Life of Elder Selafiel
On June 19, 2005, Elder Selafiel (Kiper; 1908-2005), a resident of the New Nyametsky Monastery, well known in Moldova and Romania and still little known in Russia, reposed in the Lord. The biography of this modern ascetic of piety is given from the book “Love That Never Ceases: Father Selafiel of Novo-Nyametsky”[1], written, prepared for printing and published by the elder’s spiritual child, Hieromonk Savvaty (Bashtov). In the near future, a detailed biography of Hieroschemamonk Selaphiel will appear on the Pravoslavie.Ru website.
Father Selafiel was born on September 1, 1908 in the village of Racolesti, near Criuleni (Bessarabia), and was named Cyprian in holy baptism. His mother was an ordinary woman who “went to church from time to time.” Father, as the priest himself recalls, “loved to pawn him by the collar, there was almost nothing to talk about with him.” However, the future elder himself was also not very religious in childhood, he was rather a prankster, “he made noise and laughed in church,” and his father once even beat him for this after one believing woman complained about him.
Cyprian began going to church as a teenager, when his mother told him about one amazing incident that happened to him in childhood. At the age of three, the future monk died and remained in this state for a day. Father had already gone to the market to buy what he needed for the funeral, and mother washed him, laid him on a pillow like a dead man in the corner under the lamp and called the women to cry for him. Great was their surprise when in the middle of the night the child suddenly got up and asked for... candy!
Remembering this, the priest said that God did not want him to die then, and sent His angel to raise him from the dead, so that he would live the life that he then had, and die in his current capacity, that is, as a hieroschemamonk, and not a child.
The hard life of peasants during the Stalinist period encouraged young Cyprian to “experience what life was like in a monastery,” and he liked it. First he entered Tsiganesti, where he spent two months, then to Curchi, where he remained for a year. Cyprian lived in the monastery of Capriana, the ktitorium of St. Stephen the Great, for about 5 years. Here, among other obediences, he was assigned to the dairy, where he had to take care of a whole gang of children living in the monastery and keep them busy.
Father recalls that sometimes he was forced to “whip them with a twig” because they were very restless. This state of affairs did not at all please the young man, who aspired to the monastic life, which he read with rapture in the lives of the saints. “Well, what am I? “Have you left the world,” thought young Cyprian, “to come here and beat someone’s children?” And then one night, without saying a word to anyone, he took his little bag and boarded a train traveling in the direction of the Dragomirna monastery, on the other side of the Prut River.
In Dragomirna, the priest recalled, there was an established monastic life, and the monastery was rich, and the food was good, even the pigs there were fed potatoes, unlike Bessarabia, where the brethren could not always afford it. He spent a year in this monastery, and not at all because he did not get along with the abbot or that he did not like it there, but because the abbot of Capriana turned to the bishop with a request to return him back to Bessarabia.
This time Cyprian entered the monastery after military service, at the age of 22, and remained a novice for 6 years, doing a wide variety of work. Father said that he “was not bookish, but he always performed obedience properly.” At the age of 28, he was tonsured a monk with the name Seraphim, and 10 years later he was ordained a hierodeacon.
Stalin's persecution did not escape him, and in 1945 he was arrested “for religious propaganda.” Another elder, now still alive, recalls how they were working in the garden with Father Seraphim, when he saw that someone was approaching them and said to him:
- They are coming for me.
And so it was: those who came arrested him.
After his arrest, he was kept in prison in Chisinau for 3 months and taken for interrogations. Here he learned from the officer who interrogated him that he had been pawned by a “monk” who had entered their monastery. The KGB sent such disguised “monks” to monasteries so that they could supply information about everyone.
In distant Siberia, the priest spent 5 years in a camp, but he never said anything terrible about what he experienced there, so few people even knew that he was serving a sentence in the camp. The elder embellished all his stories about this period with jokes in order to drive away any glory of a martyr.
After his release, he was not allowed to return to Bessarabia, but was sent to the Odessa region. Here he stayed for another 3 years, until Stalin’s death, after which he returned to Bessarabia and was accepted into the brotherhood of the Suruceni monastery.
In 1954, Russian Bishop Nektary[2] ordained him as a hieromonk. He lived in the Suruceni monastery until 1959 and was a friend of the abbot of the monastery, Paisius. Together they worked to restore this monastery and brought it to a flourishing state. However, in 1959, a campaign began to close the monasteries in Bessarabia, and only two were left active - Capriana and Novo-Nyametsky. Father was forced to move to Novo-Nyametsky.
