Nikolai Aleksandrovich Motovilov, interlocutor and secret keeper of St. Seraphim of Sarov, has died

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Nikolai Aleksandrovich Motovilov

(May 25, 1809 - January 27, 1879)[1] - Simbirsk and Arzamas landowner, interlocutor of St. Seraphim of Sarov and his first biographer, long-term trustee of the Seraphim-Diveevo Monastery.[1]

Biography

From August 9, 1823 to 1826, Nikolai Alexandrovich studied at the Imperial Kazan University. For some time, Motovilov in Kazan, preparing to enter the university, studied at the boarding school of the German Leiter, a graduate of the University of Leipzig[2].

At the age of 22, Nikolai Motovilov was healed by Father Seraphim from a serious rheumatic illness with relaxation of the whole body and loss of legs, which lasted three years [3].

Nikolai Motovilov recorded the teaching of St. Seraphim about the purpose of Christian life and many of the prophecies of the holy elder about the future of Russia and Diveevo[3]. On the site where in November 1831 the saint had a conversation with Nikolai Motovilov about acquiring the Holy Spirit, the Temple of the Holy Spirit of the Sarov Monastery was later built[4].

According to S. A. Nilus, in his youth Nikolai Motovilov was in love with E. M. Yazykova; he tried unsuccessfully to win her hand until he received a final refusal in 1832. Four years later, Ekaterina Mikhailovna became the wife of the Slavophile A. S. Khomyakov[5].

Nikolai Motovilov died peacefully on his Simbirsk estate[1][3]. According to his will, his body was brought to Diveevo, where he had a funeral service in the Church of the Nativity of Christ and was buried near the Kazan Church, not far from the grave of St. Alexandra[1].

During Soviet times, the graves at the altar of the Kazan Church were destroyed, and the area was paved with asphalt.[3] The only landmark of this holy place was the old birch tree on Motovilov’s grave[3]. In the 1970s they tried to uproot it, but it failed[3].

In the summer of 1991, before the celebrations of the transfer of the relics of St. Seraphim to Diveevo, with the blessing of Patriarch Alexy, the asphalt was opened, crypts were discovered and the location of the graves was marked[3]. Now the grave of Nikolai Aleksandrovich Motovilov has been restored and is a place of prayer[1].

Healing of Motovilov

This is how Motovilov describes his first conscious meeting with St. Seraphim:

“A year before I was given the commandment to serve the Mother of God at the Diveyevo monastery, the great elder Seraphim healed me from serious and incredible, great rheumatic and other diseases, with relaxation of the whole body and the removal of legs, crumpled and swollen knees, and bedsore ulcers on back and sides, which I suffered incurably for more than three years.

On September 9, 1831, Father Seraphim healed him with one word.

Motovilov writes:

“When I asked him to help me and heal me, he said:

- But I’m not a doctor. One should treat doctors when one wants to be treated for any illness.

I told him in detail my misfortunes and that I had tried all three main methods of treatment...”

And he asked me a question:

- Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that He is the God-man, and in His Most Pure Mother of God, that She is the Ever-Virgin?

I answered:

- I believe!

“Do you believe,” he continued to ask me, “that the Lord, as before, healed instantly and with one word or His touch all the ailments that happened to people, and now, just as easily and instantly, He can continue to heal those who require help with one word?” His own, and that the intercession of the Mother of God to Him for us is omnipotent, and that through this intercession the Lord Jesus Christ can now also instantly and with one word heal you?

I answered that I truly believed all this with all my soul and heart, and if I had not believed, I would not have ordered myself to be taken to him.

“And if you believe,” he concluded, “then you are already healthy!”

“Since many pilgrims were with me during my healing, they returned to the monastery before me, announcing to everyone about this great miracle.”

Family

In 1840, Nikolai Alexandrovich married Elena Ivanovna Milyukova

(May 30, 1823 - December 27, 1910), niece of the Venerable Martha of Diveyevo. Her father often went to Father Seraphim to work, and after the death of his wife he entered the Sarov Hermitage as a monk. From the age of 5, Elena lived in a monastery. But later, out of direct obedience to Father Seraphim, she married Nikolai Motovilov and together they helped the monastery a lot. Anticipating this, the priest ordered to call her “Great Lady” from an early age.

