Who is mother Alipia? Did her prophecies come true? Why is she so revered in the Goloseevsk desert? You can find out about this by reading our article!

Without a passport

Almost all biographical information about her is only approximate, gleaned from the little that she sometimes told about herself.

The year of her birth is now indicated as the 1910th. But in some biographies you can find both the 1905th and 1908th.

Mother Alipia lived her life without a passport and without a residence permit. She never had her own shelter, reliable housing. I didn’t allow myself to take pictures. This explains such a small number of its images - literally a few. A few more newsreel moments survived ...

She is our contemporary. Mother Alipia left the earthly life on October 30, 1988. She predicted the Chernobyl disaster, the Filaret schism (five years before the event) and the times, it seems, of new monstrous trials; predicted war.

Wanderer

She was born in the Penza province, in the Orthodox Mordovian Avdeev family. At baptism, she was given the name of the holy martyr Agathia, whose icon she wore all her life on her back.

In 1918, the girl miraculously survived: she went to the neighbors. Has returned - parents are killed. An eight-year-old child, she read the Psalter over their cooled bodies all night ...

Wandered around the holy places. Talking about something, mother Alipia called herself masculine: “I was everywhere: in Pochaev, in Pyhtitsa, in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. Three times in Siberia was. He went to all churches, lived for a long time, they accepted me everywhere. ” Recall that there are thousands of kilometers between the Pyukhtitsky Assumption Monastery in Estonia and Siberia ... She told me that she was in prison for a long time: "They pushed me, beat me, did interrogations ..." She was starved ... Usually they did not ask her for details, and this is why: "in such a reverent silence reigned in the presence of my mother, and it was so good with her that they were afraid to break this silence. " But she told other people the details: “Once she was arrested and put in a common cell. There were many priests in the prison where she was being held. Every night, 5-6 people were gone forever. Finally, only three remained in the cell: one priest, his son and mother.

The priest said to his son: “Let's serve a memorial service on our own, today they will take us away at dawn” ... And my mother said: “And you will leave here alive today.”

They served a memorial service, father and son buried themselves and took them away at night forever ... ”Mother Alipia said that the Apostle Peter saved her - he opened the door and led all the guards through the back door, ordered them to go along the sea. She walked without deviating from the coastline, “without food and water for eleven days. I climbed over steep rocks, cut off, fell, rose, crawled again, tearing my elbows to bones. She had deep scars in her hands ... ”It is believed that it was at that time that she visited the old man hieroschimonh Theodosius (Kashin; 1841-1948), who lived in the mountains near Novorossiysk. She said: "I was with Theodosius, I saw Theodosius, I know Theodosius." It is believed that at that time the miracle worker Theodosius blessed her for the feat of foolishness.

How and where she studied - no information. But she read well in Church Slavonic and Russian, sometimes she spoke and prayed in the Mordovian language.

During the war, Agafya Tikhonovna Avdeeva visited forced labor in Germany. Her cellwoman Martha recalled: “My mother told me that when she was at work in Germany, at night she read the Psalter for women who had children or sick old people at home (at home), and led them out of the barbed wire and they safely left home. Mother herself left before the end of the war, got across the front line and went on foot to Kiev ... "

In the monastery

In Russia there are no simple exits from the traps of history. Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, after the defeat in the 1920s, came to life in the autumn of 1941, under the Germans. The Hitlerite authorities opened churches, of course, not out of secret sympathies for historical Russia, but out of situational conditions, wishing to present the population with the advantages of the new world order, contrasting it with Bolshevik installations.

Lamps were again lit in the churches of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, divine services were resumed, attracting surviving devotees of piety, who went through arrests, exiles, and camps. Mother Alipiya told about her stay in the Kiev Pechersk Lavra: “I have been in the Lavra for 20 years. I’ve sat in a hollow for three years, it was cold, I noticed snow, I was hungry, but I put up with everything. ” Twenty years are precisely those years when the laurel was opened, from the occupation of 1941 to the Khrushchev March of 1961.

Fr. Agafya Tikhonovna became the spiritual father-mentor. Kronid (in the world Kondrat Sergeyevich Sakun; 1883-1954; since 1945 archimandrite, since 1947 - rector of the Lavra). In his hour about. Kronid tonsured Agafyu as a monk with the name Alipiy - in honor of the Monk Alipiy Pechersky.

