The last abbess of the Holy Trinity Chigirinsky Convent before its brutal destruction by the Soviet authorities was the nun Raphaila (Raisa Vasilievna Tertatskaya). Unfortunately, no documentary biographical information about her has reached our time. The diocesan archives, containing chronicles and chronicles of the previous years of monastic life, perished in the early 20s. There are only oral retellings based on the memories of the guards and former nuns of the monastery, who preserved with clear clarity the bright image of this great mother.
According to Chigirin's narratives, Raisa was born in 1877. She came from a pious noble family. Even as a child, her heart was kindled with a fiery love for the Lord. As a child, she often retired to prayer and was moved by church hymns. And in her adolescence she asked her parents’ blessing to enter the monastery. From a young age, Raisa was brought up and grew spiritually in the bosom of the Holy Trinity Monastery under the wise guidance of venerable elders and experienced confessors. Against the backdrop of the peaceful flow of a quiet monastic life, she diligently carried out various obediences and was known as an excellent craftswoman. She especially surprised her sisters with her skillful embroidery and carpet weaving. For many years later, people carefully preserved towels decorated with the work of their mother. But most of all Raisa loved church services. Gifted by the Creator with a rich voice and excellent hearing, she did not cease to constantly praise Him. Choir obedience was the most desirable thing for her. It is reliably known that mother knew the Psalter by heart - its incessant reading became her main support in difficult times. And this servant of Christ admired God’s beautiful creation - flowers. Possessing artistic taste, she beautifully decorated temples with them, grew entire greenhouses in her cell and in the “Garden of Eden” - the monastery. And she especially loved roses.
When and under what circumstances novice Tertatskaya took angelic tonsure is not yet known. For her pure, chaste life, the Lord gave his chosen one the great Archangel name. Raphael means healer of God. Years will pass and the Venerable Martyr Raphael will be granted the All-Merciful gift of healing physical and mental human ailments.
On August 29, 1920, it was decided to appoint nun Raphaila (Tertatskaya) as the chairman of the Holy Trinity women's community. And on December 19 of the same year, on the day of remembrance of St. Nicholas, the Wonderworker of Myra, on one of the especially revered patronal feasts of the monastery, the Lord blessed his chosen one to become the abbess of the monastery (after the death of the former abbess, Mother Parthenia). The faithful daughter and pupil of the monastery was appointed mother of her sisters at the most difficult, and, it seemed, absolutely hopeless time. She soberly realized that the rod of her abbotship was the lot of martyrdom. Short in stature, weak in body like a woman, Mother Raphaila had strong faith, and in everything she trusted only in the Lord. Truly, “the power of God was made perfect in human weakness.” (II Cor. 12 :9)
From the first months of open persecution of the monastery, the abbess, through spiritual reasoning with the sisters, decided to ignore the ever-increasing pressure from the authorities, threats of possible violence, and not leave the place of her monastic feat. She strove to follow, by the grace of God, Christ’s commandment: “He who endures to the end will be saved” (Mk.13:13) 
Her inexhaustible hope in God’s Providence gave her special stability in those circumstances in which others inevitably despaired. For at that time, many people were despondent from the sorrows and hopelessness of the current situation, some succumbed to deceptive temptations and followed the lead of human weakness. How much wisdom, strength and firmness you had to have then to show your monastery daughters that the success of the fight against evil is measured not by external victory, but only by unshakable standing in faith to the end. And most importantly, a personal example was required.
Facts indicate that Mother Raphaila took many actions to preserve the statutory life of the monastery and protect the sheep of Christ from the newly-minted militant atheists. Without losing complacency, and even love for her enemies, she accepted the invasion of new people who no longer knew God. Realizing that the confiscation of the monastery premises in favor of the Soviet authorities was inevitable, she was the first to propose to the Chigirinsky leadership to settle orphans in the monastery. A caring Christian woman tried to help them survive the difficult time of famine and civil devastation at the expense of the monastery reserves and treasury, as well as save their souls under the care of the nuns. And besides this, the far-sighted mother-hostess believed that housing the colonists would be less painful for the monastery than anything else. After all, the Soviet rulers could have used the monastery base for other, more blasphemous purposes.
Tracing the course of events of the liquidation of the Holy Trinity Monastery, it can be noted that with all the external satanic pressure, the godless authorities were often forced to reckon with the actions and actions of the chairman of the community, Mother Raphaila. Her spiritual prudence and insight helped to avoid hopeless situations, and when faced with aggressive atheists, she often emerged victorious in spirit. They were even a little afraid of her, and because of this they secretly hated her, hatching a plan for revenge. “For the righteous with his one life reproves the crooked, the wicked and the hypocritical. And the more divine the ray that shines through a person, the stronger the passions of villainous natures splash around him” (I.A. Ilyin, Russian philosopher).
The final closure of the monastery nevertheless forced a small group of remaining sisters to move to a private house located in the city of Chigirin on Dvoryanskaya Street No. 69 (now Parishskaya Street), where an Orthodox God-fearing family lived at that time. Shortly before this, mother blessed 37-year-old novice Tatyana Ivanovna Pavlenko to marry the pious widower with many children, Dmitry Dmitrievich Ryasik, and become his assistant in raising his children. Courageous confessors of the faith united in their small but spiritually cozy house, where they lived ascetically, acquired unceasing prayer and performed humble monastic work. Among them was the former monastery treasurer - elderly mother Elpidifora (Prokopovich) and the regent of the church choir - mother Epistimia (surname unknown).
Soon this everyday refuge became a saving spiritual oasis for many people and a place of prayer for the persecuted clergy. Divine services were held there, during which ascetics had the opportunity to perform heartfelt repentance and nourish their souls with communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, soul-saving conversations and secret meetings of great church men took place. In this house there were those who, without fear or embarrassment, were soon adorned with the crown of martyrdom for the Orthodox faith: Father Alexy (Erimovich), Father Andrey (Lapchinsky), Father Cyprian (Oleynik), Father Sergius (Zemnitsky), Father Timofey (Khrapachenko), Father Theodosius (Pedorich), Schema-Archimandrite Avakkum (Starov), monks of the Onufrievsky Monastery. Years will pass and the names of these fearless confessors of Christ will be written in the heavenly Book of Life, and earthly history will note:
“Their ages are different, but their faith is the same; different feats, but the same courage” (St. John Chrysostom).
Of course, in the conditions of general satanic revelry, the enemy of the human race hissed with malice and cruelty, seeing in Chigirin such a fertile center of the Lord’s service. He incited general hostility and contempt for him among his compatriots, caused misunderstanding among his loved ones, and incited the authorities. And then, under the cover of darkness, he did his work of darkness.
On an August night in 1926, someone persistently knocked on the house where the mothers were huddled. This was the local holy fool for Christ's sake, Bartholomew, famous for his clairvoyance and predictions. The blessed one rushed about under the windows and called: Mother Raphael, run away! In half an hour you will die!” To which the abbess firmly replied: “Everything is the will of God. I won’t leave my sisters.” After some time, a group of activists from the local anti-religious organization “Bezbozhnik”, led by its leader, security officer Ivan Leontievich Salamashchenko, burst into the house.<жутка будет его смерть>. Six drunken men brazenly grabbed the abbess, took her outside, tied her to a tree, covered her with hay, and then set her on fire, demanding that she remove the cross from her chest and give them the church utensils she had hidden earlier. The owner was not at home, the children were frightened and watched in horror what was happening. Mother Elpidifora (of advanced years, former monastery treasurer - O.S.) took the icon of the Mother of God “The Burning Bush” in her hands, and all the sisters fearlessly went out into the courtyard. They fell to their knees and fervently prayed to the Most Pure One for help. Suddenly, strong thunder erupted, lightning flashed, and heavy rain began. The fiery flame, barely having time to flare up, went out. Then the embittered tormentors put mother on a cart and, tying her up, took her to an old slaughterhouse, where the 49-year-old abbess was subjected to brutal lynching. First, the rapists violated the bride of Christ, and then, in satanic malice, they furiously mocked her. They brutally beat her on the head with a butt, tore off her hair, knocked out six upper teeth, and tore out her lower jaw. The atheists broke mother's ribs, her upper left shin, and crushed the lower shins of both legs in the same places (probably they ran over them with a cart.) The confessor was baptized, and the God-haters broke her right arm. And finally, they brutally stabbed the sufferer with bayonets and buried her in the ground - still alive.
The crime did not go unnoticed. A witness to the terrible death of the abbess was a novice of the monastery, Maria Ustinovna Nagornaya (she later took monastic vows with the name Margarita), who lived nearby. After the nonhumans left the slaughterhouse, she secretly made her way there and dug up the mutilated and bloody body of the martyr. Mother breathed for a little while longer and then, in her sister’s arms, she went to the Lord. The nuns buried Abbess Raphaila at the city Kazan cemetery. The grave was crowned with a small metal cross - they were afraid of further abuse of the wicked over the ashes of the righteous woman.
Glorification and Prayer Assistance to the Venerable Martyr Raphaila, Abbess of Chigirinskaya
“The righteous shall flourish like the phoenix; like the cedars of Lebanon shall multiply” (Ps. 13
:91)
For decades, through the darkness of lack of spirituality and oblivion of the true past, an unovergrown path of people's memory stretched to the small tombstone of Mother Raphaila. For there the lamp of God's grace was constantly burning there, although invisible to the human eye, but expressively palpable to the human soul. With great love and respect, Maria Ustinovna Nagornaya (nun Margarita) looked after this special burial for many years and firmly believed that the time would come - and everyone would know about the feat of Abbess Raphaila. She kept a chronicle of her heart and felt that at the throne of the Lord the murdered sufferer was praying for the desecrated monastery and desecrated shrines, for the forgiveness of the sins and insane actions of her compatriots. She knew that the hour of the earthly glory of the great saint of Christ would come and the grave lamp would shine on the Cherkassy land with the great light of the Lord’s mercy and indescribable miracles. For “God is marvelous in his saints”! (Ps. 63 :36).
Nun Margarita witnessed the terrible and unrepentant death of I.L. Salamashchenko, the main organizer of the brutal abuse of Mother Rafaila. The Chigirin people were literally herded to his burial. The coffin of this tormentor was closed, but even so it stank unbearably. During the funeral, his relatives could not approach him, and people did not enter the yard.