In their marriage, Nikolai Alexandrovich and Elena Ivanovna had six children. Mrs. Motovilova lived until the very discovery of the holy relics of Seraphim of Sarov in 1903, and spoke about her personal observations to her contemporaries.[6]

Conversation between St. Seraphim and Nikolai Motovilov about acquiring the Holy Spirit

Motovilov Nikolai Alexandrovich was a man chosen by God. He was not yet born, but his path before God was determined. He was “needed by God” precisely as a servant of the Seraphim. It was a difficult time for the Russian Orthodox Church. The brilliant age of Catherine brought with it a decline in morals, impoverishment and the closure of many monasteries. Then, during the reign of Alexander I, Orthodoxy in Russia became humiliated. The government gives free rein to heterodox preachers.

Masonic movements are flourishing, the Decembrist uprising is preparing. Secret societies had already completely entangled Russia by 1816. It is at this time that the Lord gives help to Russia. People appear who zealously serve Orthodoxy. The birth of Nikolai Motovilov and others was prepared by clear signs of the Lord.

The conversation of the Monk Seraphim with Nikolai Alexandrovich Motovilov (1809-1879) about the purpose of Christian life took place in November 1831 in the forest, not far from the Sarov monastery, and was recorded by Motovilov. The manuscript was discovered 70 years later in the papers of Nikolai Alexandrovich’s wife, Elena Ivanovna Motovilova.

The apparent simplicity of the conversation is deceptive: the teachings are delivered by one of the greatest saints of the Russian Church, and the listener is a future ascetic of the faith, healed from an incurable illness through the prayer of Seraphim. It was to him that the Monk Seraphim bequeathed, before his death, material concerns for his Diveyevo orphans, and for the founding of the Seraphim-Diveyevo monastery for them.

The expression “acquisition of the Holy Spirit” was introduced into circulation by Seraphim of Sarov. Talking with Motovilov on topics that related to the essence of faith and what happens to a person when he prays.

The holy ascetic said that a person praying acts like a person who dreams of achieving fame and wealth.

Only the goal of the believer lies on a different plane. He strives to unite with the Lord through the acquisition of the Holy Spirit.

The monk compared the work of a believer with that which we perform in everyday life. To obtain material benefits for himself and his family, a person must work hard. The work of the soul is to acquire or receive the Grace of the Holy Spirit in order to unite with the Lord. This is the highest value for a believer.

Nikolai Aleksandrovich Motovilov notes about his conversation with the Great Elder in Notes:

“It was on Thursday; the day was cloudy, there was only a quarter of the snow on the ground, and rather thick snow pellets were falling from above, when Father Seraphim began a conversation with me, on his nearby field, near the same nearby hermitage, opposite the Sarovka River, near the mountain that comes close to its banks, placing me on the stump of a tree he had just cut down, and he squatted down opposite me.”

Seraphim Sarovsky and Nikolai Motovilov
“Your love for God! - the great old man told me. “In your childhood, you earnestly wanted to know what the purpose of our Christian life was, and you asked many great spiritual persons about this more than once.”

“But no one told you this rightly. For fasting, prayer, vigil and all other Christian deeds, no matter how good they are in themselves, however, the goal of our Christian life is not in doing them alone, although they serve as means to achieve it. The true goal of our Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God. Fasting, vigil, prayer, almsgiving and every good thing done for the sake of Christ are the means for acquiring the Holy Spirit of God. Please note that only a good deed done for the sake of Christ brings us the fruits of the Holy Spirit; however, something done not for the sake of Christ, although good, does not provide us with a reward in the life of the next century, and in this life it does not give us the grace of God either.”

“So, your love for God, the acquisition of this Spirit of God is the true goal of our Christian life, and prayer, almsgiving, vigil, fasting, and other virtues are only a means to the acquisition of the Spirit of God.”

