthenius († 1855), for Christ's sake the holy fools elders Hieroschemamonk Theophilus († 1853) and monk Paisius († 1893), the elder confessor Hieromonk Alexy (Shepelev; † 1917). Blessed Alipia, as it were, took up this spiritual baton of the Goloseevsky ascetics and for many years prayed for the revival of the Goloseevsky hermitage. She secretly told her children that she would stay here “always, but not right away.”

But let's return to the Forest Cemetery. I had a chance to visit the Florovsky site for the first time in 1990, even before the collapse of the Union, when only her spiritual children knew about Mother Alipia’s grave. Among them were some Florovian nuns who led me to the blessed one’s grave. Dor O They talked about the old woman, about how she once lived in the hollow of a huge linden tree on the territory of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra before its closure in 1961, how through her prayers miracles of healing and God’s help were performed - like an open book, she read hearts people coming to her. She blessed many to the priesthood and monasticism, rescued many from the cold clutches of fatal diseases, and saved many from poverty and ruin in life.

From hagiographic notes about Blessed Alipia

As often happens when collecting and compiling hagiographic materials, various kinds of facts that give rise to doubt sometimes creep into the biography of the saints of God, especially when it concerns people who carried out the feat of foolishness. It is known that mother was a Mordovian by nationality and spoke Russian with errors, moreover, like all blessed ones, she spoke about herself abruptly and inconsistently, often secretly and without any comments. Nevertheless, her closest novices, or, as they are called, hozhalkas, as well as some spiritual children - philologists and journalists - managed to outline the life path of the blessed one on the pages of books, magazines and electronic sites. Here's what you can read about her childhood on the Kiev website “Blessed Alipia”:

“Blessed Alipia (Agapia Tikhonovna Avdeeva) was born presumably in 1910 in the Penza region into the pious family of Tikhon and Vassa Avdeev. The blessed old woman said that her father was strict, and her mother was very kind, a great hard worker and very neat. Sometimes he would put all sorts of treats in his apron and order her to take it to the poor in their village; Mom gave out especially a lot of gifts on holidays. When it was time to study, Agapia was sent to school. Lively, fast, quick-witted, she couldn’t help but give advice to everyone. The girl was transferred to another class, and among the children a year older than her, Agapia was distinguished by her intelligence and intelligence. In 1918, Agapia’s parents were shot. All night the eight-year-old girl herself read the Psalter for the dead. For some time Agapia lived with her uncle; Having studied at school for only two years, she went to “wander” to holy places... During the years of unbelief, she spent ten years in prison; despite the difficult conditions of detention, she tried to observe fasting and prayed incessantly.”

Further in the life, the story is told about the miraculous liberation from prison, about the appearance of the Apostle Peter to the saint. Comparing this fact with the further prayer life of the old woman, one can understand why she prayed for many years in the Kiev Demeevsky Church directly at the large icon of the apostles Peter and Paul in the right aisle. The biography also mentions the meeting of the wanderer Agapia with the perspicacious hieroschemamonk Theodosius, who lived in the post-war period near Novorossiysk in the village of Gorny (former village of Krymskaya) and blessed her for the feat of foolishness. Mother herself used to say about this: “I was with Theodosius, I saw Theodosius, I know Theodosius.”

But the life of the blessed one in Kyiv is most fully described - from the 1960s to 1988 - for there is both documentary evidence of the facts and numerous testimonies of her spiritual children and everyone who communicated with her. Mother wore chains in the form of a huge bunch of keys, and on her chest, also under her clothes, an icon. Almost every day she brought bags of bread to the temple that people brought her, bought many candles and placed them in front of the icons herself. By the way, long before the schism, she once denounced former Metropolitan Filaret (Denisenko) right during a service, for which she was expelled from the church. It is also known that on the eve of 1986, when the Chernobyl disaster occurred, my mother was very worried and talked about “terrible fires.” They say that at the beginning of April 1986, she left her hut in the Goloseevsky forest for many days and walked around the entire city with a staff, praying for its salvation.

I heard and learned many wonderful things about the blessed life. But then, in the cemetery, all this was perceived as a fairy tale.