According to the memoirs relating to 1947, mother Alipiya was thin, slender, neatly combed. Her long brown hair was braided in a braid around her head with a “basket”. Everyone called her Lipa, she lived “in a ravine behind the laurel fence directly in the open air ... Lipa had an unusually deep, clean, warm, affectionate, loving look of light gray eyes that made her young, transforming her into a teenage girl ... In simple modest clothes, she was always neat, clean. She didn’t emit any unpleasant odor, which usually happens from wandering people sleeping in train stations and not washing for a long time. ”

No less astonishing were those who watched her, that she lived in a hollow, in which she could not rise to growth, near which hungry dogs howled in snowy frosty nights.

This period probably dates back to the post-war period, when the one who took Mother Alipiya without passport risked administratively. She recalled: “When it was very cold, I went into the corridor to the monks to warm themselves. Another will pass, give bread, and the other will drive away - there is nothing for you, woman, to sit here. But I was not offended by them ... ”In especially severe frosts, others were allowed to bask in the canopy. And then: “Warm up? Well, go, save yourself ... "

"Special Forces"

Yurod - idiot, homeless, "a miracle in feathers." Who did not meet those? And this will not be allowed into the bus, and on the street the children will throw it with a snowball, or even a stone. In this environment, which is very doubtful for a “pure society”, among the masses of mentally ill or unfortunate people who have fallen, almost indistinguishable from them, there may live an ascetic who consciously renounced the benefits of civilization, possessing the gift of extraordinary love, and perhaps miracles - healing, divination.

Famous Kiev priest Fr. Andrei Tkachev, a wonderful preacher and writer, in one of his speeches (intelligibly for a modern person) explained how Christ is a holy fool.

Using an analogy with the army of the army of the spiritual, he called the holy fools “special forces”, as if “a special unit” among a host of other saints - martyrs, confessors, hermits, hermits ...

First go to Alexei ...

After the closure of the Lavra, mother Alipia lived for many years where she had to. In 1979, on the eve of the Olympics, a passportless nun was taken to an empty house in the Goloseevsky forest, in an area remote from city highways.

A lot of the ascetics of faith known to us are connected with the monastery, among them the Monk Alexy Goloseevsky (Shepelev; 1840-1917), the perspicacious old man revered by all imperial Russia.

To the grave of Fr. Alexia mother Alipia sent everyone who came to her: "First, go to Alexei, bow down, then to me." Or: “Go, there the priest serves” ...

Miracle worker

Many noted her absolute dedication e unusual love and compassion for people.

Those who knew her did not doubt that the spiritual world was open to her, invisible to us, that she read in the hearts of people, as in an open book.

Almost everyone remembers that she treated people with ointment, which she herself prepared. This treatment, at times, was so miraculous that others believe that the healing power was not in the ointment itself, but in the prayer of the amazing nun. There is evidence of cure for the most serious ailments. Moreover, miracles are happening now ...

Everyone remembers her plentiful treats. No matter how many people came to her, at least three dozen fed them all. Alexey A. says: “At the table, during lunch, she took care of everyone and when there was not enough room for everyone at the table, she left, sat down on the table, said:“ I already ate. ” She always put a lot of food in plates and demanded that they eat everything. When they left her, she asked if something was needed on the road. Several times, I and my friends offered money, as if predicting an emergency need for them ... "

Nun L. recalled: “We are going from the church with Mother in a trolley, and one woman (fellow traveler) says to herself,“ This old woman has a lot of money, everyone gives. ” Mother heard and just replies childishly: “They say that hens are milked, and whoever gives me a pretty penny, I bring to church, I’ll buy candles and put them for that.”

She always brought many rolls and bread to the memorial table to the church, bought large candles ...

One day three young men came to her. One was skeptical.

Mother Alipia carefully looked at everyone, and the skeptic suddenly said: “The terrible sin is to marry; the soul will go to hell if it does not repent. ” The guy changed his face. It turned out she convicted Sodom sin.

The young man remained for conversation. It is not known whether there was repentance. But a month later he died suddenly.