However, in 1961, this monastery was also closed, a tuberculosis clinic and a museum of the Second World War were set up in it, because the Iasi-Chisinau operation took place in these places. All the monks were taken home in cars; only a few had the opportunity to go to Ukraine, Russia, Romania or Greece. During this period, the priest became close to Saint Kuksha of Odessa through another spirit-bearing monk from our monastery, Sergius the Legless, who, while a novice, was Saint Kuksha’s cell attendant for three years.
After the closure of the monasteries, Father Seraphim (the future Selafiel) returned to his native village, where he lived until 1997 in a small room, strictly fulfilling his monastic rule. At this time, the priest secretly performed baptisms and weddings and confessed the few believers.
Father Seraphim recalled about this period that he had a lot of money then, but he never spent it on himself. Thus, one of his fellow villagers said that when one woman was left after a divorce “without a stake, without a yard,” the priest bought a house with his own money and, calling this woman, gave her the key so that she could live in it with her children.
And the priest’s whole life was alms, which he bestowed on everyone he knew.
By old age, the priest became blind and spent the last 23 years of his life more and more in prayer. In 1997, he was again brought to the New Nyametsky Monastery under the abbotship of the late Most Reverend Dorimedont [3], who after just a few weeks tonsured him into the great schema with the name Selafiel.
Elder Selafiel was an invaluable spiritual treasure for the brotherhood of the New Nyametsky Monastery, which at first consisted of only young monks. With his wise advice and the example of his own life, Father Selaphiel, together with several other old monks who returned to the monastery after communist persecution, restored the thread of continuity after the thirty-year break that occurred in Bessarabian monasticism.
Through the prayers of the elder, many of the brothers got rid of the passions and thoughts that plagued them, and others can tell about miraculous events performed by God through the humble priest. One day he confessed to one of his cell students:
“My life has long ended, but God leaves me to live for others.”
The humility of Elder Selafiel hid him for human glory, and he prayed alone in his cell, where very few people visited him. The teaching of Elder Selafiel is contained in the following few words, which he repeated to everyone:
“This is what we need to have: the humility of a tax collector, the meekness of David, the patience of Job and love that never fails.”
Father Selafiel reposed in the Lord on June 19, 2005 and was buried in the New Nyametsky Monastery.
Alexander Borisovich Torik
SELAFIILA
story
Content
Prologue/Chapter 1/Chapter 2/Chapter 3/Chapter 4/Chapter 5/Chapter 6/Chapter 7/Chapter 8/Chapter 9/Chapter 10/Chapter 11/Chapter 12/Chapter 13/Chapter 14/Chapter 15/Chapter 16/ Chapter 17/Chapter 18/Chapter 19/Chapter 20/Chapter 21/Chapter 22/Chapter 23/Chapter 24/Chapter 25/Chapter 26/Chapter 27/Chapter 28/Chapter 29/Chapter 30/Chapter 31/Chapter 32/Chapter 33 /Epilogue
Dedicated to the blessed memory of Schema-nun Sepfra
and to all who strive in monastic life
PROLOGUE
On a small platform in front of the entrance to the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord, protected from strong winds on the northern and western sides by a low wall, near the very door of the temple, two female figures were visible in the dissipating pre-dawn twilight.
One of them, tall, stately with a majestically humble posture, was covered from head to toe with a soft flowing blanket of a cherry-brown hue. The other, small, bent, leaning on a smoothly planed stick, was wrapped in a schema embroidered with white threads with a high hood - kukul.
- Father Christopher will come soon, he is already rising here from Panagia. Wait for him here in the temple. Tell him that I blessed you to visit My Lot and communicate with the Fathers when you need it,” the Tall Woman said in a gentle, deep voice. - Now I say goodbye to you, they are waiting for me in the cell of John the Theologian, My help is needed there.
- Thank you, Mother! — the bent schema-montress bowed to the ground. - Bless Your unworthy servant!
- May the grace of My Son and Mine be with you!
After some time, the plank door to the Church of the Transfiguration creaked, a tall, overweight old monk, breathing heavily, entered the small temple. In the depths of the wooden stasidia closest to the altar on the right wall, he saw a schematic doll bent almost over the seat.
- Hello, mother of Selafiel!
- Eulogite (bless), Father Christopher!
