Blessed Starets Matrona-Sandals St. Petersburg. Example of a righteous life

Blessed Matron saint is popular among the people as a saint. Her name is best known to the inhabitants of St. Petersburg and the region, because here she lived most of her righteous life. Here, on the farmstead of the Zelenets Holy Trinity Monastery, there is her grave, people come to her, eager for bodily and spiritual healing.

Mother Matron, who was often called Matrona-barefoot, was famous as a miracle worker and prophetess during her lifetime. People turned to the old man for prayer help, advice and instructions. Her prophecies and predictions helped many to avoid death and dangers, cope with difficult circumstances and find the right road in life.

The Life of the Righteous

Matrona was born in a peasant family, in a small village of Vanino (Kostroma province). The information about how her childhood passed did not survive. It is known that at one time she became the wife of the Kostroma philistine E. Mylnikov. Lived not rich, but still not poor, because her husband kept a grocery store. In 1877 the husband of Matronushka was called up for military service - there was a war with Turkey. Together with him the sister of mercy went and Matronushka-sandals. Even then, the gift of love and compassion manifested itself in her character, she helped the soldiers as much as she could and even gave them her salary for the service.

After the death of her husband in 1878, Matrona returned to her homeland and decided to devote her life to serving God and people. Having sold the property, she gave money to the poor and began to live by alms, becoming a pilgrim. For the rest of her life, at any time of the year, she wore only summer clothes and went barefoot, that's why she got the name of Matrona-barefoot. Barefoot, she visited all the holy places of immense Russia and four times made a pilgrimage to Palestine, where she accepted the schema. She also visited the Solovki miracle workers.

The last three decades of Matron's life were spent in St. Petersburg. People have always seen her praying at the church chapel of the Church of the Sorrowful - barefoot, in white clothes and a staff in her hand. Thousands of people visited Matronushka every year. She was perspicacious, and her prayer to the Lord had great power. Everyone was received by the blessed old man, consoled, advised, prayed with people asking for the mercy of God. Her prayers got rid of alcoholism and other ailments, there were cases of miraculous healings of hopeless patients. Matrona-barefoot warned people of imminent danger, and they remained unscathed. The focus of her spiritual life was compassion for people, coming from the heart, the cross, prayer and the Orthodox Church. Matrona-sandals did not become many years ago, but she helps people with her intercession before God and after death.

After death

Staritsa died in 1911, on March 30, the code on the Neva River began to drift. The day before, she had said that she would leave with ice and water, and so it happened. On the day of her funeral was Palm Sunday. They buried the Matron in the fence of the Church of the Sorrow, near the chapel, where she loved to pray. After the revolution, the church was destroyed, the chapel was closed. Lost and traces Matronina's grave. Only in 1997, in the churchyard of the male Zelenets Holy Trinity Monastery, formed around the chapel, was found a crypt with the coffin of Matronushka. The coffin with the relics of the old man was buried in the same place, and again people come to the Matrona to ask for prayer help.

Prayer of the Matron Sandals

Before her death, the old man told people to come to her and, as if alive, told about their troubles, promised to help them by her intercession with the Lord. And people come. Matronushka can be asked about healing, about getting rid of suffering, about motherhood, about keeping a marriage, about meeting with a suitor, about helping in everyday affairs and solving money problems, getting rid of alcoholism, about helping with work and studying.

Thanks be to God that there were such prayers on earth as Matrona-barefoot, who now, after death, comforts and helps with her prayers. Despite the fact that Matronushka, with her whole life as an example of mercy and great patience, has not yet been canonized, she can also be contacted today with requests for intercession.