To someone she said: "Without a wife you will disappear." Two young people who, having read the lives of the saints, wanted to leave for the Caucasus, to be saved in a desert place, suddenly said: “Here are ancient ascetics!” And then she added: “Now is not the right time and not for you!” And another young man who dreamed about the feat of foolishness, tried to stop: "Do not dare, they will kill." He did not obey, died.

Aleksei A., who had never thought about spiritual education, once said: “You’ll finish the seminary and you will not see much here.” Alex was surprised, began to argue. Two years later, a seminary opened in Kiev, he graduated from it and then served as a sexton not far from Golosievo, in the China desert.

Five years before her death, she said about the revival of the Goloseevskaya monastery. Once she was walking along the monastery ruins, accompanied by the sisters of the Florovsky monastery and suddenly exclaimed, as if they could see: “Girls, look: there will still be a monastery and a service ...” It was hard to believe. Goloseevskaya deserts began to come to life in 1993. In the same year, the Church was glorified by the Church in the guise of saints (on the feast of Equal-to-the-Apostles Grand Duke Vladimir) the Monk Alexy Goloseevsky.

Woe is coming

People could not understand her phrases: "Under the earth burns, grief goes." She probably did not know such words as “reactor” and “radiation accident”. She started talking about the fact that “grief is coming” even in the winter, long before Chernobyl on April 26th. And the day before the accident, she walked along the street, crying out prayerfully: “Lord! Pity the babies, spare the people! ”The people who came to her that day advised:“ Close the doors and windows tightly, there will be a lot of gas. ” When the accident happened, they asked: to leave? She said no. When asked what to do with food, she taught: “Wash, read“ Our Father ”and“ Theotokos ”, cross and eat, and you will be healthy” ...

She repeatedly publicly spoke negatively about M. Denisenko, at that time the Kiev Metropolitan. Alexey A. recalled: “Having seen the photograph of Filaret, she said:“ He is not ours. ” We began to explain to Mother that it was our metropolitan, thinking that she did not know him, but she again firmly repeated: "He is not ours." Then we did not understand the meaning of her words, and now we are surprised at how many years ahead, Mother foresaw everything. ”

Once, in the Church of the Ascension of the Lord, on Demeevka, of which she was a parishioner, during the hierarchal service, she suddenly exclaimed, seeing the future: “Glorious, glorious, but you will die a peasant. At that time, she was expelled from the temple.

NT recalls: “We are sitting at Mother’s, talking. The stove has already burned out for a long time, lunch was cooked. A.R. showed a magazine in which there was a large photograph of M.A. Denisenko. Mother grabbed the magazine, poked him in the eye with two fingers and shouted: “Ooh, y'arly, how much grief you bring to people, how much evil you will do. Wolf climbed into sheep’s skin! Into his stove, into the stove! ” Crumpled up a magazine and threw it into the stove. Gathered from surprise, they were bewildered and silently sat, listening to the magazine burning in the stove, dying. When I came to, I asked Mother: “What will happen?” Mother smiled with her wide childhood smile and said: “Vladimir will be, Vladimir!”. And when there was a split in our church, we without any doubt and hesitation followed the one whom Mother had indicated to us another year and a half before her death and almost five years before the events. ”

There is her prophecy about the coming war. “States will differ in terms of money.

This will not be a war, but the execution of peoples for their rotten condition. Dead bodies will lie in mountains, no one will undertake to bury them. Mountains, hills fall apart, flattened with the earth.

People will run from place to place. There will be many bloodless martyrs who will suffer for the Orthodox Faith. ” “The war will begin on the apostles Peter and Paul. You will lie: there is a hand, there is a leg. It will happen when they take out the corpse. ” A corpse is usually understood as a mausoleum of a deceased. The date “on Peter and Paul,” as they later understood, was not said to be about the Day of the Supreme Apostles, which is celebrated on July 12/29. In 1987, according to her calendar, which she called Jerusalem, this day was on the Transfiguration - August 19/6.

She also taught: “When you go to Khreschatyk in Kiev, pray because it will fail.”

Radiance

She knew about the day of her death, warned ahead of time. Nun F.: "In April 1988, I brought Mother Church calendar, and she asks:" Look at what day will be October 30. " I looked and said: "Sunday." She somehow pointedly repeated: "Sunday." After her death, we realized that then, in April, Mother opened to us the day of her death - more than six months before her. ” She was buried in the Kiev Forest Cemetery, on the site of the Florovsky Monastery. Without a passport and registration - it also seemed like a miracle ...