- Oh, Kyrgios! (God bless)
Below, a narrow finger stretching from north to southeast, stretched Athos, overgrown with dense green forest.
CHAPTER 1
Selafiel's mother opened her eyes and, squinting rather blindly, looked around. Dullly and vaguely, as if through window glass that had not been washed for a long time, she examined the familiar outlines of the monastery house church of the abbot, Father Anfim, located on the second floor of the abbot's house, in the corner cell of which she had lived for the fourth year.
In this small church, which looked more like a prayer room, she spent most of her time, not occupied with prayer at monastery services, communicating with people who came to her, and very short rest.
Mother Selafiel was already one hundred and two years old.
She habitually noted the height of the flickering light of the candle above the silhouette of the candlestick: the light was still high, which meant that at least an hour and a half remained before the start of the midnight office in the cathedral church of the monastery.
Selafiel's mother closed her heavy, wrinkled eyelids again. Her lips moved weakly, whispering a prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!”
Suddenly, before the eyes of the old nun, a picture of her distant childhood emerged with cinematic clarity.
She, a fragile four-year-old girl Mashenka, sits in her father’s arms, dangling her powerless legs, paralyzed from birth, in untrodden little shoes, and hugs his strong, tanned neck, which does not bend under the heavy yoke of peasant labor, worries and worries.
The father carries her along a narrow path winding between ripe wheat fields, carefully hugging the girl’s thin, sick body to himself and quietly whispering something affectionate, tenderly comforting in her ear. Mashenka feels good in her father’s strong arms, safe and at peace.
The path, twisting, went around a sparse birch grove, and before the wide-open, amazed eyes of the girl, an immense expanse of a sun-drenched flower meadow opened up, in the middle of which the white towers and walls of some unprecedented fairy-tale city with shining gold domes of churches and a tall slender candle bell tower sparkled.
- Tatochka, tatochka! - the child babbled. - Tatochka, what a beautiful city! Tatochka, this Paradise?
- This is the house of Mother of God, my joy! This is a monastery in honor of her Kazan icon, your aunt, godmother, nun Epiphania lives here!
- Tatochka, tatochka! It's so beautiful here! I also want to live here, with Mother Bozhenkina, I also want to be a nun, they feel so good here, probably with Mother Bozhenkina!
- The Lord knows, my baby! — her father kissed her on the cheek with rough, chapped lips. - Maybe someday you will be a nun, maybe you will live in the house of Mother Queen of Heaven...
Selafiel, page 1
Alexander Borisovich Torik
SELAFIILA
story
Content
Prologue/Chapter 1/Chapter 2/Chapter 3/Chapter 4/Chapter 5/Chapter 6/Chapter 7/Chapter 8/Chapter 9/Chapter 10/Chapter 11/Chapter 12/Chapter 13/Chapter 14/Chapter 15/Chapter 16/ Chapter 17/Chapter 18/Chapter 19/Chapter 20/Chapter 21/Chapter 22/Chapter 23/Chapter 24/Chapter 25/Chapter 26/Chapter 27/Chapter 28/Chapter 29/Chapter 30/Chapter 31/Chapter 32/Chapter 33 /Epilogue
Dedicated to the blessed memory of Schema-nun Sepfra
and to all who strive in monastic life
PROLOGUE
On a small platform in front of the entrance to the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord, protected from strong winds on the northern and western sides by a low wall, near the very door of the temple, two female figures were visible in the dissipating pre-dawn darkness.
One of them, tall, stately with a majestically humble posture, was covered from head to toe with a soft flowing blanket of a cherry-brown hue. The other, small, bent, leaning on a smoothly planed stick, was wrapped in a schema embroidered with white threads with a high hood.
— Father Christopher will come soon, he is already rising here from Panagia. Wait for him here in the temple. Tell him that I blessed you to visit My Lot and communicate with the Fathers when you need it,” the Tall Woman said in a gentle, deep voice. - Now I say goodbye to you, they are waiting for me in the cell of John the Theologian, My help is needed there.
-Thank you, Mother! — the bent schema-montress bowed to the ground. - Bless Your unworthy servant!
- May the grace of My Son and Mine be with you!
After some time, the plank door to the Church of the Transfiguration creaked, a tall, heavy-set old monk, breathing heavily, entered the small temple. In the depths of the nearest altar, on the right wall of the wooden stasidia, he saw a schematic kukul bending almost over the seat.
