Blessed Lyubushka (Lyubov Lazareva)
(1912–1997)
Blessed Lyubushka spoke little about herself; it is known that she was born on September 17, 1912 in a large peasant family “in the Smolensk region.” Her father Ivan Lazarev was the headman of the village church. At the age of four, Lyubushka was left without a mother, and soon her father died during the years of repression. A close relative took the girl in. When she turned 18, she went to Leningrad to live with her older brother, he helped her get a job at the Red Triangle factory. It is noteworthy that Lyubushka gave the milk, which was given to all workers in “harmful” production for free, to colleagues who had children. Soon she fell ill, and doctors recommended changing jobs. I had to move to the position of a wardrobe maid in a warehouse. Here they began to force her to deceive and make notes. Lyubushka left this job, and a little later she decided to leave her brother’s house and become a wanderer. She spent the night wherever she had to, often in the open air in the forest. The wanderer visited many churches and monasteries in Russia, but the most dear place for her was Vyritsa, where her spiritual father, Hieromonk Seraphim (the recently glorified Venerable Seraphim of Vyritsky) lived. And after the death of Elder Seraphim, Lyubushka often returned to Vyritsa and prayed for hours at the elder’s grave.
From the memoirs of Lukia Ivanovna Mironova: “I lived at that time in Vyritsa, near Leningrad. One day I came to the cathedral for a service and I heard everyone whispering: “Lyubushka, Lyubushka...” I looked - an old woman, dressed very simply, like nothing special, but there was something about her that made her stand out from the others. She was all in prayer, as if not from this world. Many people came up to her after the service, but I was shy...
Lyubushka came to us on the feast of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in 1974... Lyubushka and I met on the street... Lyubushka asked me where I lived and asked me to spend the night. I told her then that I was a sinner and unworthy, but I would be glad. Only my grandchildren are small...
“I’m not afraid of children,” answered Lyubushka...
We made her bed on a folding bed; there was no other place. So she stayed to live in our house... With Lyubushka’s blessing, we bought a house in Susanino, next to the Church of the Icon of the Kazan Mother of God, which she especially revered. She predicted this purchase to us three years in advance. Lyubushka prayed a lot, especially at night. She knew many akathists by heart. In Susanino, people began to turn to her more and more often, especially in trouble or grief. She prayed for everyone who turned to her, told them the will of God - it was revealed to her. She most often read from her pen, as if she was opening the book of life. Through prayer, of course, which she, the righteous woman, reached God. Lyubushka sent many people to pray at the monastery on Karpovka to the holy saint. John of Kronstadt or Blessed. Ksenia. She revered them very much... She especially revered the Mother of God. Lyubushka, an orphan, loved Her with all her heart, with all her soul, like her own mother. And also in her own way, in the simplicity of her heart, she spoke to Her. Lyubushka told me that the Queen of Heaven appeared to her more than once...
Lyubushka prayed unusually and touchingly. Both in the temple and at home, she spoke to the icons in her own language, addressing the image on the icon as if it were alive. Sometimes she tearfully asked for something, sometimes she was happy. She prayed for everyone who turned to her, she prayed for St. Petersburg, for Russia. She once said that if people continue to sin in the same way and do not repent of their sins, a terrible time will come... She prayed earnestly, especially at night. Lyubushka never slept like people sleep. Sometimes he would wrap himself in a blanket and take a nap while sitting on the sofa, and that was the whole dream. She prayed incessantly, but spoke little... How many people she helped! She especially loved children and pigeons, always feeding them...
In recent years, there has not been a day when people did not come to us, sometimes at night, and not only the laity, but also the monastics and the clergy. Father Naum, Archimandrite from the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, often sent his children to us. He himself visited us in Susanino more than once. I remember offering Lyubushka tonsure as a monk; one day he sent me a doll in monastic clothes. But Lyuba stubbornly refused. She always said: “I am a wanderer. So remember me...” (Blessed Lyubushka lived with Lukia Ivanovna for 22 years.)
Priest Mikhail (Maleev) says: “Lyubushka received a blessing for her feat of prayer from the blessed old woman Maria, who lived in St. Nicholas Cathedral... So the wanderer settled in Vyritsa, and then moved to Susanino. Thus, the name of the village became as significant for people from different parts of Russia as the name of the holy places that existed before... I had the opportunity to visit my mother several times. Susanino, a village located an hour’s drive from Leningrad, has become a place of pilgrimage for people from all over not only Russia, but also other countries.
More than once I had to deal with the fact that Lyubushka knew in advance who was coming to her and from where. She predicted, then went out to meet the guests...
She could spend hours talking with the saints on the icons of the Susaninsky Church and in her holy corner... Attending the services where Lyubushka prayed was touching and blissful to the point of tears. She performed prayers only while standing, and did not allow herself to even sit down a little during the Divine Service... Along with the special prayerful intercession of the old woman, we can also talk about her innermost insight into the mysterious destinies of God. So, on the eve of the tragedy in Optina Hermitage on Easter 1993, one of the monks asked her what awaited him, and heard in response: “They will kill, but not you”...
The bright image of this humble prayerful soul will forever remain in memory, whose answers guided not only ordinary believers, but also those entrusted with “the helm of the Church”: experienced confessors, bishops, clergy...
From the memoirs of Klavdia Georgievna P.:
– The wanderer settled in Vyritsa, in the family of Lukia Ivanovna Mironova, and when the hostess moved to Susanino, she went there with her... A neighbor lived behind the wall. She was dissatisfied that loud sobs could be heard from Lyubushka’s room all night long: the blessed one was crying about a dying world, begging for the people.
Hieroschemamonk Seraphim Vyritsky said that the time will come when forty sinners will cling to every believer, so that he will pull them out of the swamp of sin. Blessed Lyubushka became such a savior for those who knew her. She helped in the matter of salvation from spiritual hunger not only during the years of the siege, but also in times of peace, when people need an intercessor and comforter no less than in war. The house in Susanino became a popular refuge - hundreds, and then thousands of visitors flocked there. People went to Lyubushka as to a prophetess: whatever the Lord announced, she would say, and they accepted her answer as from the mouth of God.