There are documented cases of healing through prayers to her. At least once in the evening people saw an extraordinary radiance around her cross.

Mother’s relics were raised and transported to Golosievo on May 18, 2006. On that day, the author of these lines, by a lucky coincidence, ended up in Golosievo. The relics were already hidden in the lower limit of the temple "Life-giving Spring" under construction. And where the old woman’s house once stood, near the symbolic grave with a cross, the priest began to serve a memorial service. I raised my head up. In the May blue sky - high above the cross - a thin solar ring sparkled by scientists called the "halo" sparkled widely. Has anyone else seen? Everyone prayed, nobody looked up. Later I learned that in the morning, when the first requiem was served in the "Life-Giving Spring", people saw a glowing cross in the sky ...

Oleg Slepinin

You have read the article. Pay attention to other materials.

Goloseevskaya Desert ... The heart rejoices once again when, by the grace of God, the incomprehensible paths of His Providence come to this blessed land, which is abundantly watered with the blood of those who lived and prayed on it. Time dissolves, disappears, and the high Eternity extends its blessed Veil.
  Here you feel Eternity with your heart.
  Here the memory of centuries is alive.
  The wind and dusk whisper to us
  Prayers are holy words.
  And it doesn’t matter at all whether the sun is shining, it is pouring rain or snow is falling - you simply don’t notice it, because here, in Golosievo, special grace reigns ... An amazing monastery with a unique fate - a place of solitary prayers of the great Kiev Metropolitans, monastic austerities and pure works of Kiev ascetics piety, the names of many of which are hidden by inexorable time.

Kiev, October 30, early morning, the weather leaves much to be desired. It would seem to wrap yourself in a warm plaid and sit at home, with your nose buried in a wonderful book. But few Orthodox Kiev residents stayed home reading this book this morning - the road to the Holy Protection Cathedral of the Goloseevsky Monastery was already crowded early in the morning. Not only people rush into the deserts, but already from there.

October 30 for many Orthodox Kievans, and not only Kievans, over the past 28 years has become a special date. It was on this day in 1988 that mother Alipiya Goloseevskaya, especially revered among the people, went to the Lord. Therefore, people hurry to Goloseevskaya deserts - and no heavy rain is a hindrance to them. Fortunately, on this day, so that everyone could pray with their unforgettable mother, the gates of the monastery were open almost all night.

Just think: tens of thousands of pilgrims from different parts of Ukraine and neighboring countries came to pray mother Alipia on the 27th anniversary of her death at the Goloseevsky Monastery. After all, it was on the territory of this monastery (then destroyed), in a dilapidated tiny house, that it spent its last years of its life - from 1979 to 1988. - Nun Alipia (Avdeeva).

“Kiev Matron”, “Blessed”, “Mummy” - that is how Orthodox Christians call mother Alipiya and go to her for prayer help with the most sacred and, certainly, with flowers or bread.

As Tatyana from Kiev said (she heard a lot about mother from the natives of the Florovsky monastery who knew her. - Author), on the way to church, mother Alipiya always brought a lot of bread to the church. She laid it on the funeral table and said: "Always have at least a piece of bread with you."

“Therefore, I always try to bring bread when I go to my mother. Anyway, when I go to the temple, ”Tatyana added, standing in line at the tomb of mother Alipiya with bread and flowers.

While an endless stream of people went to venerate the mother’s tomb, other believers hurried to the Liturgy in the main church of the monastery, consecrated in honor of the Icon of the Mother of God "Life-giving Spring".

“The bishop’s service will be, we’ll come in, we won’t get lost,” pilgrims who arrived in Kiev from neighboring regions whispered to each other.

The memorial Liturgy on the occasion of the 29th anniversary of the death of the nun Alipiya (Avdeeva) was celebrated today at the Holy Protection Cathedral of Goloseevsky Monastery in Kiev. Liturgy in the square in front of the main church of the monastery was headed by the governor of the monastery Bishop Isaac of Vorzel.

Despite the drizzling rain, weakened during the “Grace of the World” and stopped before the sacrament, many people prayed at the Liturgy - believers received communion from the 15 Chalices.

During the service there were special petitions for the repose of the ever-memorable ascetic.