Nun Margarita remembered many wonderful help and amazing signs that took place at the request of a prayer at the grave of Abbess Raphaila. In 1976, Mother Margarita passed away, ordering herself to be buried, unworthy, next to the great martyr.
Since 1999, with the blessing of Archpriest Anatoly Prikotenko, parishioner of the Chigirinsky Kazan Church Valentina Vasilyevna Kalashnik (who was then in secret monastic vows with the name Ekaterina) took care of the grave of Mother Raphaila. At the tomb of the martyr she received healing and spiritual strengthening. The nun did not know then that time would pass and Mother Raphaila would bless her to become her successor - the abbess of the destroyed, but in the future restored, Holy Trinity Chigirinsky Convent.
At the beginning of the 21st century, after a spiritual thaw, the flow of people to the Kazan cemetery to the burial of the murdered abbess intensified. Inexplicably, the Pleasant of Christ called the sick, needy and suffering not only from the Cherkassy region, but also from distant places to her resting place. And she consoled everyone, healed them with the power given to her from the Lord, bestowed for the feat of a pious life and martyrdom of the Orthodox faith.
Young people learned about her lifetime suffering from the words of old-timers. One day, seminarian Alexander Mikhailyuta (later he would become a priest of the Chigirin deanery and a participant in the process of canonization of the venerable martyr) came to the grave and prayed to mother. The young man really wanted to get to the Holy Dormition Pochaev Lavra. But, unfortunately, there was no money for this. Moving away from the burial site, he heard a gentle female voice: “Don’t be sad. You'll be leaving soon." Alexander thought that the caretaker Valentina Vasilievna had approached the grave. The young man looked around, but there was no one around. Frightened, he ran out of the cemetery. Alexander's amazement knew no bounds when, soon, he actually managed to visit Pochaev. On the day the pilgrim group departed there, two free places suddenly appeared. Virtue gave one of them to Alexander - completely free of charge.
On December 10, 2003, the rector of the Kazan Cathedral in Chigirin, Archpriest Anatoly Prikotenko, and his brother, the priest of the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery, Archpriest Nikolai Prikotenko, raised the incorrupt remains of Abbess Raphaila from under the bushel. The grave also preserved mother’s rosary, funeral cross, and kamilavka. The discovery of the remains revealed to the world obvious details of the abuse that the sufferer suffered. The tomb with the relics of the martyr was placed for prayerful veneration in the premises of the lower St. George Church of the Chigirin Kazan Cathedral.
P holy martyr Rafaila Ch Igirinskaya
In mid-August 2004, the crayfish began to smell strongly. A wonderful smell spread throughout the church for about two weeks. This timing was not accidental. For, according to the memoirs of long-time resident Lydia Ivanovna Postrigan, Mother Raphaila was tortured precisely in mid-August. But, unfortunately, it was not possible to establish the exact date. The fragrance from the relics was repeated several more times in the following years.
On May 24, 2005, in the Kazan Cathedral Church of the city of Chigirin, Archbishop Sophrony, Cherkasy and Kanevsky, in the presence of many clergy and a huge number of pilgrims, performed a solemn rite of glorification of the Venerable Martyr Raphaila, Abbess of Chigirin. The fact of official canonization and the addition of God's saint to the Heavenly Council is a holy appearance to the world, meaning that she, who suffered for Christ, can serve as a model of faith for all members of the church and that she can and should be addressed in prayers to all Orthodox Christians who need heavenly intercession.
The relics of the saint are installed in the right aisle of the upper church of the cathedral under the miraculous icon of the Mother of God “Hodegetria.” After the opening of the Holy Trinity Chigirin Convent in 2006, they were transferred to the monastery several times. On December 10, 2008, the shrine with relics was brought to the Holy Trinity Monastery to celebrate the day of memory of the venerable martyr. After the celebrations, this shrine, with the blessing of Bishop Sophrony, remained in the monastery - now forever.
Now everyone who, with reverent awe and fear, kneels before the tomb of the great saint of God - the Venerable Martyr Raphaila, Abbess Chigirinskaya and with fervent prayer asks for the intercession of the saint of Christ and intercession with God for himself and his loved ones, receives grace-filled help and wondrous healings. Her soul shines before God with such a pure, such a bright light that unless you are blind to what is “not of this world, but from above,” you involuntarily feel, approaching this shrine, an internal change. It immediately becomes easier, as if the image of God is suddenly renewed in you. Saint John Chrysostom wrote: “Looking at the very body of the saint, worthy to be bloodied for the confession of Christ, although we were more fearful than everyone else, can we not experience great jealousy when this sight, as if like fire, penetrates our soul and calls us to such is it a feat? This is why God left us the bodies of the saints, so that we might have in them a lesson of the greatest wisdom.”
Many miracles and amazing incidents occurred through prayers to the Venerable Martyr Raphaila on the eve of her glorification. Here's one of them. Moscow journalist Natalya Obmankina had heard a lot about the great martyr and tried to get to Chigirin on the day of her canonization. For the trip she needed to have the amount of 2100 rubles. But, unfortunately, the woman did not have that kind of money at that time. Natalya begged her mother to urgently help her with this. And to my inexpressible surprise, on the eve of the desired departure, I received an absolutely unexpected bonus at work - in the amount of exactly 2,100 rubles. Once at the festival, she witnessed the greatest celebration. Subsequently, Natalya wrote a newspaper article about this significant event for people and for her personally. In it, the journalist noted: “In the photograph that Father Anatoly blessed me to take in the church near the shrine with the relics of Mother Superior Rafaila, a strip of light is clearly visible above the transparent window at the head of the mother. Mistaking it for a defect in the photo, I repeated it on the other side. I developed the film and the glow remained...”
Before the glorification of the martyr Raphaila, Bishop Sophrony blessed the nun Catherine (Kalashnik) to go to Kyiv and ask the abbot’s robes from the capital’s women’s monasteries for the saint’s vestments. This journey was fraught with great temptation. The unclean one cruelly punished the obedient mother. In broad daylight, on one of the streets of Kyiv, he appeared in the form of some very dark man and attacked Catherine with the words: “Why can’t you sit at home, why are you climbing here?” And then he beat her viciously. The exhausted nun reached the Florovsky Monastery, where during the service she tearfully begged Mother Raphael to help her fulfill the bishop's blessing - so disgusting to the devil. The sisters of the monastery, seeing the suffering parishioner, consoled her in every possible way. And then they presented a gift - the necessary attire for the venerable martyr on the day of her glorification. It is significant that the Lord dressed His chosen one in the vestments of the Florovsky sisters, who in the distant past served as the leaders of the Chigirinsky convent.
The icon of the saint was created in a marvelous way. Her lifetime portrait could not be found. Nun Alipia (Danilova), a resident of the Steblevo Spaso-Preobrazhensky convent, painted an unusually lively and expressive face of the venerable martyr, completely unaware of her true image. The craftswoman felt that during the icon painting work an invisible force guided her hand and thought. And the primordial enemy of the human race arranged the greatest temptations. Mother Alypia learned about the martyrdom of the Chigirinskaya abbess long before the canonization of Christ’s confessor. Arriving one day in Chigirin for a temple festival, the first place she came to was the grave of Mother Rafaila. This spiritual acquaintance, as it turned out later, turned out to be extremely providential for the nun.
After the opening of the Holy Trinity Monastery, the heavenly intercession of the holy abbess over her monastery miraculously manifests itself constantly. There were even visible cases of the appearance of Mother Raphaila.
With touching tears of gratitude to the venerable martyr, Abbess Catherine told the following story. On the eve of the first monastic Christmas, they didn’t even have bread in the monastery. We tried to bake something, but there was no flour either. The next day, quite unexpectedly, the monastery received a transfer for a significant amount (800 UAH). he came from Krasilov, Khmelnytsky region. from the servant of God Catherine, who collected this amount in her parish. This woman had never been to Chigirin, but learned about the monastery from her daughter. The latter brought the address of the shrine from Pochaev. During the girl’s pilgrimage trip to the Lavra, a nun approached her, handed her an icon of the Venerable Martyr Raphaila with the address of the Chigirin monastery and said: “We need to help this monastery.” At the same time, mother immediately died. The pilgrim looked around - but there was no one like her there either. What was surprising was that the image of the saint was a black and white xerox image, and her icons were distributed by the Chigirin sisters only in color.
The transit passage in 2006 in the city of Chigirin turned out to be significant for Varvara Gul, a resident of the village of Bilyki, Poltava region. She stopped at its bus station and was waiting for a transfer to a flight to Lebedin, where she was heading with the goal of joining the sisters of the Lebedin monastery. Tired of the journey, the woman sat with her head bowed. At this time, a nun unknown to her approached her and said affirmatively: “If you want to be saved, go to the Chigirin monastery.” Hearing this, Varvara raised her eyes to ask something, but mother instantly disappeared. Surprised by what she heard, the traveler immediately went to the Chigirin Kazan Church, where, after questioning its rector, Father Anatoly Prikotenko, she learned that a convent had actually opened in the city. Soon, changing her plans, she took monastic vows. Let us add that this servant of God was a novice of this monastery in the 40s. Blessed Bartholomew made a prophecy about her.
One morning, the servant of God Svetlana Matyushkina, who lived with her husband and children in the neighboring monastery building, came to Abbess Catherine. She sincerely asked for forgiveness for the scandal and abuse she had created in the monastery the day before towards the sisters, and also offered her help and friendship to the abbess. The woman explained that she had to realize a lot and come to this decision after a nun came to their house at night. At midnight she knocked on the door and, turning to Svetlana’s son, humbly asked: “Please turn up the music, because it’s playing very loudly, and we’re having prayer now.” The guy surprisingly calmly complied with this request, only clarifying: “Is this normal?” The Matyushkins took mother for one of the sisters of the monastery, for she was dressed in monastic vestments and had a kamilavochka on her head. But, as it turned out later, there was no such nun among the nuns at all. Such an unusual night visit (an obvious miracle of the Venerable Martyr Raphaila) soon transformed, by the grace of the Lord, the life of the entire family: they turned their faces to God, baptized the children, began to bring them to Communion, and changed their behavior. The Matyushkins began to notice the saint’s extraordinary help in many ways.