-Hello, mother of Selaphiel!
- Eulogite (bless), Father Christopher!
-Oh, Kyrgios! (God bless)
Below, a narrow finger stretching from north to southeast, stretched Athos, overgrown with dense green forest.
CHAPTER 1
Mother Selafiel opened her eyes and, squinting blindly, looked around. Dullly and vaguely, as if through a window glass that had not been washed for a long time, she examined the familiar outlines of the monastery house church of the abbot, Father Anfim, located on the second floor of the abbot’s house, in the corner cell of which she had been living for the fourth year.
In this small church, which looked more like a prayer room, she spent most of her time, not occupied with prayer at skete services, communicating with people who came to her, and very short rest.
Mother Selafiel was already one hundred and two years old.
She habitually noted the height of the flickering light of the candle above the silhouette of the candlestick: the light was still high, which meant that there was at least an hour and a half left before the start of the midnight office in the cathedral church of the monastery.
Selafiel's mother closed her heavy, wrinkled eyelids again. Her lips moved weakly, whispering a prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!”
Suddenly, before the eyes of the old nun, a picture of her distant childhood emerged with cinematic clarity.
She, a fragile four-year-old girl Mashenka, sits in her father’s arms, dangling her powerless legs, paralyzed from birth, in untrodden little shoes, and hugs his strong, tanned neck, which does not bend under the heavy yoke of peasant labor, worries and worries.
The father carries her along a narrow path winding between ripe wheat fields, carefully pressing the girl’s thin, sickly body to him and quietly whispering something affectionate, tenderly comforting in her ear. Mashenka feels good in her father’s strong arms, safe and at peace.
The path twisted around a sparse birch grove, and before the wide-open, amazed eyes of the girl, an immense expanse of a sun-drenched flower meadow opened up, in the middle of which the white towers and walls of some unprecedented fairy-tale city with shining gold domes of churches and a tall, slender candle bell tower sparkled.
- Tatochka, tatochka! - the child babbled. — Tatochka, what a beautiful city! Tatochka, this Paradise?
- This is the house of Mother of God, my joy! This is a monastery in honor of her Kazan icon, your aunt, godmother, nun Epiphania lives here!
- Tatochka, tatochka! It's so beautiful here! I also want to live here, with Mother of God, I also want to be a nun, they feel so good here, probably with Mother of God!
- The Lord knows, my baby! — her father kissed her on the cheek with rough, chapped lips. - Maybe someday you will be a nun, maybe you will live in the house of Mother the Queen of Heaven...
“I really, really want this, daddy!”
It was as if the frame had snapped, rushing forward, and before the gaze of Schema-nun Selafiel the inside of the temple appeared, bright, huge, filled with the aroma of wax, incense, flowers and some other very delicate and subtle fragrance.
A multitude of people filled the entire space of the temple, somewhere in front the archdeacon loudly proclaimed the litany, and from the balcony on the western wall the angelic voices of a female monastic choir were heard. The large, rich nun Epiphania, Mashenka’s aunt, carefully placed the girl on a low wooden bench next to the pedestal for collecting donations, directly opposite the miraculous image of the Virgin Mary, the locally revered shrine of the monastery.
-Pray, my dear, to the Mother of God! Ask her to heal your sore legs! — the nun stroked her fragile niece’s blond head with her soft, warm palm.
Mashenka looked carefully at the miraculous image sparkling with its polished robe; The face of the Mother of God, looking out from the frame strewn with precious stones, shone with kindness and quiet, barely noticeable sadness. Next to Her, obviously on Her knees, stood a serious, handsome Boy, also in precious clothes and a shining halo around his head, whose gaze seemed to be fixed directly on the girl.
Mashenka was a little embarrassed and closed her eyes.
-Girl! You probably want to ask My Mom for something? — Mashenka suddenly heard a quiet child’s voice right next to her ear. She opened her eyes and turned her head towards the speaker.
Standing in the front was that same handsome, serious Boy in precious clothes.
-Don’t be afraid, ask! She is very kind and will do everything you ask her for!
“Can I ask Her to let me become a nun and live in this holy monastery?” Mashenka timidly asked Him.
-Can! Only you must approach Her yourself and ask Her about it!
-But I don’t know how to walk on my own! My legs can't move!
-I will help you! Take Me by the hand and get up from the stool,” He extended His bright, childish palm to her, in the middle of which a dried bloody wound could be seen, “hold on to Me and walk quietly!” You will definitely get there with Me!