In 1992, the archabbot of Mount Athos arrived in Susanino. At the meeting and farewell, he asked the blessed one to write down his name for prayerful memory and twice heard the answer that shocked him: “There is no need to write, I know Father Athanasius.” This “I know” was pronounced with the same expression with which she spoke about prayer books distant from her not only by distance, but also by time. So she talked with the saints on the icons in the Susaninsky Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God and in her holy corner...
She saved not only individuals, but also entire cities. In 1991, in the suburb of Sosnovy Bor, there was an accident at the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant. Events developed according to the same pattern as at Chernobyl. The day before Lyubushka was very worried and said: “Fire, fire!” I baptized the road to the city, did not sleep until the morning, prayed - and no trouble happened...
Short-sighted, we often believe that trouble goes away on its own; bad things don’t happen by chance.
Blessed Lyubushka Susaninskaya performed her prayers day and night, not only not allowing herself to lie down, but even to sit down. She took the bread brought by the pilgrims, bit off a piece of it and, in childish, simple words, remembered those who brought it. People, seeing this, began to cry tears of love and repentance. As the scab fell from their souls, the only cry remained: “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner!” Then Lyubushka took the remains of this bread with her and fed it to the birds in the church fence.
Lyubushka always defended those unjustly persecuted. Those who are slandered, those who are offended, those who are falsely accused - I prayed for them and always begged for them. But she was also impartial - if a person deserved it, he could be exposed to reproof from her, which was very tangible and painful. She usually gave a blessing, pointing to a saint to whom it was necessary to pray especially, serve a prayer service, or read an akathist. Lyubushka gave her blessing to some to light candles, talking about this as a very important matter. Without further ado, she advised visitors who came with complex family and work problems: “Read your prayers at home, teach your children to pray.” And indeed, the life of these people lacked its main basis, the only thing needed. Due to the lack of prayer, problems arose as a natural consequence of living in a house “built on sand” (Matthew 7:26–27).
From the memoirs of monk Moses (Malinsky): “In 1991, I preached Christ, then in Western Ukraine, where I am from, there was a persecution of Orthodoxy. The authorities decided to deport me to Israel. While the visa was being processed, I went to Father Naum in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra (Father Naum called blessed Lyubushka “the living successor of blessed Matrona”), and he directed me to Lyubushka. “Mother, they are sending me to Jerusalem,” I said. And she will clap her hands and exclaim with joy: “To Jerusalem! To Jerusalem! I realized that this was God’s will, and with a light heart I left my homeland. The Greek Archimandrite Dionysius tonsured me at the Holy Sepulcher Brotherhood and named me in honor of the Teacher of the Law, Moses.
Returning to Russia, I hurried with my friends to Lyubushka. She led us to the church gatehouse: “I will feed you.” And she kept pouring it on and on, we can’t eat anymore, but she kept pouring it on: “Eat.” This is a great gift when an elder or old woman feeds you - it means he is sharing grace.
Another time, Father Vasily Shvets sent us to St. Petersburg, saying: “You will visit Blessed Ksenyushka, then Karpovka, then you will go to Lyubushka.” We started looking for accommodation for the night, found it with difficulty, and in the morning we went to Susanino. When they entered, the old lady sternly remarked: “You were told: to blessed Ksenia, then to Karpovka, and only then to me.” We realized that we had violated the sequence of the blessing: the instructions of the spiritual father must be followed verbatim, without changes.”
Anna Petrovna (regent) recalls: “One day the blessed one was standing on the porch and suddenly said: “They kill there, don’t go there, you don’t need to go there.” - “Where to, Lyubushka?” – I was surprised, but she didn’t explain. Soon my husband Ivan was attacked and almost killed. She always spoke in parables, it was our job to understand. She ate modestly and didn’t take from everyone.
One day I felt bad and asked: “My dear, pray for me.” - “I pray, I pray.” - “I feel bad, bad, Lyubushka.” - “Sing to the Lord while your legs walk.” So I sing. She herself stood on the porch all the time, and kept on her legs, on her legs - she didn’t like to sit. The man had a great soul!” Mother Lyudmila recalls: “I thought: we are asking her about our everyday questions, but we should watch how this saint of God prays while she is still next to us, on earth. One day Lyubushka prayed for a long time, then she came up and told me two sins that no one but me knew about: “Beg off, otherwise the Lord will punish you at the Last Judgment.”
From the memoirs of Mother Valentina: “We went to Lyubushka with the whole family... One day my grandson Georgy fell ill: pus, staphylococcus was oozing... I went to Lyubushka: “George is dying!” She prayed and said: “He will live.” And everything worked out. Then my daughter fell ill with rubella, and again, through Lyubushka’s prayers, the disease went away... One day in the late autumn I couldn’t even breathe, there were polyps in my nose.
We arrived at Lyubushka's. I told her about my illness. “Pray to God and you will receive help from the Mother of God, from the Savior and Nicholas the Pleasant,” said Lyubushka. I didn’t have time to reach the platform before my nose started breathing normally... She prayed on her hand. Leads with a finger and repeats names. All her spiritual children are written on her hand - all of us, all of Russia. For our family, she was a spiritual “first aid”, and now she helps immediately, just ask. Although the Lord has called her to eternal bliss, Lyubushka does not leave us, the poor, she is always alive with us.”
From the memoirs of Claudius P.: “Before her death, Lyubushka visited several monasteries, and there they felt her help... So, after the blessed old woman visited Shamordino, a women’s monastery founded by St. Ambrose of Optina, they were given a house that had not been given to the monastery for a very long time. Mother Abbess asked Lyubushka to pray for the transfer of the house, and soon the owners brought them the keys. So in the Kazan Monastery in Vyshny Volochyok, where she found eternal rest, all the buildings were transferred to the monastery after the blessed one settled there.