And yet I believed

I then reacted to the nuns’ stories with a certain degree of distrust from an “educated Soviet journalist” who grew up in an atheistic environment, although he was a church member. While the lithium was being celebrated, I peered into the face of the blessed one in the oval photograph of the tombstone cross with the inscription “Fear God!” As I later found out, some possessed person came here several times, turned the cross inside out and threw it aside. Apparently, this inscription was intended to admonish him. The piercing gaze of the holy fool penetrated into the very heart, and peaceful peace descended into the soul.

“Ask your mother for help if you have any problems in life,” the nuns advised. - She helps everyone.

I didn’t know what to ask for. Is it about the Nauchfilm film studio accepting my script about Father Mikhail Boyko, a famous Kiev confessor, the son of a repressed priest, who served as a volunteer mortarman throughout the Great Patriotic War? As I later learned, Father Mikhail himself treated Blessed Alipia with extreme distrust, considering her simply ill. At one time, he had the opportunity to serve as a deacon in the Ascension Church on Demeevka, where the holy fool prayed for many years. And yet, I prayerfully turned to Mother Alipia: “Pray, blessed mother, that my script will be accepted and people will learn about the persecution of the Church and its ministers.” My surprise knew no bounds when literally a few days later the editor of the film studio called me and said that the script had been accepted. Moreover, the director who shot the film about Father Mikhail found chronicle footage in the archives that captured the funeral service of peasants who died of starvation in the Poltava region. And what is surprising: the father of Archpriest Mikhail Boyko, priest Pavel Boyko, was included in the frame, and the little boy who served him was his son Mikhail. The director himself had no idea that the future father Mikhail was in his film. And the hero of the film exclaimed during the screening:

- This is my father! And here I am, next to you, barefoot!

After watching the film, I told Father Michael about my prayer at the saint’s grave, about how the script was not accepted for a long time, and then suddenly accepted. And that such a discovery of newsreel footage was also due to the prayers of the blessed one. To which the elder shook his head in surprise and said after a pause:

– God is marvelous in His saints!..

Then, visiting the grave of my parents, I visited my mother and met Vera Fedorovna Udovichenko, the compiler of books about Blessed Alipia, which included dozens of memoirs of the clergy, monastics and laity - both those who knew mother during her lifetime, and those who received help through her prayers after her death.

"And her memory forever and ever..."

I knew many of the clergy personally and then, after reading the book “Acquired Love,” published with the blessing of Metropolitan Vladimir in 2005, I talked with them and asked them about the nun Alipia. The former rector of the Ascension Demeevskaya Church, Father Methodius Finkevich (who became a monk in the Pochaev Lavra in his later years) revered Mother very much, and told how, during Alipia’s lifetime, he visited her house in the Goloseevsky forest. Then Father Methodius, still a young priest, served in the Vladimir Cathedral, and mother kept asking him:

- But you serve in Demeevka?

- No, mother, I came to you from the cathedral...

- Ah, from the cathedral...

And so every time. “Yes, the old woman is already being forgotten,” thought Father Methodius. But he was soon appointed rector of the Demeevskaya Church, where he served for more than 20 years. When I told Father Methodius about the incident with the movie, he remarked:

“She was the embodiment of meekness and gentleness. I pray to her even in small things.

And in the book about mother there are stories about how she helped people in the most difficult life situations - those who were already on the brink of the grave, lost from drunkenness, were in the networks of sectarianism, lost children, husbands and wives, faced difficult life choices, not knowing how to proceed…

Among her spiritual children is the former Bishop of Tulchin and Bratslav Ippolit (Khilko), who is now retired. In his memoirs about the old woman, the bishop told how she predicted the episcopacy for him, and also about the fire that happened when he was studying at the Moscow Theological Academy: the fire broke out in 1986 just on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross - five students then gave their souls to Christ.

“And my sister, who still didn’t know anything, was told about the fire by Mother Alipia: “The fire happened!” And he didn't sleep! I walked here and there!” According to my mother’s prayers, everything worked out – I really didn’t sleep that night.

The bishop listed several more amazing incidents from his life, how, through the prayers of the blessed one, he managed to save a finger that he almost lost while working with an electric saw - this was revealed to her, how she helped him fly to Jerusalem, where he carried out obedience in the Russian spiritual mission , and much more. I will give an episode of their last meeting. This was just before leaving for Jerusalem. Mother loved flowers very much, and Vladyka brought a bouquet.

- Mother, accept the flowers. They say they are a symbol of life.

- Life, you say? Then install it yourself.

This was their last meeting on earth.