The glory of miracles performed through prayers to the venerable martyr spreads throughout the Orthodox world. There are known cases of healing from drug addiction, from headaches and toothaches, various injuries to the head, arms and legs; through prayers to mother, people find work and housing; mother patronizes drivers, travelers, the poor... Reverend Martyr Abbess Raphael must pray first of all to those who fall under the weight of his Cross. Pray to carry even the heaviest Cross to the end.
The Holy Trinity Chigirin Monastery is located in the city of Chigirin, Cherkasy region. The first mention of it dates back to 1542. This is evidenced by the foundation slab of 1542, found in 1925 under the altar of the Holy Trinity Church. It was written on it that the founder of the church was Dmitry Vishnevetsky.
Prince Dmitry Ivanovich (called Baida in folklore), an Orthodox nobleman and magnate, was one of the first organizers of the Cossack troops. At his own expense, he founded the first fortress on Malaya Khortytsia. The monastery was built on the outskirts of the city, outside the fortress and city walls. It was approached from the west by shifting sands, and impassable swamps surrounded it on the other three sides. However, there is information that the location of the founding of the monastery was indicated by the revealed icon of the Mother of God Hodegetria.
Under Bogdan Khmelnitsky, the Trinity Monastery prospered. The monastery became one of the most comfortable and prosperous in Ukraine.
In 1654, the famous saint of Christ, Patriarch of Constantinople Athanasius III Patellarius, visited the monastery. About the stay of St. Athanasius in the Chigirinsky Monastery it is known that he especially loved to pray before the miraculous Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God Hodegetria. Through his prayer, even the frogs that lived in the surrounding swamps and annoyed the prayer book with their “singing” lost their voice for centuries, which was noted by the monks even 250 years later.
From 1658 to 1675, the Chigirinsky Monastery became the seat of two Kyiv metropolitans: Dionysius Balaban and Joseph Nelyubovich-Tukalsky.
The monastery became a women's monastery in 1735, when the number of widows and brides who lost their grooms in wars many times exceeded the number of male brethren, who were unable to cope with the strengthening of the sandy, marshy soils of the monastery. Nun Parthenia, who wrote an essay about the monastery, published in Kyiv in 1893, testifies: “... all the healthy inhabitants of the monastery, after the evening service, carry masses of sand on their shoulders from elevated places in the monastery to fill up basins and repair dams...”
In the painting by T. G. Shevchenko “Chigirinsky nunnery” from 1845, the foreground depicts cells and folk housing common to Ukraine, surrounded by mighty sedge trees and gardens.Visible in the backgroundtwo churches (Holy Trinity and Transfiguration of the Lord), as well as a bell tower, built in the mid-18th and early 19th centuries.
The monastery survived the Uniate takeover, when the “bitter drunkard Uniate Yastrembskaya” was installed as the abbess of the monastery, and the priest of the Uniate, Jan, became the priest. The nuns avoided being seduced into Uniatism by leaving the monastery. After the expulsion of the Uniates, the nuns found the monastery “completely devastated, the cells were destroyed and all property was plundered.”
Four times in its history the monastery was destroyed to the ground. At the beginning of 1923, a children's labor colony named after G. F. Grinko was created at the monastery. On August 18, 1923, the Kiev provincial liquidation committee decided to close the Chigirinsky Holy Trinity Monastery, since “on the territory where there is an orphanage, the proximity of the monastery is unacceptable. Some of the nuns, led by Mother Abbess Rafaila (Raisa Vasilievna Tertatskaya), found shelter in the house of one God-fearing family. Services were held there. Many contemporaries looked at this house with hatred.
On the night of August 26, 1926, on the day of St. Methodius and Cyril, the Chigirin holy fool Bartholmei was worried, knocking on the window: “Mother Raphaila, run away! In half an hour you will die! The abbess answered: “Everything is the will of God. I won’t leave my sisters.”
“... a group of activists from the local organization “Bezbozhnik”, led by its leader, security officer Ivan Leontievich Salamashchenko, burst into the house. Six drunken men brazenly grabbed the abbess, took her out into the street, tied her to a pear tree, covered her with hay, and then set her on fire, demanding that she remove the cross from her chest and give them the church utensils she had hidden earlier... Mother Elpidifor (advanced in age, former monastery treasurer. – O.S.) took the icon of the Mother of God “The Burning Bush” in her hands, and all the sisters fearlessly went out into the courtyard. They fell to their knees... suddenly strong thunder erupted, lightning flashed, and heavy rain began. The fiery flame, barely having time to flare up, went out. Then the embittered tormentors put mother on a cart and, tying her up, took her to an old slaughterhouse, where the 49-year-old abbess was subjected to brutal lynching. First, the rapists violated the bride of Christ, and then, in satanic malice, they furiously mocked her. They brutally beat her on the head with a butt, tore off her hair, knocked out a pole of her loyal teeth, and tore out her lower jaw. The atheists broke mother's ribs, her upper left shin, and crushed the lower shins of both legs in the same places (probably they ran over them with a cart.) The confessor was baptized, and the God-haters broke her right arm. And finally, they brutally stabbed the sufferer with bayonets and buried her in the ground - still alive...” One of the novices of the monastery “dug up the mutilated and bloody body of the martyr. Mother didn’t breathe for long…” (1)
She was secretly buried at the Kazan cemetery - in the “gypsy corner”, placing a small cross over the grave. For many years, this special burial was looked after by the nun Margarita (Maria Ustinovna Nagornaya witnessed the martyrdom of Abbess Raphaila, she dug her up while still alive, and she also witnessed the terrible and unrepentant death of the security officer Salamashchenko). Since 1999, with the blessing of the priest, nun Ekaterina (Valentina Vasilievna Kalashnik), the current abbess of the Holy Trinity Monastery, began to look after the grave, who received healing and spiritual strengthening at the tomb of the martyr.
In 1929, a commune named after him was created within the walls of the Chigirinsky Monastery. 12th Congress of Soviets of Shevchenko region. Subsequently, the commune grew into a collective farm named after. Lenin. Collective farmers, expanding their production, installed an oil press in the Holy Trinity Church.
In the spring of 1932, activists and Komsomol members of the city and village of Vitovo began to destroy the monastery churches with a tractor, used ropes to knock down crosses from the domes of churches, and tore apart the wooden walls of the warm and then summer churches. Already in September 1933, only one foundation remained on the site of the Trinity Church, and from the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord - only the place where it rose.
Until 1956, 16 monastery buildings remained from the monastery, and outside the fence was the clergyman’s house. In 1973, by decision of the city council, the buildings of the former monastery were given over to the local population for apartments.
The new authorities also helped the destruction of the monastery by searching for new treasures. In the bell tower they even found property that belonged to someone unknown - precious objects, gold, carpets, fabrics, which, as always, have historical value.
The entire area around the temples, around the monastery is a necropolis, here lie the bones of a huge number of Cossacks, monks, nuns, laymen... In 1972, the monastery necropolis was dug up, turning it into a sand quarry. “Chigirin residents (young and old) acted blasphemously with the remains of burials: they threw bones, played football with skulls, or stuck them on sticks and carried them around the city with ironic ridicule. Particularly affected were the slightly decayed remains. Old-timers said that during the process of destruction, almost completely preserved bodies and vestments were sometimes removed from the graves.” They decided to use sand from the quarry to fill the road to the power plant, which was never built.
In 2003, the miraculous intercessor of Chigirin, the icon of the Mother of God Hodegetria, returned to the city.
On December 12, 2006, Archbishop Sophrony of Cherkasy and Kaniv, co-served by numerous clergy of the diocese, celebrated the Divine Liturgy in the church in honor of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God of Chigirin. After the Liturgy, a religious procession took place with the relics of the locally venerated priests. Rafaily (Tartatskaya).
Cancer with the relics of the Primts. Raphael
On July 10, 2009, the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church blessed Abbess Raphaila (Tertatskaya) for local glorification and veneration.
The glory of miracles performed through prayers to the venerable martyr spreads throughout the Orthodox world. There are known cases of healing from drug addiction, from headaches and toothaches, various injuries to the head, arms and legs; through prayers to mother, people find work and housing; mother patronizes drivers, travelers, the poor... Reverend Martyr Abbess Raphael must pray first of all to those who fall under the weight of his Cross. Pray to carry even the heaviest Cross to the end.
The temporary Holy Trinity Church was initially decided to be built inside a railway carriage. The result was an unusual monastery “on rails” with a small dome and a belfry on channels. Currently, in the Holy Trinity Monastery there are boundaries in honor of the Transfiguration of the Lord, St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, St. Mitrofan of Voronezh.
There are holy springs in the monastery: the Holy Trinity, VMC. Marina, military center Barbarians, martyr. John the Warrior, sschmch. Cyprian and martyr Justina, prmts. Raphaila, Abbess Chigirinskaya.
Spring of St. martyr John the Warrior
Address: Ukraine, 20901, Cherkasy region, Chigirin, Korolenko street, 47.
Tel.: + 38 097 297 98 47; + 38 04730 270 63
Literature
Venerable Martyr Raphael, Abbess Chigirinskaya. Life. Service. History of the Holy Trinity Chigirinsky Monastery. Life of Blessed Bartholomew of Chmgirinsky”/Compiled by: Archimandrite Philaret (Zverev), Tatyana Cherkasets, - Chigirin, 2009.
http://orthodoxy.org.ua/uk/tserkovni_hroniki/2006/12/25/4794.html
http://www.odnarodyna.ru/articles/14/918.html?print
www.mineya.ru/august/89-rafaila- chigirin sk.pdf
The most detailed description: Martyr Raphael's prayer - for our readers and subscribers.
Venerable Martyr Raphael, Abbess of the Holy Trinity Chigirinsky Convent
Troparion, tone 1:
The lamb of Christ's mother, God-blessed Raphael, and His wise mentor appeared to His lamb, you were honored with the crown of martyrdom from the right hand of Jesus. Do not cease praying to Him, that He may preserve the Orthodox Church in peace, and protect your abode from all the slander of the enemy, and save our souls, for He is the Merciful. .
We magnify you, venerable passion-bearer, Mother Raphael, and honor your venerable sufferings, which you endured for Christ in the establishment of Orthodoxy.
Canon of the holiday, tone 8
Irmos: Having passed through water like dry land and having escaped the evil of Egypt, the Israeli cried out: Let us drink to our Deliverer and our God.