From the memoirs of Mother Superior Theodora:
– The Lord vouchsafed me, unworthy, to come for the first time to Lyubushka in Susanino with the blessing of my spiritual father (Schiarchimandrite Seraphim (Tyapochkin)) on January 14, 1987. From then on, for eleven years, until her very blessed death, I listened to her and lived only with her blessing and her holy prayers.
In 1990, I was offered to take over the Vyshnevolotskaya Kazan Convent; the temples and bell tower were in ruins; the sisters had nowhere to live and nothing to pay for. And Lyubushka blessed: “Take it.” Several times I was tempted to leave the monastery, since I had to live with one or two sisters without a livelihood, but when I came to Lyubushka and talked about it, she didn’t want to listen: “If you leave the monastery, it will close, and the Mother of God will not forgive you.” . Build, build and build, if you build a monastery, the Lord will send His mercy.” Only blessed Lyubushka, with her holy prayers, helped to revive this holy monastery in honor of the Kazan Mother of God, and at the end of her life she herself rested here, so the Lord sent His mercy...
Upon arrival at the monastery (January 29, 1997), she said: “Now I have come home.” When it was very difficult for me, I told Lyubushka: “You will not be there, and I cannot live without you.” And she answered me: “Wait until the summer.” I was anxiously waiting for the summer to pass and Lyubushka to leave. But the summer passed, and Lyubushka still lived with us, only starting to get sick. And when, after a complex operation that she underwent in Tver, she asked to be taken to the Kazan Monastery, I realized that Lyubushka would stay with us. Suddenly she felt worse. She received communion every day. A day before her death at 10 p.m., Lyubushka asked to receive Holy Communion again and thereby made it clear that she would soon die. All the sisters and close children who were in the monastery began to come up to say goodbye to her. She asked everyone for forgiveness and prayed for us. I wrote on my hand all the time with my finger.
On September 11, the day of the Beheading of John the Baptist, she was given communion at 11 o’clock, and until the last minute she was conscious and praying. Half an hour before her death, her face began to brighten. Seeing her last minutes of life on earth, I felt embarrassed for my careless life and for the fact that there was no one in the cell, and I alone saw the blessed death of the great saint of God. I began to read the canon on the outcome of the soul, then Lyubushka sighed quietly three times and gave up her righteous soul to the Lord. Immediately a blissful smile was etched on her face. During her lifetime, she said that the Mother of God of Kazan herself would come for her in a white dress. Blessed Elder Lyubov was buried on September 13, 1997, Saturday, near the Kazan Cathedral on the right side of the altar. And the next day, September 14, according to the old style, September 1 is the beginning of the church new year. Only on that day did I, unworthy, understand why she told me to wait until the summer; it turns out that this meant until the church summer. As soon as she came to us, she already knew the day of her death...
Lord, rest blessed Lyubushka, rest with the saints, and through her prayers save us!
Lyubushka RyazanskayaLyubushka (Lyubushka Semenovna Sukhanovskaya), as established from archival data, was born in the city of Ryazan on August 28/September 10, 1852 in the family of the Pronsky tradesman Semyon Ivanovich Sukhanovsky. (Some sources indicate the year 1960. Last name is Sukhanova). In 1880, the family lost its breadwinner. It is known that the widow, Maria Ivanovna Sukhanovskaya, settled with her two daughters Lyuba and Olga in the outbuilding of the house of the psalm-reader’s wife Anisya Alexandrovna Lebedeva.
Lyubushka Ryazanskaya is considered the patroness of Ryazan. The story of her life brings to mind Russian fairy tales. Lyubushka, as the people of Ryazan affectionately called her, belongs to those amazingly bright people without whom it is difficult to imagine the Russian faith. There was nothing contrived or theatrical about her - only service to God, from whom she received a prophetic gift, and complete self-denial.
To people who are far from Christianity, it seems that the saints lived in a distant, almost mythical past, and there are no more of them left in the modern world. This is probably why they consider the Christian religion itself to be something, albeit beautiful, but hopelessly behind the times. However, saints were, are and will be at all times, and perhaps the reason for our unbelief is the inability to recognize a miracle, the unwillingness to stop and listen to the voice of our soul.
The life of Lyubushka of Ryazan, one of the locally revered (venerated in a certain diocese) saints, can also be considered proof of the existence of miracles. Although less than a hundred years have passed since her death, not much is known about her life.
“ And with open fornication she
desecrated the earth, and committed adultery with stone and wood” (Jer. 3:9)
Since childhood, Lyuba was deprived of the ability to move. At the age of fifteen, the girl received a miraculous healing. Since then, Lyubushka began to bear her cross. She visited all the churches and monasteries of Ryazan; probably while praying in one of them, a desire was born in her soul to go into a “prayer retreat” so that nothing worldly would distract her. And three years later, having received a blessing from above, she came out to the people. Soon all of Ryazan knew about Lyubushka.
The whole city was soon talking about the girl in a blue scarf and a colored sundress, whose predictions were coming true. The merchants, to whom the blessed one came into the shop and took something without asking, vying with each other to say that in those days their trade was extremely successful. Many tried to give gifts to blessed Lyubushka, but she did not take from everyone, and what she took she certainly gave to people in need.
At the beginning of 1917, blessed Lyubushka rushed through the streets of the city and repeated: “The walls of Jericho are falling, the walls of Jericho are falling!” After the revolution, everyone understood what the blessed one warned about. She predicted to the elderly nuns from the Kazan monastery: “You will leave your bones here in the monastery, but not the others.” Soon the monastery was closed.
On February 21, 1920, Love went to the Lord. (Some sources indicate 1921)
The Path of Serving Christ of Blessed Elder Lyubov Susaninskaya
Report by Abbess Eupraxia (Inber), abbess of the Ascension Orshin convent (Tver and Kashin diocese) at the XXVI International Christmas educational readings. Direction “Ancient monastic traditions in modern conditions” (Zachatievsky Stavropegial Convent of Moscow, January 25–26, 2021)
Your Eminences, Eminences, Reverend Father Superiors and Mother Superiors and all participants in today's high meeting!