God revealed to the blessed woman the time of her death. Mother went to the Lord on October 30, 1988. She asked: “What day does October 30th fall on?” She also said that it would snow at her funeral, which is what happened afterwards.

She lives in people's memory. Her name is heard at memorials in all the churches of Kyiv and beyond. The icon of the blessed one was written long ago by admirers and an akathist was compiled. But, apparently, the “fullness of times” unknown to us must be fulfilled before the words of her heavenly glorification are heard under the arches of churches.

Now the blessed one rests in the lower tier of the Church of the Intercession of the Goloseevsky Monastery - her relics were transferred here five years ago, in October 2006, and people come to mother in an endless stream. The monastery is especially crowded on the day of the repose of Mother Alipia - October 30.

Nun Alipia (in the world - Agafia Tikhonovna Avdeeva) was born on March 3/16, 1905 into a pious peasant family in the village of Vysheley, Gorodishchensky district, Penza province. The blessed one's father, Tikhon Sergeevich Avdeev, was a great faster: during fasting, he ate only crackers and drank a decoction of straw. Mother, Vassa Pavlovna, was distinguished by her love of poverty: she loved to give alms and gifts to her daughter.

The spiritual gifts of the blessed one manifested themselves very early. Agathia's parents loved to pray not only at home, but also in the temple of God. Even then it was open to the girl: who goes to church to pray, and who goes to the house of God as if to a bazaar.

What kind of education Agathia received is unknown. She read the Prayer Book and Psalter fluently in Church Slavonic. When visiting someone, the future ascetic tried not to participate in conversations, but opened the Psalter and sat in a secluded corner.

The October Revolution of 1917 mercilessly turned her life upside down: a punitive detachment of Red Army soldiers burst into the Avdeevs’ house and brutally dealt with the owners. At that time, the Bolsheviks primarily killed those people who did not renounce their faith. Agathia miraculously remained alive: at that time she went to see a neighbor. Returning home, the girl saw the shot bodies of her father and mother. Suffering deeply, the teenage girl found the strength to read the Psalter over them herself.

The tragic death of her parents and subsequent trials produced a final turning point in Agathia’s soul: she took up her cross and followed Christ, ready to endure everything for Him, even painful death. Reticent by nature, she became even more silent.

For some time Agafia lived in Penza. She diligently visited the temple of God, strengthening her spiritual strength (she especially loved to pray in the Penza church in honor of the Myrrh-Bearing Women). Then the wanderer visited the holy monasteries, which in the early 1920s were miraculously preserved from destruction.

The cruel trials did not harden her heart, but made it even more merciful. The boundless human grief prompted the girl to constantly pray for the suffering and help them. The wandering life taught her to be grateful to God and people for the slightest good. Mother carried this gift of grateful love throughout her life and multiplied it many times over.

Mass repressions against believers in the 1930s did not escape her either. Agathia was arrested and imprisoned. The confessor experienced all the horrors of imprisonment: many hours of exhausting interrogations, accompanied by torture and insults, a constant expectation of death, which was worse than any, the most severe torment. But these trials became a cleansing crucible for her. While enduring suffering, the confessor constantly consoled her fellow prisoners, prayed and cared for them.

Australian resident Galina Kelvina Rashid also testified that, while in captivity, Agathia managed to transmit letters to freedom, calling not to forget God and believe in Him. Mrs. Kelvina’s grandmother A. A. Samokhina, together with her friend E. Moiseeva, whose brother worked as a prison guard, found Agafia Avdeeva and got a meeting with her. During a visit to the confessor, who was a little over 30 years old at the time, Anna Andreevna received healing from cancer and heard a prediction about a war during which two of her sons would die and the third would return. And so it happened.

Firm standing in faith did not hide from the guards, and Agathia was transferred to death row. The confessor was preparing for death, but God’s will for her was different. “The Lord brought her through the crucible of suffering and preserved her to help the people, to perform future deeds pleasing to God,” testifies Archpriest Methodius Finkevich. - Every night, bishops, priests, monks were taken out of prison - to death... She endured all these experiences in her heart, she was in soul with the sufferers and was also waiting for this. This had to be experienced, which is why the Lord gave her spiritual gifts. How she prayed, how she begged the Lord these days!.. Bullying accompanied her stay in prison. Mother Alipia herself spoke about this to her spiritual children, showing deep scars on her hands.”