“Dear brothers and sisters, today is the memory day of mother Alipia ... With her life, she showed us an example of how to live in the modern world. If other saints lived at other times, then she is our contemporary and knows the problems, temptations that modern man experiences, and most importantly, how to fulfill the Christian commandments that the Lord has left for us in the holy gospel, ”Vladyka Isaac said in the sermon.

After the Liturgy, the clergy descended to serve a requiem in the tomb under the temple, where a long line of pilgrims had long stood.

After the service, a memorial lithium was served by the nun Alipia, who was resting in the lower temple aisle of the monastery. Memorial services were served throughout the day. And the pilgrims all arrived and arrived, and the tail of the line to the tomb has long gone beyond the monastery.
  A line of Orthodox Christians was also lined up near the cross, set in place of the old woman’s house, near the chapel. People left notes with the most secret requests, asking the old woman for intercession, or in which they thanked mother Alipiya for help and prayers.

Miracles of Prayer

“I came to my mother for the second time,” said Raisa Romanova from s. Sokolovo of the Zhytomyr region. - Three months ago, I didn’t even know that here, in Golosievo, there is such a chapel of mother Alipiya. For the first time, our father brought us here - Father Vasily, Dean of the Chervonoarmeysky District. He told us about mother Alipia.

I coughed for three months, nothing helped. And I wanted to sing in the choir, but I could not. I didn’t even know what other drugs to drink. And so I came to my mother’s tomb and very tearfully asked: “Mother, heal me so that I can sing in the temple” (crying). And somewhere around 7 days after the trip to mother, the cough stopped!

Now I can sing in the choir. And today is the day of the death of mother Alipia, and I came here to thank her and ask for help to my children and grandchildren. She heard my tearful request, and I am very grateful to my mother. And I will always go to her, thank her for the prayerful help before our Lord. "

“Only a couple of photos of my mother and a 10-second, miraculously found video reached us”
  Surprisingly, about the life of the nun Alipia (Avdeeva), who is known even far beyond Ukraine, there is practically no documented information. And she did not like to talk about herself and take pictures. We only got a couple of photos of mother and a 10-second miraculously found video that the children shot on an old film, where mother blesses the parents of these children. So all the information about the old woman, to a greater extent, is based on the recollections of people who were lucky enough to be her spiritual children, or they simply knew her.

However, those insignificant facts that we know, fit poorly into our consciousness. In early childhood, mother Alipia remained an orphan and soon went to wander around the world - she visited all the abodes of God. Then she was arrested - for 10 years she had to count days in a prison cell. After the Great Patriotic War - and she had to fight for the life of her neighbors and herself already in Nazi Germany, where she was taken to forced labor.

Her spiritual children recalled that mother Alipia wore strange chains around her neck - a large bunch of keys. According to the nuns, these chains were connected with fascist Germany. While in a German camp, mother worked at some factory and at night, according to her stories, went to the bars, cut her and let people out.

“Everyone will leave and stay alive, and no one knew where they disappeared,” said mother. And supposedly for every person she saved, a key was added to her neck. The old woman wore this heavy bunch of keys around her neck until her death.

Many more, who saw this slightly strange hermit nun during her lifetime, thought that she had a hump. However, this was not a hump at all, but an icon of her heavenly patroness - the holy martyr Agathia, which mother Alipia wrapped in a canvas and wore on her back.

And one more detail that does not fit into our consciousness. How can I live in a hollow of linden? But this was also in the life of the nun Alipia (feat of pillar-making), to which she was blessed by the then governor of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, Archimandrite Kronid, who, by the way, tonsured her as a nun.

“The facts of her life raise bewildering questions - the facts of her help to people do not raise questions”
  Of course, many facts from the life of the nun of Alipia raise bewildering questions and discussions among scholars and even clergy. But the facts about mother’s help and about various cases of healing through prayers to her do not raise questions among those who felt this help on their own.

Svetlana LICHKOVSKAYA from Cherry

“MATUS ALIPIA HELPED TO CURE THE BACK”

“I had a spinal hernia - terrible pains, I could not even bend over. I came to the temple, prayed to mother Alipia and I feel that by the end of the service I feel better. I left the temple - again, my back begins to hurt. I come again to Goloseevsky and ask: "Mother Alipia, pray to Christ our God, help me, I want to bow down, and I can’t." I didn’t notice how I do the bow of the earth, let my back go. Cant - it doesn't hurt. I leave the temple, bowed to the Mother of God. She just moved away from the monastery and her back hurts again.