Chorus: Holy Martyr Raphael, pray to God for us.
Having freed yourself from the snares of the evil one among the godless, you sent out prayers for your earthly fatherland, but now you have departed from the earth and accepted our prayers.
You have quietly passed through the waters of temptation, Raphael, and having presented yourself to the Savior, you have received a commanding crown on your head from the right hand of the Lord.
Raphael, Abbess of the Trinity Monastery, offering prayers, accepting deliverance from every evil situation with tea.
Even if your body, pure, was torn to pieces like a lion, tormented by madness, yet your soul was not forbidden by the hordes of fierce demons to rise to heaven.
Theotokos: The Door of Heaven, Most Holy Virgin, you appeared to us, as through You the entrance to salvation was opened for us by Your Nativity.
Irmos: Supreme Creator of the heavenly circle, Lord and Creator of the Church, You confirm me in Your love, the desires of the land, the true affirmation, the only Human-lover.
The lambs that were sacrificed to the Lady from ancient years, you imitated your love for Christ, mother, with the unquenchable lamp of faith you met the Bridegroom and you entered into the marriage of the Lamb joyfully.
Resident of the heavenly villages, you left your relics to us in memory of suffering for faith in Christ, Whom you loved with all your heart.
To those who imitate your faith, and to those who worship your power, and to help those who prayerfully call on you, be your helper, Raphael, reverend mother.
You appeared wiser than Eve, your foremother: for you were heedful of the evil one’s flattery, but you, having corrected all the machinations of the devil, accepted death from his servants, having accepted the betrothal of eternal life.
Theotokos: Helper of mothers and the Virgin Protection, Beltsy Intercessor and Protection of monastics, Mother of the Lord Jesus and strength of those crying out to You You are, sweet Mary.
Sedalen of the Holy, Tone 8:
Having mastered the images of piety, you have overthrown the delusion of wickedness, O martyr, and ever inflamed by Divine work, you have extinguished the godless ferocity of your tormentors. In the same way, you exude healing through faith to those who flow in and celebrate your holy memory with love, glorious Raphael.
Arouse us with your prayers, venerable one, like the careless virgins who fell asleep at the hour of the meeting of the Bridegroom, yes, imitating you, ever filling His lamps with the oil of grace, His palaces will not be rejected.
Irmos: I heard, O Lord, Thy mystery, I understood Thy works and glorified Thy Divinity.
Having been granted eternal joy, give help to those who are lacking in faith through your prayers to the Lord, so that our increased faith will increase the joys of heaven.
Those who ate you by the lawless, you were in no way afraid of those harshnesses, O most glorious one, and in the midst of your torment you glorified Christ, O Reverend Raphael.
Do not despise your prayer book, venerable one, lift up our prayers to the Almighty Throne, so that we too may receive salvation from Him for our souls, glorifying His Divinity.
How powerfully we will cry out to you, Raphael, passion-bearer, be a quick hearer for us and an intercessor before Christ for those who glorify His Divinity.
Theotokos: Having received joy as an angel, grant eternal joy to us, the Mother of God, who call You and honor Your image and Your Son.
Irmos: Enlighten us with Your commandments, O Lord, and with Your high arm grant us Your peace, O Lover of Mankind.
Having been ill on earth and suffered a lot, you healed your soul perfectly, and salvation was the fruit of your suffering, which you received from the Lord who Lover of Mankind, O venerable martyr.
You have loved Him and begged Christ to grant us, in the firmest faith and the surest hope, to be worthy of Divine love.
We are strengthened by the almighty arm, the reproaches of the godless are imputed to nothing, death has been accepted even as the sunrise into heaven appeared to you.
The vacillations of the godless, which came upon our country for many years, were crushed by the right hand of the Lord, but through your prayers to the Lord, we will also be delivered from these with tea.
Theotokos: Even if You were taken to Heaven with your body, O Most Pure One, Your ears are quick to hear those who pray to You, and Your hands are quick to help those who correct their lives in the will of Your Son.
Irmos: I will pour out a prayer to the Lord and to Him I will proclaim my sorrows, for my soul is filled with evil and my belly is approaching hell, and I pray like Jonah: from aphids, O God, lift me up.
Even as the ancient martyrs imitate the image of suffering, may you strengthen our souls in patience and confession of the Orthodox faith: for you have appeared, Raphael, the guide of honest nuns to salvation.
The Lord hears your prayers at all times, wise abbess, from the midst of the skimni roaring against His Church, and therefore allow your body to be torn to pieces, so that you may have clean bread for Him and an acceptable sacrifice.
In the days of ancient times, the beasts betrayed their bodies to unfading glory, and our mother Raphael followed in those footsteps; now she delights in songs from us.
Like the lion, the atheist who wanted to devour the lamb of Christ, but had no success at all, and was not able to destroy this memory, the Holy Spirit established her memory on this day of being in the Church.
Theotokos: Do not take Your intercession away from us, Mother of God, who are in the sorrows of everyday life and approaching hell in their sins; with your prayers to Your Son, quickly raise us to repentance.
Kontakion, tone 6:
We glorify the Lamb of Christ Raphael, standing before Him in heaven, creating her memory in the temple, and lifting up our hearts to the highest. Because she endured suffering and death from godless tormentors, she received an imperishable crown from the Lord, and the grace to pray for us, who lovingly remember her honest suffering.
The meek lamb of Christ, Raphael, opposed the host of those who are evil and breathe malice against the Church of Christ, and was torn to pieces by fierce boars, hungry for blood, and ended her life in torment. Moreover, with her honest blood, Christ drowned the beginning of godless power, and extinguished the flame of persecution, and gave the gifts of our land to the host of the new martyr of Cherkassy as an intercessor and prayer book for all who lovingly remember her honest suffering.
Irmos: The youths came from Judea, in Babylon, sometimes by the faith of the Trinity the flames of the cave were quenched, singing: God of the fathers, blessed art thou.
Even though you were expelled by atheism from the monastery of the Trinity, which was in the city of Chigirin, you were not able to forbid your soul to enter the heavenly abode, crying: God of the fathers, blessed are you.
Even the healing of God, Raphael, the namesake, grant healing to our souls and bodies, to help those who call upon you and sing: Fathers and mothers of the venerable God, blessed art thou.
Having ascended to heaven with firm faith, through prayer to the Holy Trinity, you, mother, help us who sing: God of the fathers, blessed art thou.
The angelic rank is a bright decoration and praise to the laity, Abbess Raphael, praying for us, singing: God of the fathers, blessed are you.
Theotokos: Mary Virgin, extinguish the flame of our passions by Thy grace, diligently interceding for those who cry: Fathers, God, blessed art thou.
Irmos: Praise and extol the Heavenly King, Whom all the Angels sing, praise and extol forever.
Strengthen those who imitate intercession to the Lord with the angelic face and sing His praises, glorious Raphael.
With the teachings of the apostles and saints, you have saturated the soul of the Father on earth, imitating their faith, and for us, who adhere to the Orthodox teaching, be an intercessor before all the Creator.
Your life in your earthly fatherland, separated from God, was filled with illnesses and sorrows; Having received eternal joy, you now rejoice at the conversion of many to Christ, O Reverend Mother.
To the people who create a flying memory for you, be a helper in this life and a guide to the souls who leave life for the Kingdom of Heaven.
Even if the imams speak of sins, they both sing praiseworthy skills to the saints, for this reason we honestly pray to the passion-bearer Raphael today.
Theotokos: Eternal life to the Mother, increase eternal life and vouchsafe us, who have hope in You.
Irmos: Truly we confess Theotokos, saved by You, Pure Virgin, with disembodied faces magnifying You.
The Church of Christ is invincible through the gates of hell, now our lips bring a song of praise to you, Rafailo.
Who brought prayers, supplications, fastings and genuflections to Him, pray to Christ for those who honor and perform your memory, so that He may add His mercy to us.
Having suffered hardship from detractors, having endured godless rulers and barbarians, together with the whole Church, you have received worthy reward in the City of Heaven with all the saints.
We glorify the venerable martyr Raphael, faithful, singing the praises of the Lord about her, as a new adornment has been granted to our land and the Church.
Theotokos: Even though you are an angel and revered by us, be Mary, the Mother of the Lord, our guide to the Kingdom of Your Son, just as His saints were of old.
Receive our singing and pray to Christ, holy one, that He may deliver our hearts from the demonic pretext and the passions that have entered into it.
Oh, blessed mother, reverend martyr, long-suffering Raphael! You endured many torments on earth for Christ, and you reign with Him forever in heaven, and you have the grace to give healing and all kinds of help in troubles and various needs. Moreover, we ask you, who stands before the Throne of the Lord of Glory and listens to us, your prayer books, at every hour: stretch out your hands to the Lord, and offer up your prayers for us, who zealously honor your memory. Ask the Church of the Saints for unity, your monastery for prosperity, our country for peace and prosperity, and pray to all of us the Lord to grant forgiveness of sins, quick help for the grieving and sick, protection and intercession for the offended. Pray to the Lord to give us a Christian death and a good answer at His Last Judgment, so that together with you we may glorify the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen.
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Icon of the Venerable Martyr Raphaila of Chigirinskaya
I will tell you today about a saint whom few people in Russia know; and at the same time I will boast about the only icon I have seen during this difficult year; What happened, happened, there’s nothing more to boast about.
I had the opportunity, while visiting the Kykkos Monastery in Cyprus, to meet Archimandrite Ephraim; It was he who showed me the icon of the Venerable Martyr Raphaila, once given to him by Ukrainian pilgrims. The icon looked like this:
Father Ephraim asked me to correct the color scheme and design; I decided that it would be easier to rewrite everything again, and it turned out like this:
And Father Ephraim told me the following (oh, I know good people who really won’t like this whole story as discrediting the Soviet regime, but what can you do, comrade officers, you can’t erase a word from a song!).
It happened in 1926 in Ukraine, in the city of Chigirin. There was a Holy Trinity convent in the city, of which Mother Raphaila (Tertatskaya) was the abbess; She was 49 years old at that time. The Soviet government closed the monastery, but the sisters settled together and continued to pray together.