By the grace of God, through the prayers of the Holy Apostle Peter, the prisoner managed to escape from prison. Mother deeply revered the Apostle Peter until the end of her days and talked about his intercession, and in the church her place was always near the icon of the Apostles Peter and Paul.

After liberation, a wandering life began again, which was complicated by the fact that Agathia did not have documents or registration, which in Soviet times entailed criminal punishment. But the Lord protected and covered His chosen one. It is likely that it was at this time that the confessor for Christ began the feat of foolishness for the sake of Christ.

During the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, Agafia Tikhonovna was captured by the Nazis and spent some time in a concentration camp, drinking a new cup of suffering.

Having learned that the relics of St. Theodosius of Chernigov, taken by the atheists from the city long before the war, had been returned to Chernigov, the blessed one went on foot to venerate the shrine. Having bowed to the relics of the wonderworker, the wanderer asked to spend the night with the headman of the temple. He refused, but Agafia Tikhonovna followed him. It turned out that the headman's daughter had died. The blessed one asked to enter, took out a flask of holy water and sprinkled it on the girl’s head, forehead and mouth, after which she poured some water into her mouth. The child came to his senses, and the wanderer quietly left.

Evidence has also been preserved of the life of the blessed one during her wanderings. One day she asked to spend the night in a rural house, the owners of which were distinguished by their love of strangeness. The God-fearing hostess received her with joy, fed her and prepared a comfortable bed for rest. But Agafia Tikhonovna never lay down: she stood on her knees all night, praying in front of the icons.

During the Great Patriotic War, the Kiev Pechersk Lavra was opened, closed by atheists in the 1920s. The abbot of the monastery - Archimandrite Kronid (Sakun) - tonsured Agathia into monasticism with the name Alypius - in honor of St. Alypius, icon painter of Pechersk. Father Kronid blessed his spiritual child for a new feat - pillaring in the hollow of a tree that grew near the well of the saint. Theodosius of Pechersk (unfortunately, the tree has not survived to this day). It was possible to stand in the hollow only half-bent.

This was a very difficult feat even in good weather, and even more so in bad weather. At night, under the very hollow, hungry stray dogs howled. The severe frost penetrated the half-bent body of the ascetic to the bones. Only the constant Jesus Prayer strengthened the fragile nun and kept her alive.

Mother accomplished the feat of pillar-building for three years, until 1954, when Father Kronid reposed in the Lord. After him, nun Alypia was cared for by the elder schemamonk Damian.

In 1961, the authorities closed the holy monastery again, under the pretext of renovation. The inhabitants of the Lavra had to leave it for a long time. The closure of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra was difficult for nun Alypia. Always inconspicuous and quiet, these days she prayed on her knees in the Lavra courtyard.

Her long-suffering wandering life began again: without documents, without registration, without money, without things. If in Stalin’s time this “threatened” with imprisonment, then in the 1960s it meant a psychiatric hospital, where the authorities sent believers “for treatment.”

However, the years of difficult trials so strengthened the spirit of the blessed one, her faith and devotion to the will of God that she resignedly accepted everything as if from the hand of the Lord. Mother Alypia never sought help and protection from people; she sought help and protection only from God. Her faith and boldness were so strong that those who heard with what childish simplicity she addressed God “Father!”, and saw how her prayers were instantly fulfilled, had no doubt that for her He was, first of all, a Father - close, loving , caring.

After the closure of the Lavra, nun Alypia lived with one or another owner, spending the night in basements and rooms not suitable for habitation.

Over time, mother rented a room in a private house on Goloseevskaya Street and began to receive people who reached out to the gracious old woman for advice and requests for prayers, for help, for healing. The time has come for her to openly serve people. They also began to approach her at the Ascension Church on Demievka, of which she became a parishioner after the closure of the Lavra. It was one of the few Kyiv churches that did not close during Soviet times. The ascetic loved this temple and its servants very much. The blessed old woman predicted monasticism to Father Alexy (Archbishop Varlaam), handing over a monastic rosary shortly before his tonsure. The Demievsky Church was saved from closure and destruction in the 1960s (the rector of the church, Archpriest Methodius Finkevich, and parishioners associate this fact with the prayers of the nun Alipia), but the house in which the mother herself lived collapsed, and she again found herself on the street.