Our short report is based on the memories of the blessed elder Lyubov Susaninskaya, collected in her biography. The third edition of this book was recently published in Tver, which indicates the undying interest in this ascetic. Twenty years have passed since the day of her transition into eternity. And it seems to us that her whole life is ready-made materials for canonization.
I had the good fortune of communicating with this truly holy man, so today I willingly share my memories with you.
In the famous book “On the Heights of the Spirit,” written in the 30s of the last century, the author, Sergei Bolshakov, gives a conversation with one of the ascetics of the Dionysiates monastery, Father Euthymius:
-...Tell me, father, what is the highest feat?
- Play the fool, of course. For the wisdom of this age is foolishness in the sight of the Lord, and vice versa. This is a difficult feat, and one cannot undertake it except on the advice of an elder.
- And then?
- Well, wandering, that’s how the author of “Frank Tales of a Wanderer” goes. To the world, this is almost like madness. Well, and then hermitage, seclusion and simple monasticism. But remember, it is not the appearance that is important, but the inner.
In the desire to do the will of God - Thy will be done as in Heaven and on earth, in the cutting off of one’s will, in the mysterious feat of obedience, incompatible with the worldly order, our monastic life takes place, leading the zealous worker of prayer and obedience to the steps of that ladder, from the top where the saints - the holy elders - look at us with love. And also the holy fools, who in their holy foolish ways fly up this ladder. They know the will of God, constantly remain in obedience to the will of God, and live an angelic life here on earth.
For us it is only a path, but for them it is a way of life.
They, fools for Christ's sake, chosen from their mother's womb (see Gal. 1:15), fulfill in New Testament times the obedience of the Old Testament prophets. Just like the ancient prophets, they proclaim the will of God, denounce human vices and pray to God for our sorrows and infirmities, and the Lord, through their holy prayers, works obvious miracles.
Having counted everything earthly into their minds (see Phil. 3:8), they do not need our monastic labors of cutting off their will - it is already mortified for them along with the flesh, crucified with passions and lusts - for such there is no law (Gal. 5: 23), therefore external forms have no value for them, monastic robes are not required - all the glory of the Tsar’s daughter is within (Ps. 44:14) ... Our monastic vows of obedience, non-covetousness and chastity are fulfilled by them to perfection.
There cannot be many fools, just as there have never been many prophets: the earth will give its fruit (Ps. 67:7).
Blessed Elder Lyubov - Lyubov Ivanovna Lazareva - was born on September 4 (September 17, New Art.), 1912, on the day of remembrance of the prophet and God-seer Moses and the celebration of the icon of the Mother of God "Burning Bush", in the village of Kolodezi, about forty kilometers from Kaluga. Ivan Stepanovich, Lyubushka's father, was a church elder. Ivan Stepanovich and Evdokia Ivanovna had six children in their family. Lyubushka was the youngest.
Lyubushka was left an orphan early on and was taken in by her aunt, who tried very hard to find a good groom for her niece. Then Lyubushka moved to St. Petersburg to live with her older brother Alexei. Her brother helped her get a job as a shoemaker at the Red Triangle factory, where she worked for 11 years.
All her food often consisted of boiling water and bread. Her health was undermined, and at the end of the first winter of the blockade she had to get a new job - at a linen factory as a wardrobe maid. Lyubushka did not work here for long - she could not agree to the deceptions and additions (the bosses forced her to tear the sheets in half so that each would make two), and she was offered to “quit on good terms.”
During these years of siege, the blessed gift of foresight already began to clearly manifest itself. So, according to the inspiration of the Spirit, she always chose the safest place during bombings and, by her example, showed people where it was best to stay.
Hungry life and poor health led to the fact that one day she lost consciousness and fell on the street. So she ended up in a psychiatric hospital. Soon mother decided to escape. She herself told how she made a rope out of towels and sheets, along which she climbed down through the window. The passport remained in the hospital; in her hands was only a certificate issued by the village council in her homeland that she really was one. Having such a document in hand, it was impossible to get a job. She lived with this certificate for the rest of her life.
After escaping from the hospital, Lyubushka ended up on the street. She wandered around the city hungry for three days until she was seen crying by an elderly woman passing by, who fed her and advised her not to be shy about asking for Christ’s sake. Lyubushka accepted this meeting as an order from above to embark on the path of pilgrimage in the name of Christ.
Mother said that she wandered through forests and deserted places, tried to follow the railway, sometimes going to human settlements for food. Mother also said that at the beginning of her wanderings she walked everywhere barefoot, in any weather and at any time of the year. At the same time, she did not feel the cold at all and her feet did not freeze at all. But one day the thought came: “How can this be? I'm not freezing! And that’s it, I immediately began to freeze.
In the 50s, mother lived in Vyritsa. Blessed Lyubushka had a great spiritual connection with the Monk Seraphim of Vyritsky. A huge portrait of him - a photograph - always hung in her cell on the wall above the crib.
But the time came when age and the hardships suffered began to take their toll. And according to God’s vision, Mother was destined to become not an unknown wanderer, but an old woman, a helper and mentor to many people, who soon recognized her as the perspicacious blessed Lyubushka Susaninskaya.
Here, in little Susanino, six kilometers from Vyritsa, in the house of the pious widow Lukia Ivanovna Mironova, she spent years of open service to her neighbors. One day Lyubushka simply approached Lukia in Vyritsa, having met her on the road, and asked to stay with her for the night: “And you live here? And I will live here too.”
Lyubushka was 62 years old at the time. She had nothing, no clothes, no belongings, no passport. Soon Lyubushka persuaded Lukia to buy a house in Susanino. There Lyubushka could almost always be found in the Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God. On the days when the Liturgy was served, she always confessed and received communion, and after the service she received those who came to her. People came to her from everywhere, even from abroad.
Mother loved monastics very much, but she did not accept monasticism herself, despite the fact that in her life she was “a nun of nuns.” Many monastics from male and female monasteries came to Lyubushka, and she blessed many young people to enter the monastery. Bishops, abbots of monasteries, and experienced confessors came to her for advice. And many of them ended up at their service through the prayers and blessing of the elder.