Mashenka carefully took hold of the outstretched palm, leaned on it, and slowly rose from her seat. Her legs trembled, but supported the small weight of her sickly thin body.
She carefully took a weak step, then another.
The warm, strong palm of the Handsome Boy confidently supported her.
Emboldened, she took a few more timid, careful steps and felt that her legs seemed to be filled with some kind of elastic, pulsating force.
She looked at the face of the Handsome Boy, He was smiling.
“Now try it yourself,” He said to the girl, taking His palm away, “you can do it, try!”
I will be by your side all the time, you can always lean on Me and I will not let you fall!
His gaze exuded kindness and confidence, Mashenka believed Him and, now on her own, without support, began to approach the sparkling image of the Mother of God, moving her increasingly stronger legs even more confidently.
She walked on, not noticing how the worshipers made way for her, gasping and crossing themselves, as an astonished whisper rolled through the temple in waves:
-Miracle! Miracle! The paralytic is healed!
How the voice of the archdeacon, who was proclaiming the litany, suddenly broke off, how all the priests came out of the altar and looked in silence, together with the clergy nuns who had fled, at the child walking towards the icon.
Selafiel - Archpriest (Torik) Alexander Borisovich
Alexander Borisovich Torik
SELAFIILA
story
Content
Prologue/Chapter 1/Chapter 2/Chapter 3/Chapter 4/Chapter 5/Chapter 6/Chapter 7/Chapter 8/Chapter 9/Chapter 10/Chapter 11/Chapter 12/Chapter 13/Chapter 14/Chapter 15/Chapter 16/ Chapter 17/Chapter 18/Chapter 19/Chapter 20/Chapter 21/Chapter 22/Chapter 23/Chapter 24/Chapter 25/Chapter 26/Chapter 27/Chapter 28/Chapter 29/Chapter 30/Chapter 31/Chapter 32/Chapter 33 /Epilogue
Dedicated to the blessed memory of Schema-nun Sepfra
and to all who strive in monastic life
PROLOGUE
On a small platform in front of the entrance to the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord, protected from strong winds on the northern and western sides by a low wall, near the very door of the temple, two female figures were visible in the dissipating pre-dawn darkness.
One of them, tall, stately with a majestically humble posture, was covered from head to toe with a soft flowing blanket of a cherry-brown hue. The other, small, bent, leaning on a smoothly planed stick, was wrapped in a schema embroidered with white threads with a high hood.
— Father Christopher will come soon, he is already rising here from Panagia. Wait for him here in the temple. Tell him that I blessed you to visit My Lot and communicate with the Fathers when you need it,” the Tall Woman said in a gentle, deep voice. - Now I say goodbye to you, they are waiting for me in the cell of John the Theologian, My help is needed there.
-Thank you, Mother! — the bent schema-montress bowed to the ground. - Bless Your unworthy servant!
- May the grace of My Son and Mine be with you!
After some time, the plank door to the Church of the Transfiguration creaked, a tall, heavy-set old monk, breathing heavily, entered the small temple. In the depths of the nearest altar, on the right wall of the wooden stasidia, he saw a schematic kukul bending almost over the seat.
-Hello, mother of Selaphiel!
- Eulogite (bless), Father Christopher!
-Oh, Kyrgios! (God bless)
Below, a narrow finger stretching from north to southeast, stretched Athos, overgrown with dense green forest.
CHAPTER 1
Mother Selafiel opened her eyes and, squinting blindly, looked around. Dullly and vaguely, as if through a window glass that had not been washed for a long time, she examined the familiar outlines of the monastery house church of the abbot, Father Anfim, located on the second floor of the abbot’s house, in the corner cell of which she had been living for the fourth year.
In this small church, which looked more like a prayer room, she spent most of her time, not occupied with prayer at skete services, communicating with people who came to her, and very short rest.
Mother Selafiel was already one hundred and two years old.
She habitually noted the height of the flickering light of the candle above the silhouette of the candlestick: the light was still high, which meant that there was at least an hour and a half left before the start of the midnight office in the cathedral church of the monastery.
Selafiel's mother closed her heavy, wrinkled eyelids again. Her lips moved weakly, whispering a prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!”
Suddenly, before the eyes of the old nun, a picture of her distant childhood emerged with cinematic clarity.
