In 1767...
mother Alexander set about building a stone church [now cathedral] in Diveyevo...
in the name of the icon of the Mother of God of Kazan [protectress of Russia]...
to replace the old wooden church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker...
which was falling into disrepair.
She resolved this important issue for her in all respects...
with the blessing of the new Sarov ascetic, Fr. Pachomius...
who was distinguished by extraordinary spiritual gifts and especially fell in the spirit of his mother Alexandra. Subsequently, he became the builder of the Sarov Hermitage, and together with the treasurer Isaiah, they always helped her with prayer and advice, being her confessors.
Archpriest Vasily Sadovsky writes in his notes that the old people told him about the terrible famine in 1775 and how mother Agafia Semyonovna gathered them all, then still minors, to the Kazan Church under construction, and forced them to bring bricks to the layers.
For this, she fed them biscuits with water in the evening, and paid each a nickel a day, ordering them to give the money to their parents. Thus the Diveyevo parishioners lived through the hungry summer with the help of mother Alexandra without need, when the surrounding peasants were in dire need and suffered with their families.
It is not known exactly when the Kazan Church was consecrated...
but it must be assumed that its construction was completed...
after five years, that is, in 1772.
[bron]
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