Finally, through the efforts of one believing woman, a new home was found - in a house on Zatevakhina Street. Here, in a tiny room that had a separate entrance, Mother Alipia lived the last nine years of her ascetic life - from 1979 to 1988.

It was a former monastery house, which before the revolution belonged to the monastery of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra - the Holy Intercession Goloseevskaya Hermitage. During Soviet times, the monastery was abolished and destroyed; in the 1930s, the marvelously beautiful church in honor of the icon of the Mother of God “Life-Giving Source” was blown up and the Intercession Church was destroyed. For some time, on the territory of the monastery there were cultural farms, an agricultural base, a school, a children's camp, and lay people lived in the monastic buildings...

At the end of the 1970s, local residents began to be resettled in comfortable houses and apartments, and Goloseevskaya Pustyn turned into a wasteland. When the nun Alypia settled on its territory, Pustyn was a pitiful sight: ruins in a vacant lot, among which the best preserved walls of the former metropolitan house. But it was revealed to mother’s spiritual gaze that the holy monastery would be reborn.

One day, walking through the territory of the destroyed Hermitage with the sisters of the Florovsky Monastery, the blessed one said: “There will still be a monastery and services here.” The nuns thought: “How will there be a service here? In such ruins? But time has confirmed the truth of the prediction of the Goloseevskaya oxbow. In 1993, five years after her death, Pustyn began to be revived as a monastery of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. Three years later, with the blessing of the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the monastery became an independent monastery.

She invariably sent everyone who came to Mother Alipia in Goloseevo to pray at the grave of St. Alexis of Goloseevsky, who at that time had not yet been glorified. The old woman might not accept a person if he did not pay homage to the revered Goloseevsky ascetic of piety. Without a doubt, she herself repeatedly prayed at the holy grave.

Mother’s cell was located in the destroyed Desert, among the forest, on the slope of a deep ravine. There is no better place for a silent monk. The entire Goloseevsky forest is consecrated by the prayers of the great ascetics of piety. The founder of the monastery, Saint Peter (Grave), prayed here on his knees at night, strengthening himself spiritually. Saint Philaret (in the schema - Theodosius, Amphitheaters), who came to Goloseevo in the spring and summer for 17 years together with his spiritual father - the Monk Parthenius - constantly walked with him through the forest, reciting the Psalter by heart. Blessed Theophilus of Kitaevsky, who labored twice in the Goloseevskaya Hermitage, ran into the forest from his many admirers, climbed into the hollow of a huge oak tree and prayed there in secret from everyone. “Walking” through the forest with prayer was carried out by both Blessed Paisios, who carried the obedience of the note taker and reader of the schematic rule for St. Philaret to Goloseyevo, and the Monk Alexy, truly a people’s elder, who spiritually cared for hundreds of people of various classes and almost never closed his doors to anyone his modest cell.

Nun Alypia continued the spiritual work of the Goloseevsky elders. Like Bishops Peter and Philaret, she labored in prayers, which she performed in her cell, in the forest, and in a deep ravine. Like blessed Paisius and Theophilus, she labored in the feat of foolishness for the sake of Christ, covering up her prayerful and fasting deeds with it.

Mother wore black clothes and put a children's fur hat on her head. Fragile, withered, she seemed hunchbacked, because she wore an icon of the martyr Agathia on her shoulders or on her back, and many large iron keys around her neck. When accepting a new person under her spiritual care, mother hung a new key around her neck.

She spoke about everything only in the masculine gender, including about herself and about female representatives. Many perceived this as a manifestation of foolishness. But perhaps there was another reason: nun Alypia spent almost a quarter of a century in men’s monasteries - in the Lavra and the destroyed Goloseevskaya Hermitage, being nourished by the elders and imitating the exploits of the ancients and saints close to us in time. But Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov) also said that if a weak woman struggles out of love for Christ, then she too is “a blessed man,” according to the Psalmist. It is also possible that by grace Mother has reached such a spiritual state when you cease to make a distinction between the male and female sexes, when you perceive each person as a “new creation in Christ,” as a new Adam, as a living image of God.

The old woman spent her days in prayer and labor. In the morning she could be found in the church on Demievka, where she invariably prayed at the icon of the apostles Peter and Paul. If someone turned to her with their misfortune during the service, mother immediately began to pray for help and, having received notification from God, joyfully reported a successful outcome.