And then one night, six activists from a local organization
The “atheist,” being drunk, burst into the house, grabbed the abbess and demanded that she give them what they had not yet managed to take away: liturgical utensils and the abbot’s cross. It is a great sin to give consecrated vessels into unclean hands; the abbess refused, and the atheists, without thinking twice, tried to burn her alive; and would have been burned if, through the prayers of the weeping sisters, heavy rain had not begun. Then the bound abbess was taken to a former slaughterhouse, where she had to endure many torments: they violated her, beat her, knocked out her upper teeth, and ran over her legs in a cart, crushing her bones; the martyr, apparently, continued
to be baptized because her right hand was also broken. They stabbed her with bayonets, not to kill her, but to torture her, because they buried her in the ground while still alive. She died in the arms of one of the sisters who tried to save her from the grave. And in our time, the relics of Abbess Raphaila were found incorrupt.
Having told this, Archimandrite Ephraim began to ask me whether such a great sufferer is well known in Russia and whether such a great sufferer is highly venerated. And, it seems to me, I was frightened when I heard that few people knew about Raphael, since such stories happened in those days, alas, everywhere. And the biggest horror for him was that I, shrugging my shoulders, added: “A typical Soviet story.” Well, it is difficult for a civilized person to comprehend the scale of the horror that took place.
And here is my icon - tremble, people! - on Kykkos. And my only hope is that Father Ephraim, looking at her, will not guess in what conditions she was created. It’s bad, colleagues, when an icon is painted too easily; but it’s hardly better when a whirlwind of anger, passions, despondency and fear boils next to her and around her. Fortunately, the icon left Tuchkov Buyan before the cadet corps and I were evicted from there. Oh well; if officers, teachers and other rotten intelligentsia could put pressure on ministers and presidents with impunity, it would be a different country. Who said that Soviet power was dead? no, you won’t kill her, you won’t strangle her.
Here's the story; and this is the thing I wrote in the past year. Let's hope it will be easier in the future. So, happy holidays everyone!
And where I ended up after the eviction and what happened to me there - I’ll tell you about that next time.
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Your icon has a good design.
Well, this policy! When I come to my senses, I’ll write about churches, frescoes and warm regions again.
I wish you good luck in the new year!
Holy New Martyr Raphael, pray to Christ our God and Savior for us all!
Happy holidays - and I hope that everything will be better for you in the new year than in the outgoing one!
Then both icons were hung up so that everyone could decide which one was closer to him.
Good luck to you! If you are celebrating the national New Year, then Happy New Year!
New Martyr Raphael, pray to God for us.
Shrine of the Cherkassy land
On the day when the news arrived about the exact date of the celebration, I began to get ready for the trip. I really wanted to become a participant in such a rare and important event: when else will fate present such a gift? I will definitely come to an agreement with the management of the company, and they will let me go for a couple of days. There was only one circumstance that confused me: it so happened that there was simply no money for the trip at that time. But my heart said that everything would work out: Mother Raphael would pray, and the Lord would definitely help...
With these thoughts I went to work. On the way, I stopped by the railway ticket office and found out that I needed about two thousand rubles for tickets. “Plus three to four hundred rubles for small expenses, – I mentally summed up the calculations, – in total, two thousand four hundred”...
I had just crossed the threshold when they called me into the accounting department: “You are owed something there!” I thought: “Some kind of misunderstanding...” – after all, at the end of April, the management fully paid off all employees, including me.
The cashier handed me the slip with the words: “This is the Easter bonus. Sign!” I count the money piled up.
Kazan Church, Chigirin, Cherkasy region, Ukraine
The day of celebration was met with beautiful sunny weather. It’s as if the carpet path leading to the Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God is strewn with flowers with a snow-white blanket. Majestic, with dazzlingly shining golden domes, it itself reveals a beauty that cannot be described in words. Just Heaven on earth...
The ceremony of vesting the distinguished guest, Archbishop of Cherkassy and Kaniv Sophrony, has already begun in the church. I love looking at this ritual: it seems to prepare everyone who is in the church that something very important is about to begin, both for you and for everyone... The movements and gestures of the Metropolitan and his assistants are measured, unhurried, accompanied by special beautiful chants...
A whisper ran through the temple: “The monastic people have arrived!” I look around: indeed, on the threshold of the temple, headed by their abbess, the nuns and novices of the Matroninsky Holy Trinity Monastery, named after the Venerable Matrona, who lived in Asia Minor in the 5th century, appeared.
...Matroninskaya Holy Trinity Monastery is located not far from Chigirin in the so-called Kholodny Yar tract. According to scientists, the history of the monastery dates back to the very ancient times of Christianity in Rus'. The first written mention of him in the Simeonovskaya Chronicle dates back to 1198! Moreover, there is some reason to assume that on the site of the modern Matroninsky Monastery, during the life of St. Vladimir, “as a mighty praise to the true God,” the first Christian church was founded. And next to the monastery, centuries-old caves with underground passages have been preserved to this day, in which ascetic ascetics settled at the dawn of Orthodoxy. Perhaps through their spiritual labor they called upon the grace of God to this place...
The nuns silently, as if without touching the ground at all, walked to the shrine with the relics of Mother Raphaila, took turns reverently kissing it and stood next to it as if on a guard of honor. A minute later, someone brought three huge wax candles, about two meters high, to them. (Later I found out that each weighs up to twenty kilograms!) The nuns lit them and, changing each other from time to time, kept their watch in prayerful silence until the very end of the service. This, undoubtedly, gave everything that was happening even greater solemnity and a special spiritual mood.
The clergy sang in chorus the main Easter hymn: “Christ is Risen from the dead, trampling down death by death and giving life to those in the tombs.” The temple picked up their harmonious singing. I thought: how symbolic that this life-affirming song sounds precisely today, on the day of glorification of the holy new martyr, who for the sake of Christ gave up her earthly, temporary life, and received from Him Himself eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven...
Chigirinsky Holy Trinity Monastery, where nun Raphael labored in the 20s of the last century, was one of the most famous in all of Right Bank Ukraine. Already in the 17th century, during the hetmanship of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, this holy monastery was the spiritual center of Ukraine. There were two churches in the monastery: the main one - in the name of the Life-Giving Trinity and the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord.
Their dazzling snow-white bell towers and mighty walls attracted the attention of prominent church figures: Patriarch Athanasius Petularius of Constantinople, Patriarch Macarius of Antioch, Metropolitans of Kyiv Dionysius Balaban and Joseph Nelyubovich-Tukalsky. By 1910, 265 sisters lived in the Holy Trinity Convent: 89 of them were nuns, 40 permanent novices and 136 on temporary obedience. The revolutionary events of 1917 became fatal for the fate of the monastery and its nuns. 16 years after the proclamation of Soviet power, on the site of the temple in the name of the Life-Giving Trinity, only the foundation remained; nothing remained of the Holy Transfiguration Church...
Today very little is known about Abbess Raphael, who became the last abbess of the Chigirinsky Holy Trinity Monastery. The contents of only a few dry lines from ancient monastery books and the story of an elderly woman, a former novice of the monastery, have reached us. This was in the 30s, when Soviet power was being established in Ukraine. The residents of Chigirin did not want to accept her and, as best they could, offered all possible resistance. The second godless five-year plan was supposed to end with the destruction of religion and the oblivion of the name of God. One after another, churches and monasteries were closed and destroyed from the face of the earth, and widespread arrests and reprisals began. In just one night, in the police building, the Bolsheviks hacked to death 280 Chigirin believers with sabers. Eyewitnesses said that blood flowed like a river through the threshold. The city shook from human moaning and crying...
On August 30, 1921, nun Raphaila took charge of the Chigirin Holy Trinity Monastery, knowing full well that, perhaps, she was thereby signing her own death warrant. For several years, the monastery continued to receive the suffering and, as best it could, helped the residents of the city to endure the hardships that had fallen upon them. The nuns independently maintained a shelter for orphans and were engaged in other charitable activities. However, on August 18, 1923, the Kiev GubLiquidCom decided to close it and transfer it to a children's colony. The reorganization was delayed for various reasons, so it was only in 1926 that the last nuns, together with the abbess, left the walls of the holy monastery.
But the enemy of the human race in the person of representatives of the godless government could no longer stop - the “red terror” needed more and more victims. It was Mother Raphaila’s turn to suffer for Christ. The reprisal against Abbess Raphaila was close.
One night, the Chigirin seer - the holy fool Bartholomew - knocked on the door of the house where the mother lived with several sisters of the monastery. He shouted loudly: “Mother Raphaila, you will die in half an hour! Run away! Mother answered him in a calm voice: “Everything is God’s will!” After some time, a police detachment of six people, led by district inspector Ivan Salamashchenko, entered the yard. The rather tipsy “guardians of the revolutionary order” ordered my mother to voluntarily remove the cross and give it away.
The abbess refused. Then they forcibly pushed her into the yard, tied her to a pear tree, surrounded her on all sides with hay and started setting her on fire. The former regent Epistimia took the Burning Bush icon of the Mother of God out of the house. The sisters fell to their knees and began to pray. A real miracle happened before everyone's eyes: at that very moment thunder struck, lightning cut the sky, heavy drops of rain fell to the ground. The fire, barely having time to flare up, went out. After that, the enraged policemen threw Mother Rafaila onto a cart and took her to the sands to the old slaughterhouse. There, the “authorized” people savagely abused my mother and then killed her. Having sprinkled sand on the lifeless body of the sufferer, they disappeared.
A witness to the terrible crime and death of the abbess was a novice of the monastery, Maria Ustinovna Nagornaya, who lived very nearby. That same night, she secretly dug up the tortured body of Mother Rafaila and took it to the local cemetery. Until the end of her life, Maria looked after the grave of the abbess and strictly kept the secret. Only before her death in 1976, she entrusted it to another woman, asking her not to tell anyone about it, and when the time came, she buried her next to her spiritual mentor...
Years have passed. Thank God, the hour has struck, and the Orthodox began to find what they had lost. A gradual revival of church life began and, finally, the time came when the place of nun Raphaila’s earthly resting place became known to the parishioners of the local church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God. With the blessing of His Eminence Archbishop Sophrony of Cherkassy and Kaniv, on the night of December 9-10, 2003, the rector of the church, the dean of the churches of the Chigirinsky district, Father Anatoly Prikotenko, and people devoted to him began to open the burial of the passion-bearer.