“What about acquisition? - I asked him. “Somehow I don’t understand this.”

“Acquisition is the same as acquisition,” he answered. “After all, you understand what acquiring money means; so is the acquisition of the Spirit of God. So the Lord Himself calls our land a marketplace, and life a purchase, and gives us the commandment: until I come.”

“So I would like, your love for God, that in this life you would always be in the Spirit of God; for the Lord says: in what I find you, in that I will judge you. Woe if it finds us in darkness, burdened with the cares and sorrows of life, for who can endure His wrath and who can stand against the face of His wrath? That is why it is said: watch and pray, so that you do not fall into misfortune, that is, do not lose the Spirit of God, for vigil and prayer bring us His grace.”

We are currently so far removed from the truly Christian life that even to us the Holy Scripture seems strange when it says: and Adam saw the Lord walking in paradise; and repeatedly in other places of the Holy Scriptures the appearance of God to men is spoken of. This all happened because, little by little moving away from the simplicity of Christian knowledge, we, under the pretext of enlightenment, entered into such darkness of ignorance that it seems incomprehensible to us, which the ancient Christians understood so clearly that in the most ordinary conversations the concept of the appearance of God between people did not seem strange to any of the interlocutors.”

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Notes

1. ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 Romanov, Dmitry
   [www.nne.ru/news.php?id=342525 January 27 is the day of the death of the trustee of the Seraphim-Diveevsky Monastery Nikolai Motovilov]. Nizhny Novgorod diocese (January 27, 2011). Retrieved April 27, 2012. [www.webcitation.org/6BC1y2uy3 Archived from the original on October 5, 2012].
2. Vladimir Melnik.
   Under the roof of St. Seraphim and the Voronezh Saints (Chronicle of the life of Nikolai Aleksandrovich Motovilov). 10/22/2005.
3. ↑ 1234567
   [ns.nne.ru/saints/saints_07.php Benefactors of the Diveyevo Monastery]. Official website of the Holy Trinity Seraphim-Diveevo Convent. Retrieved April 27, 2012. [www.webcitation.org/6BC1zIGi1 Archived from the original on October 5, 2012].
4. Svetlana Vysotskaya.
   [www.nne.ru/smi/ev/article.php?id=345 Revival of Sarov shrines]. Nizhny Novgorod Diocesan Gazette (No. 13 (178) for 2010). Retrieved April 27, 2012. [www.webcitation.org/6BC1wi9rD Archived from the original on October 5, 2012].
5. Voropaev V. A.
   [www.mosjour.ru/index.php?id=2053 N. V. Gogol and his entourage. Materials for the biobibliographic dictionary] // Moscow Journal. — 2014. — No. 1 (288).
6. [www.4udel.nne.ru/index.php?id=773 World lamp. Venerable Seraphim of Sarov. Chapter 15. Marvelous Diveevo]. Library
   . Official website of the Holy Trinity Seraphim-Diveevsky Monastery. Retrieved January 14, 2015.