After the service, right there in the church, she listened to numerous visitors, and, praying internally, shrewdly indicated a solution to the problem or prayed for help and healing. Returning to her cell, the old woman, despite her advanced age, took care of her simple housekeeping, continuing to receive people. She loved to tinker with chickens, work in the garden, and cook for her spiritual children and guests.

The blessed old woman ate food once a day and very little. On Wednesday and Friday, as well as in the first and last week of Lent, she did not eat or drink anything.

The old woman received visitors until sunset, and after sunset it was time for cell prayer. The cell doors were closed and almost always did not open until the morning.

Often such degenerate people came to mother that her spiritual children were ashamed to sit at the same table with them. And the old woman was not ashamed and took care of them, showing everyone an example of selfless love. Despite extreme fatigue, she never abandoned her prayer rule, even if she was sick.

At night, mother practically did not rest: she prayed, sitting on the edge of the bed. All her life, the old lady’s laborious body did not know peace or rest; Only at the end of her life, during periods of serious illness, did she lie down on the boards to get some rest. And at three o’clock in the morning a new working day began for her.

But nun Alypia did not demand such strict asceticism from others. Someone often spent the night with her, and she lovingly put her visitors to bed and blessed them on their way in the morning. As a rule, visitors left cheerful and... healed, although they might not immediately notice it. In her cell, as once in the cell of St. Alexy Goloseevsky, spiritual children and visitors received an invariably affectionate welcome and generous refreshments. The old woman always knew how many people would come and with what needs, and a meal was prepared for all of them. Moreover, everything was cooked, as a rule, in small saucepans, but visitors were invariably served huge plates, and there was enough for everyone. During the meal, many people received healing.

In addition, the old woman treated the sick with an ointment she prepared with her own hands, the healing power of which lay in the prayers of the blessed one. There are many testimonies of the healing of the most severe ailments in this way.

So, one mother, the wife of a priest, was diagnosed with breast cancer by doctors. The husband insisted on surgery. Then the woman turned to Blessed Alipia for a blessing, but the old woman did not bless. She smeared the sufferer's sore chest with her ointment and, having applied an insulating bandage, forbade it to be removed for three days. The priest's wife barely survived these days, the pain was so unbearable. But she didn’t break the blessing.

Three days later, a large abscess formed on my chest, which Mother Alypia blessed to open in the hospital. The woman no longer had any malignant tumor.

Receiving and treating several people at the same time, the old woman knew how to say a word for everyone’s benefit, and this was understood only by the person to whom this word applied.

Mother showed her insight delicately; she was merciful even with the most stubborn sinners.

Honored by the Lord with the gift of clairvoyance and foresight, nun Alipia read the human soul as if in an open book. It was open to her what was happening or would happen to a person, which allowed her to warn a person about danger, help him avoid troubles and temptations, or protect him from impending disaster.

But not a single spiritual benefit passed without a trace for the blessed one. People received consolation, healing, help and joy, and the old woman received yet another sorrow and illness. Thanks to the humility and grace of Christ, the nun Alipia received power over the devil and his servants; through prayer she cast out demons and forbade them. But the evil one did not stop taking revenge on her until the very last days of her life. Sometimes through people, and sometimes he appeared to the old lady himself, in his full disgusting form.

Even in the remote Goloseevskaya cell, the nun knew no peace from the persecution of the authorities. From time to time, a local police officer would come and insistently demand documents and leave the house. But mother, after internal prayer, invariably answered him that the Chief Leader did not allow her to leave. And by the grace of God, the local police officer left the ascetic alone. But only for a while.

Ambulance teams often arrived and tried to take the old woman either to a psychiatric hospital or to a nursing home. But by the grace of God they left with nothing. One day, the old woman, internally praying to God, revealed her secret illness to the woman doctor, and she, shocked, left the ascetic alone.

Often hooligans attacked the cell and broke down the doors in the hope of finding treasures, and then the old woman stood in prayer with raised hands all night until the uninvited guests left.

When the evil one failed to harm the old woman through people, he appeared himself: he scared, knocked, and broke doors. To test the ascetic in faith, the Lord allowed the devil to attack her physically. One day, a cell attendant and her granddaughter witnessed Mother Alipia’s struggle with the evil one. Worried by the long absence of the oxbow, they ran to the ravine. It was revealed to the child’s spiritual gaze that someone terrible and black was trying to kill the blessed one, and the cell attendant saw only the mother, with whom someone invisible was fighting.