I first heard about blessed Lyubushka back in the early 1980s, and since then I have always dreamed of visiting her someday. And then one day Archimandrite Naum (Baiborodin), as always surrounded by many people in the morning, suddenly called me over and introduced me to an elderly man who was standing, waiting for a blessing for the road, and said: “So you take him to Lyubushka,” and I wrote the address myself: Susanino, Sixth Line, 55. “You’ll find it there.”
It turned out that this man was organizing a “twenty” to open a church in Strunino, and the priest sent him to Lyubushka for blessings and prayerful help (that was the time when the state was just beginning to return the first churches, and there was no talk of monasteries yet) .
We agreed to meet him at the Leningradsky station, and on the way home I stopped at the Perovsky Department Store to buy something for Lyubushka as a gift. Back then, the shops were somehow modest and quiet. I walked along the counters and couldn’t choose anything, everything was wrong, I wasn’t in the mood for anything. And suddenly, near the handkerchief department, I seemed to hear: “Buy me a handkerchief.” And I immediately saw this handkerchief - white, cotton, with small blue polka dots, with a blue border, the kind that old women wear in church.
At home I prepared a few more gifts - small icons, rare photographs of the elders, I don’t remember what, but something else. We found Lyubushka's house right away. They opened the gate and went up to the porch. The hostess of the house, Lukia, opened the door for us. And before we had time to say anything, we heard Lyubushka’s voice from somewhere behind the partition: “Oh, the Struninskys have arrived!”, and then we saw - in the right corner of the room, in the depths, the small bent figure of blessed Lyubushka - it froze in front of the icons.
There was a chair to the left of the door, and I began to place my gifts on it in order, and with disappointment I heard from the corner for each thing something like: “I won’t take this,” until I took out the treasured handkerchief. Having already lost hope, she asked: “Will you take a handkerchief?”
“I’ll take a handkerchief,” was the answer, and then Lyubushka appeared, all joy, attention, all love and holiness, and from then on and forever I went to Lyubushka with fear and trembling, because here was something that doesn’t happen anymore. light. Lyubushka was a living saint who descended from the icon. And we all knew and felt it, it was impossible not to understand.
That’s when I first saw how Lyubushka prayed - as if she was writing with her finger on her palm - sending telegrams to heaven. I remember how she took us to church with her. She walked around me and seemed to be crushing invisible reptiles on the floor with her foot, quietly saying: “You can’t, you can’t.” Then she taught me to first venerate the icons, and only then approach her with my questions.
But it may very well be that with this eccentricity of hers, this peculiarity of hers - a finger on her palm - she already then prophetically predicted the massive darkness of our times - these are our now familiar smartphones; Now children can use their finger across the screen on their palm to send telegrams, but not to the sky.
One day, when I was going to Susanino, my friend Tatyana told me to ask Lyubushka for holy prayers so that the question of how she should continue to build her life would be resolved. Everything somehow came to a dead end for her; her spiritual father was already exhausted with her. It seems that they finally decided that she would go to Riga, to the monastery (and then there were only convents “abroad” - Riga, Pyukhtitsy, Korets...) She went to get tickets and on the way she fell and broke her arm. Lyubushka, as usual, wrote down my request with her finger on her palm - but I must say that my friend had never been to Lyubushka’s. And then two weeks later she hears from her confessor: “Everything is decided. You will go to Diveevo and live there.” And she went there to work as a nurse in a hospital, to pray and look after the old Diveyevo nuns. This is how the first sisters appeared in Diveevo.
A year later I was back at Lyubushka’s. How many people visited her during this time! How many troubles and how many requests! And suddenly, in the middle of the conversation, she asked: “Well, how is your Tatyana, who is now with St. Seraphim?” But I forgot to thank her and, of course, did not tell her anything about how everything worked out then according to her prayers.
By the way, later I understood why Lyubushka refused all my icons and photographs: she prayed in a special way to each saint whose icon was in her icon corner. Each such gift was associated with prayer work for everyone who gave her something, and each such gift immeasurably aggravated this work. One day she took me to a table near the window and showed me the icons, postcards, shrines lying there, and named the names of everyone who gave her something, in order.
Usually Lyubushka blessed us before leaving to definitely visit Blessed Xenia and John of Kronstadt. When leaving, we made sure to take her blessing for the journey, and train tickets always appeared, even if they were not available at any ticket office for several days in advance.
I always remember her in the same clothes, in a simple wide skirt and an untucked cotton or flannel jacket - this is how Blessed Xenia is dressed in all the icons. And in winter - this is her famous coat - a patch on a patch, but then she comes from church and carefully, slowly, folds it and puts it on a stool at the entrance.
How good it was to be next to her! Someone says that nothing could be understood - only through the hostess-“translator”! Nothing like this. Yes, indeed, she often babbled something in her unknown angelic language (but no translator would have helped here), and suddenly she would look at you piercingly and lovingly and say everything you needed, and never a single extra word, every - worth its weight in gold.
I was very worried when I went to the monastery - the decision had already been made, and, as almost always, when something important, a turning point in life was coming up, my Father, Archimandrite Naum, sent me to Lyubushka, probably for confirmation of the decision and for prayer help and blessing. “Don’t be afraid of anything, don’t be embarrassed, go to a monastery, and your parents will come to faith faster,” she told me in response to my worries about the parents I left in Moscow. My departure to the monastery was scheduled for March 9th. And on March 8, for the last time, already without hope (after several sharp refusals in response), I asked my mother, who still had no idea what awaited her tomorrow, if she wanted to be baptized, and suddenly I heard the incredible: “With pleasure! »
And soon my mother began to joyfully come to see me at the monastery, and then my father gradually became an Orthodox man.
She asked almost everyone whom Lyubushka received from Moscow: “Have you been to Father Naum? First go to Father Naum, and then here.” So we lived then between Elder Naum and Lyubushka, as if we were walking on a rainbow. And it was natural for us - “an ordinary miracle.”
