Blessed Maria Ivanovna Fedina of Diveyevo, fool for Christ’s
August 26/ September 8 (†1931)
Maria Ivanovna Fedina[1] was born in the village of Goletovka, Elatma district, Tambov Province. Later she was asked why her patronymic was Ivanovna [rather than Zakharovna]. “All of us blessed ones are Ivanovnas, from St. John the Forerunner,” she answered.
The Lord took special consideration for her, knowing herfuture zeal for God, and she often saw the St. Seraphim Diveyevo Convent before her eyes during her work, although she had never actually been there.
She wandered between Sarov, Diveyevo, and Ardatov, hungry, half-naked and persecuted.
The Lord Himself glorified her among the people for her God-pleasing life, her great humility and patience. People began to notice that what she would say or warn about would come to pass, and that those with whom she stayed would receive grace from God.
Maria Ivanovna received her spiritual nourishment from Blessed Prascovia Ivanovna, to whom she went for advice. Prascovia Ivanovna herself, aware of her imminent repose, told those close to her, “I am still sitting at the loom, and another is already weaving. She still walks, but soon she’ll sit.” Blessing Maria Ivanovna to stay at Diveyevo, she said to her, “Just don’t sit in my armchair.” (Maria Ivanovna lived in Blessed Pasha’s cell for only two years.) On the very day that Blessed Pasha [Prascovia] of Sarov died, Maria Ivanovna experienced a small temptation. Greatly vexed by her eccentricities, the nuns threw her out of the monastery, telling her never to return, or they would call the police. The blessed one said nothing to this, turned and left.
A true ascetic and God-pleasing woman, she possessed the gifts of clairvoyance and healing.The nuns told of how on the night of July 4-5, 1918, the night the Royal Family was martyred, Maria Ivanovna was greatly agitated, screaming “They are bayoneting the Princesses!” She was in an awful frenzy, and only later did what she was screaming about become clear.
One day a certain noblewoman came to the blessed one from Murom. As soon as she stepped in the door, Maria Ivanovna said, “You’re are a noblewoman, but you smoke like crude man.” The woman really had smoked for twenty-five years and suddenly cried, saying, “I can’t give it up for anything. I smoke at night and before Liturgy.”
Dorothea, take her tobacco and throw it into the furnace.
Mother Dorothea took the elegant cigarette case and lighter and threw them into the furnace. A month later she received a letter from her and a dress, sewn out of thankfulness. She wrote that she did not even think about smoking, as if it had been simply taken away from her.
To another sister she said, “Do not worry. You will all be in a convent. Only instead of your names, you will all have numbers.” Pointing at one sister, she said that her number would be 338. “I remembered this number,” this sister recalled, “and when we were in jail this was the number they gave me. So that was our convent.”
One of the nuns in prison had a dream. St. Seraphim was conducting two nuns into the yard saying, “I am conducting my beloved ones into the prison.” And as she woke up she looked through the window; the two sisters were walking up to the prison. At the same time the daughter of Metropolitan Seraphim Chichagov (the author of the Diveyevo Chronicles) saw a dream: some nuns were sitting at a table, and the Queen of Heaven was indicating which of the nuns was to be taken to prison.
Finally, she was taken to Cherevatovo, where she reposed on August 26/September 8, 1931—the night of the feast day of the Vladimir Mother of God. That night there was a terrible storm. They buried her there in the Cherevatovo cemetery.
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