Experiencedly knowing the severity of the struggle against the spirits of evil in heaven, mother always warned against self-inflicted asceticism and foolishness. So, she did not give her blessing to go to asceticism in the Caucasus mountains, cooling the ardent dreaminess of the novice ascetics with simple words: “That’s not it. These feats are not for our time.”

Mother felt very deeply about the disobedience of her spiritual children and visitors. She tried to keep spiritual children from disobedience both with prohibitions and requests. But when they did not act, the old woman suffered no less than the disobedient ones, knowing what consequences disobedience entailed. If they came to her asking for a blessing for monasticism, then she first of all experienced the obedience of the person coming.

The blessed one treated the monastics with great love, affectionately speaking about them: “My forever relatives” or “He is from our village.” In Soviet times, it was very difficult to become a monk. In the 1970s, only two convents operated in Kyiv: Pokrovsky and Florovsky. But their nuns had no peace. The authorities demanded Kyiv registration, and it was almost impossible for non-residents to register in Kyiv. It was not always possible to register in the region. Raids and searches were often carried out in monasteries, the nuns listened to a lot of insults, they tried to remove them from the monasteries at all costs, especially the young ones.

One of the nuns, exhausted by the fact that she could not register in any way, came with her grief to Mother Alipia. The blessed one greeted her with the words: “How long will you torture the girl with registration? Stop mocking! The elder blessed the nun, and she soon received registration in the city of Irpen.

But during the difficult Soviet years for believers, the elder helped not only clergy and monastics, although she treated them with special care and love, and taught her spiritual children to respect priests and never judge. With her prayers, the blessed one supported many lay believers and helped them to maintain their faith and not fall away from the Church.

One girl was given a choice: either renounce her faith and join the Komsomol, or be expelled from the university and face criminal charges. The girl turned to Mother Alipia for advice. The old woman replied that the “Royal Letters” could be worn without the Komsomol. After the prayers of the blessed one, they simply forgot about the believing student.

Another girl was persecuted for writing spiritual poetry. Through the prayers of the old woman, she fell ill, and then they also forgot about her.

Not only believers, but also atheists and communists turned to the nun with their intractable problems and serious illnesses. Mother selflessly helped them, and under the influence of her prayers and love, people turned to Christ.

It was revealed to the blessed one that on April 26, 1986, an accident would occur at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Mother Alypia warned people long before the tragedy that the earth would burn, that basements would burn, that they would “poison” the earth and water. “Put out the fire! - the blessed one shouted. - Don't let the gas go! God! What will happen during Holy Week! For more than six months, the blessed one remained in intense fasting and prayer for the salvation of the earth and people from a terrible catastrophe. The day before the accident, my mother walked down the street and shouted: “Lord! Have mercy on the babies, have mercy on the people!”

When the accident occurred and panic began, especially in Kyiv and cities and villages close to the 30-kilometer zone, the blessed one did not give her blessing to abandon their homes and run away. She, like a loving mother, called on everyone to calm down, turn to God and trust in His help and mercy. The blessed one called on people to turn to the Crucified Lord Jesus Christ and remember the power of His Cross, which defeated death. Mother said that you need to make the sign of the cross over your homes and continue to live in them, make the sign of the cross over your food and eat it without fear. During these terrible days, the old woman kept many from panic and despair and led them to God.

Any human misfortune, any human grief always aroused great compassion in the old woman’s soul. Her desire to help everyone was expressed not only in intense prayers, but also in the fact that mother imposed additional fasting on herself and subjected her senile, sickly body to new deprivations. So, during the drought, she not only did not eat food, but also did not drink water, even in the most severe heat, begging the Lord for rain.

Mother also intensified her fast when her spiritual children offended God with their disobedience.

Several months before her death, the blessed one became very weak. I often asked Maria’s cell attendant and other people what day of the week October 30 was. Mother also said: “I will leave when the first snow falls and frost sets in.”

On October 17/30, 1988, the first snow fell and the first frost hit. After the service, many people came to the elder’s cell: everyone was in a hurry to say goodbye to the blessed one and take her last blessing. Spiritual children cried and prayed. Realizing how difficult it would be for them to see the death of their spiritual mother, mother blessed everyone, with the exception of one woman, to go to the Kitaevo hermitage and pray for her at the graves of St. Dosithea and Blessed Theophilos... When the spiritual children prayed for her in Kitaevo, the dying old woman earnestly asked the Lord not to leave her orphaned children...