Several more years passed, and suddenly we learned that blessed Lyubushka was in the Nikolo-Shartomsky monastery. “Take me to you,” she unexpectedly said to the abbot, Father Nikon, who then came to her, and to his amazement she went with him to his monastery. As in Susanino, many pilgrims flocked to Lyubushka in the new place. Several times our elder, Archimandrite Naum, blessed me to go there with her with various monastic questions.
And then, by God’s Providence, her wanderings continued again. The last earthly refuge for her becomes the Vyshne-Volotsky Kazan Convent on Tver land.
One day, Mother Veronica, the wife of a priest who was then serving in the Tver Catherine Monastery, comes to me and asks me to find her a good pediatric neurologist in Moscow - no one in Tver can cure her one and a half year old boy. The child walks on bent legs - they do not fully straighten - a birth injury.
“Mother,” I say, “let’s wait with the neurologist, go to Vyshny Volochek, to see blessed Lyubushka, she recently appeared there.” And if she doesn’t help, then we’ll go to the doctors.
And so Mother Veronica took all four of her children, the youngest under her arm, and from bus to bus she got to the Kazan Monastery. I went up to the second floor. The children remained in the corridor - even, it seems, on the landing, and she stayed in Lyubushka’s cell for four hours. What they talked about there remains a mystery to me. I only know that Lyubushka fed her, and even put her on her bed, and told her many, many things, including what awaited her, this mother, in the future. And when she left Lyubushka’s cell, her boy was running along the corridor, kicking his legs, as if he was playing football - where did the illness go!
In the house church of the Vyshnevolotsky Kazan Monastery, Lyubushka could always be seen in front of the large Kazan icon. She stood for a long time at the Chalice with the Holy Gifts and took communion slowly, slowly, and the priest with the Chalice in his hands waited patiently while she quietly babbled something, and seemed to admire the Holy Gifts, and spoke to Them in her angelic language - that was what something great, incomprehensible. You stand with bated breath, looking at her from afar, and thank the Lord for allowing you to witness this miracle.
Then she got sick. I remember how she warmed herself in her cell near the stove - now with her back, now with her side, now with her stomach leaning against the warm wall of the large white Vyshnevolotsk stove. “We have to do something, Lyubushka! Maybe I can bring you some good doctors?” And she suddenly moved away from me, stood in the left corner of the room, facing the wall: “Don’t bring men to me, I have Yakov.”
Lyubushka was getting worse and worse. On September 1, we learned that Lyubushka was in the hospital after a severe abdominal operation. The doctor who operated on her was named Yakov. They said that after the operation it was even scary to approach him, he was very worried, he was all white as a sheet - after all, Lyubushka ended up on the operating table only three weeks after she had a volvulus, there was something terrible in her stomach, peritonitis began.
Our father, Father Naum, immediately sent his spiritual children to her, the next day they were already in Tver, and we went to the hospital. We were allowed into the intensive care unit, and Archimandrite Ephraim administered Holy Communion to Blessed Lyubushka and served a water prayer service.
And then the painful days of her serious illness dragged on. After two or three days the doctor said: “Well, that’s it, the intestines have stopped, this is the end.” And Abbess Juliania and I went to the Lavra at night to ask for the holy prayers of our elder. But in the evening we were unable to tell him anything, no matter how much we walked near the entrance, and when early in the morning we found ourselves in his reception room, we immediately heard from him: “Two nuns under the window were singing late in the evening.” And he gave us a bottle of oil from thirty shrines, with a very strong aroma of rose oil, so that we could rub Lyubushka’s whole body with it.
When we returned to the hospital in the afternoon, the doctor immediately told us that the incredible had happened - at night, Lyubushka’s intestine, which had been operated on, became practically dead. She already looked different. The day before she was completely pale - a haggard, exhausted face, a pointed nose; and here – the cheeks are pink, the face is rounded again.
In Lyubushka’s room there was already Abbess Feofaniya, the abbess of the Moscow Intercession Monastery. His Holiness Patriarch Alexy sent her to visit Lyubushka and told her that he was taking out a particle for her.
And so we, singing the Trisagion (the three of us sang!) carefully anointed Lyubushka, all over, from head to toe, with Father’s rose oil, and when I anointed her face, she quietly said: “That’s enough.” But we still didn’t understand what was happening, what this anointing meant, we all hoped for healing. And all the obvious indications of her inevitable imminent death were hidden, we did not see them - or did not want to see them.
And then Lyubushka went on a hunger strike. On Sunday she refused all medications, pushed away all people and flatly refused to eat until she was taken to the Kazan Monastery. And she just repeated: “Let’s go home.” “As a doctor, I have no right to do this, but as a Christian I cannot do otherwise. She did everything so that we would be forced to let her go to a monastery,” her doctor Jacob told us. All this time he was on duty near her at night, and on Sunday he also came to the hospital.
They reported to Vyshny Volochek. Mother Theodora immediately sent her old minibus to Tver, and the doctor called his friend, just to share with him everything that was happening. A friend was driving to Sheremetyevo at that time - he had a ticket to Spain. The friend was a man whom Lyubushka had once healed - he was brought to her on crutches, but he left her on his own feet. He listened to everything and hung up. Then I thought: “What kind of Spain? Darling is dying." He turned around and flew to Tver in his 600th Mercedes.
While Abbess Juliania of Tver and Abbess Sofia of Suzdal were figuring out how to get Lyubushka to Volochok on this “Rafika,” a black Mercedes had already stopped at the hospital door.
When we finally reached the Kazan Monastery on the Suzdal Oka, Lyubushka was already reclining in a white mountain of pillows on her bed and, smiling, quietly sang the troparion “God-loving”, and looked out the window from which the huge monastery cathedral dedicated to Queen of Heaven. The sisters circled around her and sang her favorite songs to her, and we stood in the doorway and were silent.
- It’s okay, everything will be fine, everything will be fine.
- Darling, from whom?
- at Lyubakha's.
And on the fifth day Lyubushka died. It happened on September 11, 1997, Thursday. On the day of the Beheading of John the Baptist. They say that all the blessed are Ivanovnas. And Lyubushka was Ivanovna, Lyubov Ivanovna Lazareva.