She, a fragile four-year-old girl Mashenka, sits in her father’s arms, dangling her powerless legs, paralyzed from birth, in untrodden little shoes, and hugs his strong, tanned neck, which does not bend under the heavy yoke of peasant labor, worries and worries.
The father carries her along a narrow path winding between ripe wheat fields, carefully pressing the girl’s thin, sickly body to him and quietly whispering something affectionate, tenderly comforting in her ear. Mashenka feels good in her father’s strong arms, safe and at peace.
The path twisted around a sparse birch grove, and before the wide-open, amazed eyes of the girl, an immense expanse of a sun-drenched flower meadow opened up, in the middle of which the white towers and walls of some unprecedented fairy-tale city with shining gold domes of churches and a tall, slender candle bell tower sparkled.
- Tatochka, tatochka! - the child babbled. — Tatochka, what a beautiful city! Tatochka, this Paradise?
- This is the house of Mother of God, my joy! This is a monastery in honor of her Kazan icon, your aunt, godmother, nun Epiphania lives here!
- Tatochka, tatochka! It's so beautiful here! I also want to live here, with Mother of God, I also want to be a nun, they feel so good here, probably with Mother of God!
- The Lord knows, my baby! — her father kissed her on the cheek with rough, chapped lips. - Maybe someday you will be a nun, maybe you will live in the house of Mother the Queen of Heaven...
“I really, really want this, daddy!”
It was as if the frame had snapped, rushing forward, and before the gaze of Schema-nun Selafiel the inside of the temple appeared, bright, huge, filled with the aroma of wax, incense, flowers and some other very delicate and subtle fragrance.
A multitude of people filled the entire space of the temple, somewhere in front the archdeacon loudly proclaimed the litany, and from the balcony on the western wall the angelic voices of a female monastic choir were heard. The large, rich nun Epiphania, Mashenka’s aunt, carefully placed the girl on a low wooden bench next to the pedestal for collecting donations, directly opposite the miraculous image of the Virgin Mary, the locally revered shrine of the monastery.
-Pray, my dear, to the Mother of God! Ask her to heal your sore legs! — the nun stroked her fragile niece’s blond head with her soft, warm palm.
Mashenka looked carefully at the miraculous image sparkling with its polished robe; The face of the Mother of God, looking out from the frame strewn with precious stones, shone with kindness and quiet, barely noticeable sadness. Next to Her, obviously on Her knees, stood a serious, handsome Boy, also in precious clothes and a shining halo around his head, whose gaze seemed to be fixed directly on the girl.
Mashenka was a little embarrassed and closed her eyes.
-Girl! You probably want to ask My Mom for something? — Mashenka suddenly heard a quiet child’s voice right next to her ear. She opened her eyes and turned her head towards the speaker.
Standing in the front was that same handsome, serious Boy in precious clothes.
-Don’t be afraid, ask! She is very kind and will do everything you ask her for!
“Can I ask Her to let me become a nun and live in this holy monastery?” Mashenka timidly asked Him.
-Can! Only you must approach Her yourself and ask Her about it!
-But I don’t know how to walk on my own! My legs can't move!
-I will help you! Take Me by the hand and get up from the stool,” He extended His bright, childish palm to her, in the middle of which a dried bloody wound could be seen, “hold on to Me and walk quietly!” You will definitely get there with Me!
Mashenka carefully took hold of the outstretched palm, leaned on it, and slowly rose from her seat. Her legs trembled, but supported the small weight of her sickly thin body.
She carefully took a weak step, then another.
The warm, strong palm of the Handsome Boy confidently supported her.
Emboldened, she took a few more timid, careful steps and felt that her legs seemed to be filled with some kind of elastic, pulsating force.
She looked at the face of the Handsome Boy, He was smiling.
“Now try it yourself,” He said to the girl, taking His palm away, “you can do it, try!”
I will be by your side all the time, you can always lean on Me and I will not let you fall!
His gaze exuded kindness and confidence, Mashenka believed Him and, now on her own, without support, began to approach the sparkling image of the Mother of God, moving her increasingly stronger legs even more confidently.
She walked on, not noticing how the worshipers made way for her, gasping and crossing themselves, as an astonished whisper rolled through the temple in waves:
-Miracle! Miracle! The paralytic is healed!
How the voice of the archdeacon, who was proclaiming the litany, suddenly broke off, how all the priests came out of the altar and looked in silence, together with the clergy nuns who had fled, at the child walking towards the icon.