The discovered remains revealed to the world obvious details of the abuse that Mother Raphaila suffered at the hour of her martyrdom: her hair was cut short, her arms were broken, her jaw was knocked out...
The relics of the murdered abbess were transferred to the Chigirinskaya Kazan Cathedral Church and installed in its lower church in the name of the Great Martyr George the Victorious on a specially prepared bed. After some time, the preparation of documents began for the canonization of Abbess Raphaila as a saint in the host of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Cherkassy, but believers, clearly realizing that Mother Raphaila had long been glorified before God by her feat, were looking for any opportunity to venerate her relics...
The veneration of the remains of saints in the Orthodox Church began from time immemorial. Already from the Old Testament we learn about numerous miracles from them. Thus, the Fourth Book of Kings describes the resurrection of the dead, which occurred from the relics of the prophet Elisha: “He touched the bones of Elisha, and came to life, and stood on his feet” (13, 21). After the Resurrection of Christ, many Christians accepted the crown of martyrdom, and their remains also worked miracles. Liturgies were celebrated at the graves of the martyrs, and when the opportunity arose to openly build churches, pieces of the relics of saints were necessarily placed in their foundations. Antimensions were placed on the throne - boards with a particle of holy relics embedded in them. Perhaps this is why the expression came into use that the Orthodox Church was established on the bones of martyrs?...
The service continued, unceasing prayer sounded, and an endless stream of people walked to the shrine with the relics of Mother Raphaila. Almost everyone has flowers in their hands. There were so many of them that the clergy were forced to place what was at hand next to the beautiful elegant vases prepared in advance. Even ordinary buckets were used. But after a few minutes all this was again filled with fresh flowers: roses, lilies, peonies, daisies...
At the Great Entrance, Bishop Sophrony served the last litia for the innocent murdered nun Raphaila. Then a large icon of the new saint was brought out of the altar with singing. Shortly before the start of the celebration, this image was brought by the nuns of the Steblevo St. Nicholas Monastery, where it was painted in a local icon-painting workshop.
As is customary in the iconography of martyrs, the saint is depicted in the abbot’s vestments. In one hand, mother holds a cross - a symbol of the apostolic gospel and sacrifice, in the other - the abbot's staff, testifying to her rank. Next to the face I clearly see the inscription: “Reverend Martyr Raphael Abbess Chigirinskaya.”
Before the start of the service, I bought a photograph of Mother Rafaila from the church shop. It is clear that there is a similarity between the face in the photograph and the face in the icon. This is always a particular difficulty for any icon painter: to paint a face in such a way that the person depicted remains recognizable. At the same time, it is necessary to maintain the thinnest line of what is permissible, because an icon is not a photograph or an artistic portrait.
The very history of painting the icon of Mother Raphaila is very unusual. The fact is that, despite a thorough search, for quite a long time it was not possible to find a photograph of the passion-bearer. There was only one small photograph of the beginning of the last century, taken during the funeral of the confessor of the Chigirin Holy Trinity Monastery. But which of the nuns who came into the photographer’s field of view was the abbess of the monastery?... There was only one hope left: to pray and wait for the Lord Himself to reveal everything.
One day, that same photograph was brought to a blind old woman who lived near Kiev. She prayed, took the photograph, moved her hand over it, then suddenly stopped and pressed her finger in one place, confidently saying: “Here is the nun Raphael.” The location indicated by the old lady was enlarged many times on the computer. With the blessing of Bishop Sophrony, the image processed using a special technique later became the basis for painting the face of the saint. Not the least role in this decision was played by the fact that the discovery of the alleged image of Mother Raphaila took place on February 13, 2005, on the day when our Church celebrated the memory of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia...
The same fragment of an old photograph
After the consecration of the icon, Bishop Sophrony blessed the people with it on four sides and, together with the priesthood, went to the shrine with the relics of Mother Raphaila. Opening the transparent window above the head, the bishop anointed the remains of the new martyr with holy myrrh. The icon was installed nearby, and for the first time the choir sang to it the troparion, kontakion and magnification specially written for this celebration.
The service continued, there was constant prayer, but everyone already wanted to venerate the consecrated relics. There was a huge queue for cancer. The news of a particularly important event for the entire Cherkasy region brought many people to the Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, and not only from Chigirin. I note to myself that today there are many infirm people suffering from severe illnesses. Here is a young girl carefully leading a completely blind young man to the tomb; here they give a ride to a paralyzed man in a wheelchair; here an elderly woman attaches to the relics a girl with a transparent face and very thin arms and legs; here is a young man, leaning on crutches, with an almost lifeless hand trying to cross himself, trying with all his might to at least touch the shrine on his own. At that moment, everything was displayed on his face: pain, anxiety, will, and hope. But is there less hope in the eyes of ordinary people, outwardly not deprived of anything? Everyone is waiting for a miracle...
In the modern world, few people can boast of good health and well-being. This is probably partly why the “demand for miracles” has increased so much in recent years. Just which ones and from whom? From the pages of newspapers and magazines there are daily persistent calls to “receive healing”, “find out the future”, “remove the damage”. Crowds of people, believing in them, besiege psychics, astrologers, healers and sorcerers, and go to the now proliferating sects. The consequences of these visits are always sad, if not tragic. Of course, “unconventional methods” were not born now; there have been deceivers and charlatans in all centuries. But both then and today there is a choice: the whole world knows about the real miracle workers - the saints glorified by the Church.
After the prayer service and communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, the procession around the temple began. All participants in the service went out into the street with banners, icons and relics of the Venerable Martyr Raphaila, consecrating the entire area with new shrines for the first time. A large choir sang very soulfully, Bishop Sophrony read the Gospel and generously sprinkled holy water on the walls of the temple and the people standing nearby. Many had tears in their eyes, dissolved with tenderness and joy. It seemed as if the very grace of God was generously pouring out on you along with splashes of consecrated water...
“The Holy Martyr Raphael, whom we glorify today,” said Bishop Sophrony in his word to the people, “carried her life’s Christian cross until her death. She testified to her faith in Christ until the end of martyrdom. With her feat, this defenseless woman defeated a pack of wolves in the form of drunken fighters for “revolutionary justice.” She defeated them not by force, but by grace, showing the world that, no matter how valuable earthly life is, it is never more valuable than Eternity.
For decades, the godless government determined whether there should be faith in Ukraine or not. Ordinary believers were declared enemies of the people. But, thank God, the nationwide deception failed. I urge you, never forget that on the Cherkassy Cossack land there are more than a hundred glorified holy new martyrs. We have, perhaps, not a single city, not a single village that they would not sanctify with their feat. I will only say that out of more than 800 clergy in the Cherkasy region by 1938, not a single one was left alive.
And one more thing. It is very useful for all of us to know and remember how these people professed their faith, how they died! Thus, according to the words of Saint John Chrysostom of Christ, we do not so much learn History as we get acquainted with living examples of “...courage, spiritual piety, unshakable faith, winged and hot zeal... They fought with beasts, and you curb the anger of this indomitable beast; they withstood unbearable torment, and you overcome the vicious thoughts that abound in your heart. So imitate the martyrs.”
Glorifying the feat of the new martyrs and confessors, our Church trusts in their intercession and prays that the Lord, by His mercy, will give us all time to repent, ignite in the hearts of our fellow countrymen the extinguished fire of the truth of the Orthodox faith, and revive our earthly Fatherland. Today is a great holiday for us! The innocently murdered Abbess Raphael lay in obscurity for more than 60 years, but God still had mercy on us. From now on we have another great intercessor. Contact her, pray, and she will definitely help you!”
The solemn service came to an end, but people were in no hurry to leave and remained in the temple for a long time. I won’t lie, I didn’t want to leave either, so as not to “spill” my heart’s warmth and peace, and not to lose my blissful state of mind. I looked at these people and thought: “God grant that it will always be like this!”
I suddenly remembered the celebrations that took place in July 2004, in the ancient Russian city of Tikhvin. Then the miraculous Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God was returned from America to its original historical place. After the return of the icon, pilgrims from all over Russia rush to venerate the miraculous icon, countless buses come to Tikhvin, but local residents are rarely seen near the miraculous icon.
This is not only Tikhvin’s “picture”. Putting our hand on our hearts, we admit that we are all built this way - if something bad happens, we are ready to go to distant lands in search of miracles, and we treat what is “under our noses” coolly...
“The impression is,” said one Tikhvin priest, “that the Church has laid out its treasures, but the poor pass by and do not see, do not understand that if they touch them, they will become rich tomorrow. The tradition has been lost, the skill has been lost, people do not know what miracles can be performed after prayer at the shrine!”
God grant that everything will be different in Chigirin! So that in their search for miracles, Chigirin residents never forget about what shrines they have nearby! This is the miraculous icon of the Mother of God of Chigirinskaya, to which admirers have been going for centuries and which the amazing Kazan Cathedral Church recently accepted under its arches. Now the relics of the Chigirin ascetic Mother Raphaila have been found and are available for veneration.
Remember the story I told at the very beginning of the article? What was it if not a miracle sent by God through just one sigh and prayer to Mother Raphael?
Holy Martyr Raphaila Chigirinskaya
Before leaving the temple, she approached the shrine containing the relics of Mother Raphaila. Before me is an icon of the glorified new martyr. I’m trying to look at the holy face one last time. “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul...” - the gospel lines pop up in your thoughts.
Mother’s gaze is solemnly calm, as if she expresses her readiness to accept the prayers of people turning to her...
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However, the dioceses did a lot to perpetuate their feat
Patriarch Tikhon’s secular style of communication and his penchant for humor sometimes even irritated conservative monasticism
Why even non-believing victims of repression are our heavenly intercessors
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The last abbess of the Holy Trinity Chigirinsky Convent before its brutal destruction by the Soviet authorities was the nun Raphaila (Raisa Vasilievna Tertatskaya).
Unfortunately, no documentary biographical information about her has reached our time. The diocesan archives, containing chronicles and chronicles of the previous years of monastic life, perished in the early 20s. There are only oral retellings based on the memories of the guards and former nuns of the monastery, who preserved with clear clarity the bright image of this great mother.