On her deathbed, the old woman lay bright, as if asleep. Her face was calm and blissful. The nuns of the Florovsky Monastery arrived and prepared the blessed one for burial, and the first memorial service for the deceased old lady was celebrated by Hieromonk Roman (Matyushin).

Many people gathered for the funeral service, which took place on November 1 in the Ascension Church of the Florovsky Monastery. The coffin of nun Alipia was buried in flowers.

The admirers of Mother present at the service no longer felt such strong grief and sorrow that struck them at the news of her death. The sorrow dissolved into a kind of quiet joy, full of hope and hope. Everyone felt that this was a triumph of faith, that this was not death, but victory over it.

The problem with the burial of the blessed old woman at the Forest Cemetery, on the site of the Florovsky Monastery, was miraculously resolved, although at first it seemed unthinkable to bury a nun in the Kiev cemetery who did not have a passport or registration...

Parishioners of the Demievsky Church who knew nun Alypia during her lifetime remember how many funeral services she always brought, how many she commemorated, how many candles she lit for the living and the dead. And after the death of the old woman, rivers of people flowed to her modest grave in the Forest Cemetery, both those who knew her during her lifetime and those who did not. At first, people gathered only on October 30, then on the 30th of every month, and over time, people began to visit the grave every day. Memorial services were constantly being served, the light of the lamp was glowing and candles were burning.

And if during her lifetime the old woman helped thousands of people, then after death all the cases of her gracious help cannot be counted. Those suffering from incurable diseases, the orphaned, the unemployed, the unjustly slandered, those despairing of salvation, the ruined, and the victims rush to her - and no one is left without help.

On the day of remembrance of nun Alipia, huge lines of admirers lined up at her grave. Just like her, they wrote notes and letters with the most secret requests...

Every year, the place of the blessed one’s exploits, next to the reviving monastery “Holy Intercession Goloseevskaya Hermitage,” began to enjoy greater and greater veneration among the people. With the blessing of the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, His Beatitude Vladimir, Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine, on the site of the destroyed cell of the blessed one, a chapel was built in honor of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker.

By the grace of God, His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir blessed to transfer the remains of nun Alipia (Avdeeva) to the monastery “Holy Intercession Goloseevskaya Pustyn”, on the territory of which mother lived and labored in the last years of her life.

The discovery of the holy relics of Elder Alipia took place on the morning of May 5/18, 2006. The discovery was attended by the abbot Archimandrite Isaac, clergy, brethren and parishioners of the monastery “Holy Intercession Goloseevskaya Pustyn”, the spiritual children of the blessed old woman and her admirers, representatives of the administration of the Forest Cemetery, the city police and the sanitary and epidemiological station.

Before opening the grave, Archimandrite Isaac served a funeral litany. The brethren carefully removed the cross, dug up flowers from the blessed one’s grave, and the excavations began to the singing of Easter and funeral hymns. They did not last long - a little over an hour and were very quiet and peaceful. There was probably no person at that moment who did not feel this special inner peace in his heart, “a peace that surpasses all minds.”

When they reached the coffin, all those present rallied around the grave. The remains of nun Alipia were found. The coffin and monastic robes of the blessed one turned out to be partially decayed. The wooden icons placed in the coffin and the monastic rosary are well preserved. A jar of holy water has also been preserved. All this was carefully transferred to a new coffin and placed in the monastery minibus. Accompanied by the police and an impressive escort of cars, the relics of the Goloseevskaya eldress returned to the revived monastery, on the ruins of which nun Alypia lived the last nine years of her life.

When the relics were brought into the temple in honor of the icon of the Mother of God, called the “Life-Giving Source,” a cross appeared above it. On the same day, two healings from cancer occurred. Since the transfer of the blessed relics to the Goloseevsky Monastery, many healings from serious illnesses have been recorded.

The honorable remains of nun Alipia were buried in a tomb under the church in honor of the icon of the Mother of God “Life-Giving Source”. Every day the tomb is visited by a huge number of people. On the days of the blessed memory, the number of visitors reaches 20 thousand people. People come from different parts of Ukraine, as well as from near and far abroad.

As popular wisdom says, people do not go to an empty well.