Lyubushka was buried near the altar of the Kazan Cathedral. The day was cloudy, but the sun broke through the clouds when they began to serve the litiya at the coffin, near the grave. Many saw how the sun played.
One day I heard from our elder: “You are lucky, you found blessed Love. There are no such people now.”
“Almost always,” recalls her cell attendant Raisa, “undressed and in rags.” After all, everything that was brought to her went to monasteries and churches. And through her prayers the Lord healed deadly diseases. Here I am,” she pointed to herself, “before you is a living example (she was mortally ill when she met Lyubushka). The Lord fulfilled Lyubushkina’s every request. She sat and prayed, begging for each person. In Susanino, opposite her house, elderly people lived and drank. Lyubushka once began to ask them for a piece of bread, she asked and asked, but they didn’t give it. “I wanted to save their souls for a piece of bread,” she said later. “Lord, she gave me some bread, she gave me a bun, forgive them and save them!”
Lyubushka always tried to be in those places where her help was needed: “Oh, we need to go to St. Petersburg, Raechka. How bad it is there! There the priests leave. I have to help him." (This was the time when the metropolitan at the St. Petersburg see was replaced.)
She once said about herself: “I, Lyubushka, am a beggar for Christ’s sake.” Her boots are made of cloth, the soles are thin, like newspaper. At least I stuff weed in there, but she throws it away. “Liubonka, why are you torturing yourself like that?” - "It is forbidden. God won’t hear.” And when he prays for someone’s sin, he already lies down.
She was merciless to herself, already old, sick - she would never sit down in the service: “The flesh,” she says, “cannot be pitied.”
In Shartom, Lyubushka once sat on her bed and remembered the names of all her relatives.
- How did you end up like this?
“And I,” he answers, “by kinship, by mother, have a very pious family.”
Four aunts, age-old maidens, took me to Optina.
- Oh, Rayechka! – she once exclaimed, “if you could see what’s happening!”
Everything that was happening in the world was revealed to her.
One day she entered the St. Nicholas Cathedral in St. Petersburg and said: “Nicholas the Wonderworker and John of Kronstadt, alive, are walking around the temple.”
They told how one archimandrite - and now a metropolitan - when he was a deacon in the Vladimir region, came to the Kazan church and asked permission to serve there. He looked at Lyubushka - old, small... “I don’t find anything in her,” - he just thought so when he suddenly saw: Lyubushka standing in the air, above all the people, and praying.
Even now we often come to the huge Kazan monastery to visit blessed Lyubushka. In the chapel, which was built over Lyubushkina’s grave, we sing a requiem and press ourselves to the cold marble with our endless requests, and firmly believe that she still hears now, as before, when she still lived on earth next to us.
In conclusion, I will give an excerpt from the story of my friend, the rector of the Theological Courses at the Zaikonospassky Monastery, about her trip to the blessed old woman:
– ...Between Lyubushka and our priest, Archimandrite Naum, there was such a spiritual connection that it seemed that everything that Father said was sanctified by her prayer. If the Lord for some reason did not reveal His will to Father, and Father doubted what to say to the questioner, he would send to Lyubushka to get confirmation of his reasoning. And if Father’s opinion did not coincide with Lyubushka’s opinion, Father always advised to act according to Lyubushka’s words. In this prayerful consonance, in this amazing ability to feel part of the Orthodox Tradition, where everyone is only a humble obedient to the will of God, which is revealed through people living by the grace of the Holy Spirit, lies the secret of piety and Church Tradition. It is in obedience to the Divine will, according to Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), that “the only condition for the perception of living Tradition” is hidden. Otherwise, the Holy Tradition, “flowing from generation to generation,” will be cut short for us, and we will find ourselves outside the conciliar consciousness of the Church. That is why it is so comforting and joyful to know that there are people who live by Church Tradition, keeping the secret of obedience to the will of God, which is revealed to those who seek it with a pure and simple heart...
Susanino
Anticipating her imminent death, Blessed Mary transferred her ministry to Lyubushka, saying: “She is great.” The wanderer settled in Vyritsa, in the family of Lukia Ivanovna Mironova, and when the hostess moved to Susanino, she went there with her. A neighbor lived next to the wall. She was dissatisfied that loud sobs could be heard from Lyubushka’s room all night long: the blessed one was crying about a dying world, begging for the people. I even went to the police to complain that they were living behind the wall without registration, but they didn’t touch Lyubushka. Soon the name “Susanino” became as significant for people as the names of other shrines of our Orthodox Fatherland: Kitaevo, Diveevo, Shamordino. Here, sad for the Russian Land, blessed Lyubushka lived for about thirty years, praying in the local church of the Kazan Mother of God. The chosen victorious Voivode did not let the blessed one out from under Her honest omophorion, as if saying: “Behold My beloved daughter.” Every holy image, every icon in the Susaninsky Church was kissed by the blessed one and prayed to by her; Lyubushka's spirit is still present here. Hieroschemamonk Seraphim Vyritsky said that the time will come when forty sinners will cling to every believer, so that he will pull them out of the swamp of sin. Blessed Lyubushka became such a savior for those who knew her. She helped in the matter of salvation from spiritual hunger not only during the years of the siege, but also in times of peace, when people need an intercessor and comforter no less than in war. The house in Susanino became a popular refuge - hundreds, and then thousands of visitors flocked there. People went to Lyubushka as a prophetess: whatever the Lord announced, she would say, and they accepted her answer as from the mouth of God.