According to Chigirin's narratives, Raisa was born in 1877. She came from a pious noble family. Even as a child, her heart was kindled with a fiery love for the Lord. As a child, she often retired to prayer and was moved by church hymns. And in her adolescence she asked her parents’ blessing to enter the monastery. From a young age, Raisa was brought up and grew spiritually in the bosom of the Holy Trinity Monastery under the wise guidance of venerable elders and experienced confessors.
Against the backdrop of the peaceful flow of a quiet monastic life, she diligently carried out various obediences and was known as an excellent craftswoman. She especially surprised her sisters with her skillful embroidery and carpet weaving. For many years later, people carefully preserved towels decorated with the work of their mother. But most of all Raisa loved church services. Gifted by the Creator with a rich voice and excellent hearing, she did not cease to constantly praise Him. Choir obedience was the most desirable thing for her.
It is reliably known that mother knew the Psalter by heart - its incessant reading became her main support in difficult times. And this servant of Christ admired God’s beautiful creation - flowers. Possessing artistic taste, she beautifully decorated temples with them, grew entire greenhouses in her cell and in the “Garden of Eden” - the monastery. And she especially loved roses.
When and under what circumstances novice Raisa Tertatskaya took angelic tonsure is not yet known. For her pure, chaste life, the Lord gave his chosen one the great Archangel name. Raphael means healer of God. Years will pass and the Venerable Martyr Raphael will be honored by the All-Merciful Lord with the gift of healing physical and mental human ailments...
On August 29, 1920, it was decided to appoint nun Raphaila (Tertatskaya) as the chairman of the Holy Trinity women's community. And on December 19 of the same year, on the day of remembrance of St. Nicholas, the Wonderworker of Myra, on one of the especially revered patronal feasts of the monastery, the Lord blessed his chosen one to become the abbess of the monastery (after the death of the former abbess, Mother Parthenia). The faithful daughter and pupil of the monastery was appointed mother of her sisters at the most difficult, and, it seemed, absolutely hopeless time. She soberly realized that the rod of her abbotship was the lot of martyrdom. Short in stature, weak in body like a woman, Mother Raphaila had strong faith, and in everything she trusted only in the Lord. Truly, “the power of God was made perfect in human weakness.” (II Cor. 12 :9)
From the first months of open persecution of the monastery, the abbess, through spiritual reasoning with the sisters, decided to ignore the ever-increasing pressure from the authorities, threats of possible violence, and not leave the place of her monastic feat. She strove to follow, by the grace of God, Christ’s commandment: “He who endures to the end will be saved” (Mk.13:13)
Her inexhaustible hope in God’s Providence gave her special stability in those circumstances in which others inevitably despaired. For at that time, many people were despondent from the sorrows and hopelessness of the current situation, some succumbed to deceptive temptations and followed the lead of human weakness. How much wisdom, strength and firmness you had to have then to show your monastery daughters that the success of the fight against evil is measured not by external victory, but only by unshakable standing in faith to the end. And most importantly, a personal example was required.
Facts indicate that Mother Raphaila took many actions to preserve the statutory life of the monastery and protect the sheep of Christ from the newly-minted militant atheists. Without losing complacency, and even love for her enemies, she accepted the invasion of new people who no longer knew God. Realizing that the confiscation of the monastery premises in favor of the Soviet authorities was inevitable, she was the first to propose to the Chigirinsky leadership to settle orphans in the monastery. A caring Christian woman tried to help them survive the difficult time of famine and civil devastation at the expense of the monastery reserves and treasury, as well as save their souls under the care of the nuns. And besides this, the far-sighted mother-hostess believed that housing the colonists would be less painful for the monastery than anything else. After all, the Soviet rulers could have used the monastery base for other, more blasphemous purposes.
Tracing the course of events of the liquidation of the Holy Trinity Monastery, it can be noted that with all the external satanic pressure, the godless authorities were often forced to reckon with the actions and actions of the chairman of the community, Mother Raphaila. Her spiritual prudence and insight helped her avoid hopeless situations, and when faced with aggressive atheists, she often emerged victorious in spirit. They were even a little afraid of her, and because of this they secretly hated her, hatching a plan for revenge. “For the righteous with his one life reproves the crooked, the wicked and the hypocritical. And the more divine the ray that shines through a person, the stronger the passions of villainous natures splash around him” (I.A. Ilyin, Russian philosopher).
The final closure of the monastery nevertheless forced a small group of remaining sisters to move to a private house located in the city of Chigirin on Dvoryanskaya Street No. 69 (now Parishskaya Street), where an Orthodox God-fearing family lived at that time. Shortly before this, mother blessed 37-year-old novice Tatyana Ivanovna Pavlenko to marry the pious widower with many children, Dmitry Dmitrievich Ryasik, and become his assistant in raising his children. Courageous confessors of the faith united in their small but spiritually cozy house, where they lived ascetically, acquired unceasing prayer and performed humble monastic work. Among them was the former monastery treasurer - elderly mother Elpidifora (Prokopovich) and the regent of the church choir - mother Epistimia (surname unknown).
Soon this everyday refuge became a saving spiritual oasis for many people and a place of prayer for the persecuted clergy. Divine services were held there, during which ascetics had the opportunity to perform heartfelt repentance and nourish their souls with communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, soul-saving conversations and secret meetings of great church men took place. In this house there were those who, without fear or embarrassment, were soon adorned with the crown of martyrdom for the Orthodox faith: Father Alexy (Erimovich), Father Andrey (Lapchinsky), Father Cyprian (Oleynik), Father Sergius (Zemnitsky), Father Timofey (Khrapachenko), Father Theodosius (Pedorich), Schema-Archimandrite Avakkum (Starov), monks of the Onufrievsky Monastery. Years will pass and the names of these fearless confessors of Christ will be written in the heavenly Book of Life, and earthly history will note:
« Their ages are different, but their faith is the same; different feats, but the same courage" - (St. John Chrysostom).
Of course, in the conditions of general satanic revelry, the enemy of the human race hissed with malice and cruelty, seeing in Chigirin such a fertile center of the Lord’s service. He incited general hostility and contempt for him among his compatriots, caused misunderstanding among his loved ones, and incited the authorities. And then, under the cover of darkness, he did his work of darkness.
On an August night in 1926, someone persistently knocked on the house where the mothers were huddled. This was the local holy fool for Christ's sake, Bartholomew, famous for his clairvoyance and predictions. The blessed one rushed about under the windows and called: Mother Raphael, run away! In half an hour you will die!” To which the abbess firmly replied: “Everything is the will of God. I won’t leave my sisters.” After some time, a group of activists from the local anti-religious organization “Bezbozhnik”, led by its leader, security officer Ivan Leontievich Salamashchenko, burst into the house. “His death will be terrible.”
Six drunken men brazenly grabbed the abbess, took her outside, tied her to a tree, covered her with hay, and then set her on fire, demanding that she remove the cross from her chest and give them the church utensils she had hidden earlier. The owner was not at home, the children were frightened and watched in horror what was happening. Mother Elpidifora (of advanced years, former monastery treasurer - O.S.) took the icon of the Mother of God “The Burning Bush” in her hands, and all the sisters fearlessly went out into the courtyard. They fell to their knees and fervently prayed to the Most Pure One for help.
Suddenly, strong thunder erupted, lightning flashed, and heavy rain began. The fiery flame, barely having time to flare up, went out. Then the embittered tormentors put mother on a cart and, tying her up, took her to an old slaughterhouse, where the 49-year-old abbess was subjected to brutal lynching. First, the rapists violated the bride of Christ, and then, in satanic malice, they furiously mocked her. They brutally beat her on the head with a butt, tore off her hair, knocked out six upper teeth, and tore out her lower jaw. The atheists broke mother's ribs, her upper left shin, and crushed the lower shins of both legs in the same places (probably they ran over them with a cart.) The confessor was baptized, and the God-haters broke her right arm. And finally, they brutally stabbed the sufferer with bayonets and buried her in the ground - still alive.
The crime did not go unnoticed. A witness to the terrible death of the abbess was a novice of the monastery, Maria Ustinovna Nagornaya (she later took monastic vows with the name Margarita), who lived nearby. After the nonhumans left the slaughterhouse, she secretly made her way there and dug up the mutilated and bloody body of the martyr.
Mother breathed for a little while longer and then, in her sister’s arms, she went to the Lord. The nuns buried Abbess Raphaila at the city Kazan cemetery. The grave was crowned with a small metal cross - they were afraid of further abuse of the wicked over the ashes of the righteous woman.
Glorification and Prayer Assistance to the Venerable Martyr Raphaila, Abbess of Chigirinskaya
“The righteous shall flourish like the phoenix; like the cedars of Lebanon shall multiply” (Ps. 13 :91)
Venerable Martyr Raphaila Chigirinskaya (Tartatskaya), Abbess
For decades, through the darkness of lack of spirituality and oblivion of the true past, an unovergrown path of people's memory stretched to the small tombstone of Mother Raphaila. For there the lamp of God's grace was constantly burning there, although invisible to the human eye, but expressively palpable to the human soul.
With great love and respect, Maria Ustinovna Nagornaya (nun Margarita) looked after this special burial for many years and firmly believed that the time would come - and everyone would know about the feat of Abbess Raphaila. She kept a chronicle of her heart and felt that at the throne of the Lord the murdered sufferer was praying for the desecrated monastery and desecrated shrines, for the forgiveness of the sins and insane actions of her compatriots. She knew that the hour of the earthly glory of the great saint of Christ would come and the grave lamp would shine on the Cherkassy land with the great light of the Lord’s mercy and indescribable miracles. For “God is marvelous in his saints”! (Ps. 63 :36).
Nun Margarita witnessed the terrible and unrepentant death of I.L. Salamashchenko, the main organizer of the brutal abuse of Mother Rafaila. The Chigirin people were literally herded to his burial. The coffin of this tormentor was closed, but even so it stank unbearably. During the funeral, his relatives could not approach him, and people did not enter the yard.
Nun Margarita remembered many wonderful help and amazing signs that took place at the request of a prayer at the grave of Abbess Raphaila. In 1976, Mother Margarita passed away, ordering herself to be buried, unworthy, next to the great martyr.
