diveyevo 7

After the consecration of all three aisles [zijbeuken] of the Kazan Church...

Agafia Semyonovna, shortly before her death, decided to organize a community in order to fully fulfill everything ordered by the Mother of God. 

This presented a special case. Six months before her death, in 1788, one of the landowners of the village of Diveeva, Mrs. Zhdanova, having heard a lot about the promised Agafia Semyonovna Mother of God monastery, wanting to be zealous in the implementation of this matter, donated to mother Alexandra 1300 square sazhens of her manor land next to the church.

On the advice of the Sarov elders, and with the permission of the diocesan authorities, mother Alexandra now built three cells on this land with an outbuilding, and enclosed the space with a wooden fence. 

She occupied one cell herself, provided another for the rest of the wanderers who were going in large numbers through Diveyevo to Sarov, and assigned the third for the three novices she invited to live with her.

One was the goddaughter of Father Vasily Dertev, one an orphan, and one the maiden Evdokia Martynova from the village of Vertyanovo. Then three more novices came: the peasant widow Anastasia Kirillova, the peasant maiden Ulyana Grigoryeva, and the peasant widow Fyokla Kondratiev.

This way mother Alexandra lived until the end of her days... 

leading a charitable, ascetic, extremely severe life, in constant work and prayer. 

Strictly fulfilling all the difficulties of the Sarov Charter, she was guided in everything by the advice of Father Pachomius. She, and her sisters in addition, sewed scrolls, knitted stockings and worked all the necessary needlework for the Sarov brethren. 

Father Pachomius, in turn, gave the small community everything they needed for their earthly existence. So that even food was brought to the sisters once a day from the Sarov meal. 

The great old mother Alexandra addressed with special respect... 

to the then young novice, monk and later hierodeacon Seraphim... 

as if seeing in him the executor of the work of God begun by her... 

with the great grace that should appear through him to the world.

In June 1788...

anticipating the approach of her death...

mother Alexandra wished to take on the great angelic image. 

To do this, she sent Evdokia Martynovna with some other girl to Sarov, and Father Isaiah, arriving in Diveyevo, tonsured her during Vespers in the schema and gave her the name of Alexandra. This tonsure was a week or two before her death, at the Petrovsky post.

A few days after the tonsure...

Fr. Pakhomiy, with the treasurer Fr. Isaiah and hierodeacon Fr. Seraphim, went on an invitation to the village of Lemet, located six versts from the present city of Ardatov, Nizhny Novgorod province, to the funeral of the rich benefactor of their landowner Alexander Solovtsev, and stopped on the way to Diveyevo to visit Agafia Semenovna Melgunova.

Mother Alexandra was sick, and having received from the Lord a notice of her imminent death, she asked the ascetic fathers, for the love of Christ, to unify her. Father Pachomius at first offered to postpone the consecration of the oil until they returned from Lemet, but the holy old woman repeated her request and said that they might not find her alive on the way back.

The great elders performed the sacrament of unction over her with love. 

Then, saying goodbye to them...

mother Alexandra gave father Pachomius the last thing she had: a bag of gold, a bag of silver and two bags of copper, in the amount of forty thousand, asking him to give her sisters everything needed in life, since they were unable to manage themselves. 

Mother Alexandra begged Father Pachomius to commemorate her in Sarov for repose, not to leave her inexperienced novices, and also to take care in due time of the monastery promised to her by the Queen of Heaven. 

To this, Father Pachomius replied: “Mother! I do not renounce to serve, according to my strength and according to your will, the Queen of Heaven with care for your novices, and not only will I pray for you until my death, but our entire monastery will never forget your good deeds. 

However, I do not give you my word, for I am old and weak, but how can I take on something, not knowing whether I will live to see this time. But Hierodeacon Seraphim - you know his spirituality, and he is young - will live to see this, entrust hím with this great work.” 

Thus, mother Agafia Semyonovna began to ask Father Seraphim not to leave her monastery...

The elders said goodbye, left... 

and the marvelous old woman Agafia Semyonovna died on June 13... 

the day of the holy martyr Akilina. 

At her death, only Evdokia Martynovna and the old woman Thekla were there, to whom she said: 

¨And you, Evdokiya, how will I depart, take the image of the Most Holy Theotokos of Kazan, and put it on my chest, so that the Queen of Heaven will be with me during my departure, and light a candle before the image.¨

On that day, she partook of the Holy Mysteries, which she had been taking every day lately.

And as soon as the priest left the cells, she died at midnight.

On their way back... 

Father Pachomius and the brethren just arrived in time for the burial of Mother Alexandra. Having served the Liturgy and the funeral service in a cathedral, the great elders buried the founder of the Diveevo community at the altar of the Kazan Church. 

All that day, it rained so heavily that no dry thread was left on anyone. But Father Seraphim, in his chastity, did not even stay to dine at the convent, and immediately after the burial, went on foot to Sarov.

[bron]