An excerpt characterizing Motovilov, Nikolai Alexandrovich

Denisov and Petya drove up to him. From the place where the man stopped, the French were visible. Now, behind the forest, a spring field ran down a semi-hillock. To the right, across a steep ravine, a small village and a manor house with collapsed roofs could be seen. In this village and in the manor's house, and throughout the hillock, in the garden, at the wells and pond, and along the entire road up the mountain from the bridge to the village, no more than two hundred fathoms away, crowds of people were visible in the fluctuating fog. Their non-Russian screams at the horses in the carts struggling up the mountain and calls to each other were clearly heard. “Give the prisoner here,” Denisop said quietly, without taking his eyes off the French. The Cossack got off his horse, took the boy off and walked up to Denisov with him. Denisov, pointing to the French, asked what kind of troops they were. The boy, putting his chilled hands in his pockets and raising his eyebrows, looked at Denisov in fear and, despite the visible desire to say everything he knew, was confused in his answers and only confirmed what Denisov was asking. Denisov, frowning, turned away from him and turned to the esaul, telling him his thoughts. Petya, turning his head with quick movements, looked back at the drummer, then at Denisov, then at the esaul, then at the French in the village and on the road, trying not to miss anything important. - Dolokhov is coming, he’s not coming, we have to beat him!.. Eh? - Denisov said, his eyes flashing merrily. “The place is convenient,” said the esaul. “We’ll send the infantry down through the swamps,” Denisov continued, “they’ll crawl up to the garden; you will come with the Cossacks from there,” Denisov pointed to the forest outside the village, “and I will come from here, with my gusags.” And according to the road... “It won’t be a hollow—it’s a quagmire,” said the esaul. “You’ll get stuck in the horses, you need to go around to the left... While they were talking in a low voice in this way, below, in the ravine from the pond, one shot clicked, smoke turned white, another, and a friendly, seemingly cheerful cry of hundreds of French voices who were on the half-mountain was heard. In the first minute, both Denisov and the esaul moved back. They were so close that it seemed to them that they were the cause of these shots and screams. But the shots and screams did not apply to them. Below, through the swamps, a man in something red was running. Apparently he was being shot at and shouted at by the French. “After all, this is our Tikhon,” said the esaul. - He! they are! “What a rogue,” Denisov said. - He will go away! - Esaul said, narrowing his eyes. The man they called Tikhon, running up to the river, splashed into it so that splashes flew, and, hiding for a moment, all black from the water, he got out on all fours and ran on. The French running after him stopped. “Well, he’s clever,” said the esaul. - What a beast! – Denisov said with the same expression of annoyance. - And what has he been doing so far? - Who is this? – Petya asked. - This is our plastun. I sent him to take the tongue. “Oh, yes,” Petya said from Denisov’s first word, nodding his head as if he understood everything, although he absolutely did not understand a single word. Tikhon Shcherbaty was one of the most necessary people in the party. He was a man from Pokrovskoye near Gzhat. When, at the beginning of his actions, Denisov came to Pokrovskoye and, as always, calling the headman, asked what they knew about the French, the headman answered, as all the headmen answered, as if defending themselves, that they didn’t know anything, to know they don't know. But when Denisov explained to them that his goal was to beat the French, and when he asked if the French had wandered in, the headman said that there were definitely marauders, but that in their village only one Tishka Shcherbaty was involved in these matters. Denisov ordered Tikhon to be called to him and, praising him for his activities, said a few words in front of the headman about the loyalty to the Tsar and the Fatherland and the hatred of the French that the sons of the Fatherland should observe. “We don’t do anything bad to the French,” said Tikhon, apparently timid at Denisov’s words. “That’s the only way we fooled around with the guys.” They must have beaten about two dozen Miroders, otherwise we didn’t do anything bad... - The next day, when Denisov, completely forgetting about this guy, left Pokrovsky, he was informed that Tikhon had joined the party and asked to be left with it. Denisov ordered to leave him. Tikhon, who at first corrected the menial work of laying fires, delivering water, skinning horses, etc., soon showed greater willingness and ability for guerrilla warfare. He went out at night to hunt for prey and each time brought with him French clothes and weapons, and when he was ordered, he also brought prisoners. Denisov dismissed Tikhon from work, began to take him with him on travels and enrolled him in the Cossacks. Tikhon did not like to ride and always walked, never falling behind the cavalry. His weapons were a blunderbuss, which he wore more for fun, a pike and an ax, which he wielded like a wolf wields his teeth, equally easily picking out fleas from his fur and biting through thick bones. Tikhon equally faithfully, with all his might, split logs with an ax and, taking the ax by the butt, used it to cut out thin pegs and cut out spoons. In Denisov's party, Tikhon occupied his special, exclusive place. When it was necessary to do something especially difficult and disgusting - turn a cart over in the mud with your shoulder, pull a horse out of a swamp by the tail, skin it, climb into the very middle of the French, walk fifty miles a day - everyone pointed, laughing, at Tikhon.