Since 1999, with the blessing of Archpriest Anatoly Prikotenko, parishioner of the Chigirinsky Kazan Church Valentina Vasilyevna Kalashnik (who was then in secret monastic vows with the name Ekaterina) took care of the grave of Mother Raphaila. At the tomb of the martyr she received healing and spiritual strengthening. The nun did not know then that time would pass and Mother Raphaila would bless her to become her successor - the abbess of the destroyed, but in the future restored, Holy Trinity Chigirinsky Convent.
At the beginning of the 21st century, after a spiritual thaw, the flow of people to the Kazan cemetery to the burial of the murdered abbess intensified. Inexplicably, the Pleasant of Christ called the sick, needy and suffering not only from the Cherkassy region, but also from distant places to her resting place. And she consoled everyone, healed them with the power given to her from the Lord, bestowed for the feat of a pious life and martyrdom of the Orthodox faith.
Young people learned about her lifetime suffering from the words of old-timers. One day, seminarian Alexander Mikhailyuta (later he would become a priest of the Chigirin deanery and a participant in the process of canonization of the venerable martyr) came to the grave and prayed to mother. The young man really wanted to get to the Holy Dormition Pochaev Lavra. But, unfortunately, there was no money for this. Moving away from the burial site, he heard a gentle female voice: “Don’t be sad. You'll be leaving soon." Alexander thought that the caretaker Valentina Vasilievna had approached the grave. The young man looked around, but there was no one around. Frightened, he ran out of the cemetery. Alexander's amazement knew no bounds when, soon, he actually managed to visit Pochaev. On the day the pilgrim group departed there, two free places suddenly appeared. Virtue gave one of them to Alexander - completely free of charge.
On December 10, 2003, the rector of the Kazan Cathedral in Chigirin, Archpriest Anatoly Prikotenko, and his brother, the priest of the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery, Archpriest Nikolai Prikotenko, raised the incorrupt remains of Abbess Raphaila from under the bushel. The grave also preserved mother’s rosary, funeral cross, and kamilavka. The discovery of the remains revealed to the world obvious details of the abuse that the sufferer suffered. The tomb with the relics of the martyr was placed for prayerful veneration in the premises of the lower St. George Church of the Chigirin Kazan Cathedral.
In mid-August 2004, the crayfish began to smell strongly. A wonderful smell spread throughout the church for about two weeks. This timing was not accidental. For, according to the memoirs of long-time resident Lydia Ivanovna Postrigan, Mother Raphaila was tortured precisely in mid-August. But, unfortunately, it was not possible to establish the exact date. The fragrance from the relics was repeated several more times in the following years.
On May 24, 2005, in the Kazan Cathedral Church of the city of Chigirin, Archbishop Sophrony, Cherkasy and Kanevsky, in the presence of many clergy and a huge number of pilgrims, performed a solemn rite of glorification of the Venerable Martyr Raphaila, Abbess of Chigirin. The fact of official canonization and the addition of God's saint to the Heavenly Council is a holy appearance to the world, meaning that she, who suffered for Christ, can serve as a model of faith for all members of the church and that she can and should be addressed in prayers to all Orthodox Christians who need heavenly intercession.
The relics of the saint are installed in the right aisle of the upper church of the cathedral under the miraculous icon of the Mother of God “Hodegetria.” After the opening of the Holy Trinity Chigirin Convent in 2006, they were transferred to the monastery several times. On December 10, 2008, the shrine with relics was brought to the Holy Trinity Monastery to celebrate the day of memory of the venerable martyr. After the celebrations, this shrine, with the blessing of Bishop Sophrony, remained in the monastery - now forever.
Now everyone who, with reverent awe and fear, kneels before the tomb of the great saint of God - the Venerable Martyr Raphaila, Abbess Chigirinskaya and with fervent prayer asks for the intercession of the saint of Christ and intercession with God for himself and his loved ones, receives grace-filled help and wondrous healings. Her soul shines before God with such a pure, such a bright light that unless you are blind to what is “not of this world, but from above,” you involuntarily feel, approaching this shrine, an internal change. It immediately becomes easier, as if the image of God is suddenly renewed in you.
Saint John Chrysostom wrote: “Looking at the very body of the saint, worthy to be bloodied for the confession of Christ, although we were more fearful than everyone else, can we not experience great jealousy when this sight, as if like fire, penetrates our soul and calls us to such is it a feat? This is why God left us the bodies of the saints, so that we might have in them a lesson of the greatest wisdom.”
Many miracles and amazing incidents occurred through prayers to the Venerable Martyr Raphaila on the eve of her glorification. Here's one of them. Moscow journalist Natalya Obmankina had heard a lot about the great martyr and tried to get to Chigirin on the day of her canonization. For the trip she needed to have the amount of 2100 rubles. But, unfortunately, the woman did not have that kind of money at that time. Natalya begged her mother to urgently help her with this. And to my inexpressible surprise, on the eve of the desired departure, I received an absolutely unexpected bonus at work - in the amount of exactly 2,100 rubles. Once at the festival, she witnessed the greatest celebration. Subsequently, Natalya wrote a newspaper article about this significant event for people and for her personally. In it, the journalist noted: “In the photograph that Father Anatoly blessed me to take in the church near the shrine with the relics of Mother Superior Rafaila, a strip of light is clearly visible above the transparent window at the head of the mother. Mistaking it for a defect in the photo, I repeated it on the other side. I developed the film and the glow remained...”
Before the glorification of the martyr Raphaila, Bishop Sophrony blessed the nun Catherine (Kalashnik) to go to Kyiv and ask the abbot’s robes from the capital’s women’s monasteries for the saint’s vestments. This journey was fraught with great temptation. The unclean one cruelly punished the obedient mother. In broad daylight, on one of the streets of Kyiv, he appeared in the form of some very dark man and attacked Catherine with the words: “Why can’t you sit at home, why are you climbing here?” And then he beat her viciously. The exhausted nun reached the Florovsky Monastery, where during the service she tearfully begged Mother Raphael to help her fulfill the bishop's blessing - so disgusting to the devil.
The sisters of the monastery, seeing the suffering parishioner, consoled her in every possible way. And then they presented a gift - the necessary attire for the venerable martyr on the day of her glorification. It is significant that the Lord dressed His chosen one in the vestments of the Florovsky sisters, who in the distant past served as the leaders of the Chigirinsky convent.
The icon of the saint was created in a marvelous way. Her lifetime portrait could not be found. Nun Alipia (Danilova), a resident of the Steblevo Spaso-Preobrazhensky convent, painted an unusually lively and expressive face of the venerable martyr, completely unaware of her true image. The craftswoman felt that during the icon painting work an invisible force guided her hand and thought. And the primordial enemy of the human race arranged the greatest temptations.
Mother Alypia learned about the martyrdom of the Chigirinskaya abbess long before the canonization of Christ’s confessor. Arriving one day in Chigirin for a temple festival, the first place she came to was the grave of Mother Rafaila. This spiritual acquaintance, as it turned out later, turned out to be extremely providential for the nun.
After the opening of the Holy Trinity Monastery, the heavenly intercession of the holy abbess over her monastery miraculously manifests itself constantly. There were even visible cases of the appearance of Mother Raphaila.
With touching tears of gratitude to the venerable martyr, Abbess Catherine told the following story. On the eve of the first monastic Christmas, they didn’t even have bread in the monastery. We tried to bake something, but there was no flour either. The next day, quite unexpectedly, the monastery received a transfer for a significant amount (800 UAH). he came from Krasilov, Khmelnytsky region. from the servant of God Catherine, who collected this amount in her parish. This woman had never been to Chigirin, but learned about the monastery from her daughter. The latter brought the address of the shrine from Pochaev.
During the girl’s pilgrimage trip to the Lavra, a nun approached her, handed her an icon of the Venerable Martyr Raphaila with the address of the Chigirin monastery and said: “We need to help this monastery.” At the same time, mother immediately died. The pilgrim looked around - but there was no one like her there either. What was surprising was that the image of the saint was a black and white xerox image, and her icons were distributed by the Chigirin sisters only in color.
The transit passage in 2006 in the city of Chigirin turned out to be significant for Varvara Gul, a resident of the village of Bilyki, Poltava region. She stopped at its bus station and was waiting for a transfer to a flight to Lebedin, where she was heading with the goal of joining the sisters of the Lebedin monastery. Tired of the journey, the woman sat with her head bowed. At this time, a nun unknown to her approached her and said affirmatively: “If you want to be saved, go to the Chigirin monastery.” Hearing this, Varvara raised her eyes to ask something, but mother instantly disappeared. Surprised by what she heard, the traveler immediately went to the Chigirin Kazan Church, where, after questioning its rector, Father Anatoly Prikotenko, she learned that a convent had actually opened in the city. Soon, changing her plans, she took monastic vows. Let us add that this servant of God was a novice of this monastery in the 40s. Blessed Bartholomew made a prophecy about her.
One morning, the servant of God Svetlana Matyushkina, who lived with her husband and children in the neighboring monastery building, came to Abbess Catherine. She sincerely asked for forgiveness for the scandal and abuse she had created in the monastery the day before towards the sisters, and also offered her help and friendship to the abbess. The woman explained that she had to realize a lot and come to this decision after a nun came to their house at night. At midnight she knocked on the door and, turning to Svetlana’s son, humbly asked: “Please turn up the music, because it’s playing very loudly, and we’re having prayer now.” The guy surprisingly calmly complied with this request, only clarifying: “Is this normal?” The Matyushkins took mother for one of the sisters of the monastery, for she was dressed in monastic vestments and had a kamilavochka on her head. But, as it turned out later, there was no such nun among the nuns at all. Such an unusual night visit (an obvious miracle of the Venerable Martyr Raphaila) soon transformed, by the grace of the Lord, the life of the entire family: they turned their faces to God, baptized the children, began to bring them to Communion, and changed their behavior. The Matyushkins began to notice the saint’s extraordinary help in many ways.
The glory of miracles performed through prayers to the venerable martyr spreads throughout the Orthodox world. There are known cases of healing from drug addiction, from headaches and toothaches, various injuries to the head, arms and legs; through prayers to mother, people find work and housing; mother patronizes drivers, travelers, the poor... Reverend Martyr Abbess Raphael must pray first of all to those who fall under the weight of his Cross. Pray to carry even the heaviest Cross to the end.
Greatness
We magnify you, venerable passion-bearer, Mother Raphael, and honor your venerable sufferings, which you endured for Christ in the establishment of Orthodoxy.