Blessed Lyubushka Susaninskaya performed her prayers day and night, not only not allowing herself to lie down, but even to sit down. This was a feat of stylitehood that she carried out for many years - perhaps with the blessing of the 20th century stylite hieroschemamonk Seraphim Vyritsky. She took the bread brought by the pilgrims, bit off a piece of it and, in childish, simple words, remembered those who brought it. People, seeing this, began to cry tears of love and repentance. As the scab fell from their souls, the only cry remained: “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner!” Then Lyubushka took the remains of this bread with her and fed it to the birds in the church fence. When talking with a person, Lyubushka often “wrote on the hand” - she moved her finger along the palm and answered - sometimes in understandable words, sometimes mysteriously, and sometimes, apparently knowing that the person would not fulfill what was said: “As you want, do as you want.” This is how she answered those people who at least once did not fulfill her blessing. Lyubushka’s advice was guided not only by ordinary believers, but also by those entrusted with “the helm of the Church” - bishops, experienced confessors, and recently ordained pastors. “There was no need for any stories about her insight and other spiritual gifts,” writes a contemporary, “you just needed to see those eyes, the bent figure, the wretched clothes, the bags of bread and feel: “Yes, this is holiness.” This is what a holy man is. And why do we have such a gift - a meeting with real holiness? Lyubushka prayed a lot, especially at night. She knew many akathists by heart. In Susanino, people began to turn to her more and more often, especially in trouble or grief. She prayed for everyone who turned to her, told them the will of God - it was revealed to her. She most often read from her pen, as if she was opening the book of life. Through prayer, of course, which she, the righteous woman, reached God. Lyubushka sent many people to pray to the monastery on Karpovka to the holy righteous John of Kronstadt or to Blessed Xenia. She revered them very much. “In recent years, there has not been a day when people did not come to us, sometimes even at night, and not only the laity, but also the monastics and the clergy. Father Naum, Archimandrite from the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, often sent his children to us. He himself visited us more than once, in Susanino. I remember offering Lyubushka tonsure as a monk; one day he sent me dolls in monastic clothes. But Lyuba stubbornly refused. She always said: “I am a wanderer, so remember me...” She never condemned the priesthood or anyone at all; she pitied everyone. She told me more than once that she would die at Kazanskaya, that the men would kill her...” ...Lukia Ivanovna willingly told me about the blessed one and said very little about herself in connection with her. Although she, Lyubushka’s faithful companion, for 22 years quietly helped the blessed one to bear the difficult cross of foolishness for Christ’s sake. How many people stayed in their house over the years of living with Lyubushka, it’s impossible to count - not tens, but thousands... And how much patience and love of Christ the mistress of the house needed to receive everyone, console them in grief, feed and drink them, and sometimes put them to bed for the night. I remember what delicious cabbage soup and pies she treated me, a complete stranger to her, to on my first visit to Lyubushka. In recent years, Lukia Ivanovna always had several pots of food on her stove. An acquaintance who came to Lyubushka once drew attention to them. The priest was surprised that there were so many of them, and then, after a pause, he said that this would save Lukia. “Blessed are they who have mercy, for they will receive mercy.” And how much slander and slander Lukiya Ivanovna and Galina, her daughter, suffered! They and the Lord know about it. The enemy of the human race cruelly took revenge on them for Lyubushka, most often through his own Orthodox Christians close to home. Unaware of the devil's machinations, one of these close associates, who helped in caring for Lyubushka (she had to be taken to church every day and not left alone), was sent in January 1996 on a trip with Lyubushka. Lukia and Galina could not go. The blessed one promised to return soon. But by God's permission, at the enemy's instigation, Lyubushka was taken away from Lukia Ivanovna forever, despite her repeated requests to return her to Lyusya. About this time - without Lucy - one thing can be said: the wanderer Lyubushka, following the example of the Savior, was crucified on the cross, which she bore throughout her difficult life. She did not resist this in a Christian way. By God's permission, a stranger appeared next to her, to whom she had said back in Susanino: “Give up on me!” Everyone else was far away - and it seemed that they had left her then... The sick and lonely 85-year-old old woman, to please someone's evil will, was taken to monasteries, to other people's apartments, in a worldly, consumerist way. At the same enemy instigation, they set up a house for Lyubushka near the Susaninsky Church, which she categorically refused. The Lord, in his own way, enlightened those who, on their own initiative, conceived this construction. The house was built when the sad news of the death of the blessed old woman came to Susanino. On September 11, 1997, on the Beheading of John the Baptist, Lyubushka went to the Lord after undergoing an operation that she did not agree to. Thus the wanderer’s prediction about her death came true. “Before her death, Lyubushka visited several monasteries, and they felt her help,” writes Klavdiya Petrunenkova. “So, after the blessed old lady visited Shamordino, a women’s monastery founded by the Monk Ambrose of Optina, they were given a house that had not been given to the monastery for a very long time. Mother Superior asked Lyubushka to pray for the transfer of the house, and soon the owners brought them the keys. So in the Kazan Monastery in Vyshny Volochyok, where she found eternal rest, all the buildings were transferred to the monastery after the blessed one settled there. When Lyubushka was in Diveevo, she was received there with great honor, invited to venerate the relics of St. Seraphim, but for some reason she did not go. They tried to persuade her anyway. And finally she said: “What relics? He’s alive here.” The power of her insight into the spiritual world was such as is unknown to us. She already lived in another world. It is also providential that mother died on the day of the beheading of John the Baptist. She was a true prophet of our time. Now we cannot fully understand this and cannot comprehend the magnitude of her holiness. Over time, the Lord Himself will put everything in its place.”... One day a woman left Lyubushka. There are red spots on the cheeks, restless eyes. The woman seemed to be engaged in some kind of publishing activity. After rummaging in her purse, she pulled out a whole stack of paper icons. “I wanted to leave it for Lyubushka...” she said. - We are releasing this... - No, no! — the sinner Anfisa waved her hands. - Take it. We don't need it. When the woman left, I still couldn’t resist asking Anfisa why she gave up the icons. Can icons be superfluous? “I don’t know...” Anfisa answered innocently. — The entire wall is hung with icons. Our darling says: “What do you think? - is this drawn? No... These are not drawings, not photographs. It’s the saints themselves who are standing... This is an icon-picture for others, but not for Lyubushka. No matter how many icons there are, she will bow to each one. Even though you have no strength, you can barely stand on your feet... But you don’t even know how to attach such an icon. It’s about to fall... I don’t know why they print icons with pieces of paper... And then Lyubushka cries...”