The next time I come here and ask: "Mother Alipia, if it is God that will heal me through your prayers, give a sign so that my back does not hurt for three days." So she prayed, and, imagine, she was not ill for exactly three days. And then again a terrible pain. And then I again prayed: "Mother Alipia, pray to the Lord God, that the Lord will give me strength, so that I can go to the temples of God, to believe."

You know - since then it has been unacceptable, it has never been enough. But I had a hernia in the back. I go all the time now to the monastery. But the first time I came here, I especially remembered - such a grace, such a flight of the soul.

And it was like that. My friend kept the pressure up to 300 all the time. A terrible state. We come here with him - and the pressure drops to 140. With medicines lower than to 170, he never dropped, but here - here! We’ll come here, and immediately everything is fine. ”

Ekaterina and Ksenia (mother and daughter), Kiev

“WE ARE ALREADY 8 YEARS RIDING TO THE MOTHER - WE ASK FOR HELP, WE COME THANKS THANKS”

“We go to mother Alipia for a very long time - even when mother’s grave was at the Forest Cemetery. She helps in everything, in everything. We always try to come to her with flowers. We miraculously entered the university, we are getting our second education - all with my mother.

Eight years we’ve been going to my mother like this - we ask her for help, then we thank her for coming. And so in everything. All children, I have three of them, always need help with something. Help, which does not always depend on us. And somehow God rules. Of course, through the prayers of mother before the Lord for us. ”

Igor and Irina, Kiev

“IN THE MORNING, WIFE AND WIFE WERE AT THE MATUS, AND IN THE EVENING, THE SON WAS BORN TO US”

“On the eve of Mother Alipia’s memory day, our family friend told me about her. My wife and I have been living in Kiev for many years, parishioners of the Vvedensky monastery, but did not know anything about this ascetic. October 30, we arrived in Golosievo at the first Liturgy, at 3 in the morning. On the same day, after a few hours it all started - and at 08.20 a son was born to us: 4 kg. 660 gr., 55 cm. We were very worried about the whole pregnancy of my wife, as she had health problems, but everything went well. “I immediately called all my relatives and told how mother Alipia helped us.”

Mother is not yet glorified, and the people have long called her “blessed” or “holy”
The fact that mother is not yet glorified in the face of saints is known - documents on the canonization of the nun Alipia are still being considered by the Commission on the canonization of saints at the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Although Orthodox Christians have long been calling each other mother Alipia “blessed,” “Christ for the sake of the holy fool,” or even “holy.” How do those who were fortunate enough to walk with her “on the same road” or communicate with people who knew her closely relate to mother?

Archimandrite Isaac (Andronicus), Viceroy of the Holy Protection Monastery (Goloseevskaya desert):

“BEFORE PRAISING, IT IS NECESSARY FOR 30 YEARS TO HAPPEN, BUT SOMETIMES EXCEPTIONS”

“People say that mother Alipiya is the Kiev Blessed Matron of Moscow. We see this reverence with our own eyes: despite the bad weather, already at 3 o'clock in the morning there was a queue to her tomb. And the voice of the people is the voice of God.

The fact that people call her a saint, in my opinion, they are quite entitled to it. Because when praying to mother Alipia, they get help. After all, we know that if a person did not please God, then through him we will never receive help. And we see not tens, but hundreds of thousands of people who received help through their prayers to mother. And all these thousands of people who came to see mother today came to thank her.

For more than 20 years I have been serving in the monastery. At first, I confess, I was not a fan of mother Alipia. I have always been cautious in such matters, because in life it is not necessary to go blindly, but to analyze everything, to separate the grain from the chaff. But about 15-17 years ago I saw that she dedicated the life that mother lived before going to eternity to God. I saw that people really receive help through their prayers, and this proves that she is the servant of God.

After all, as the people say? That they don’t go to an empty well, but if they came, having collected water, then they come to this well again and again. And when about 8-9 years ago I stood in line to mother Matrona of Moscow, addressed her with my everyday requests, I suddenly realized that in prayers I remembered not the name of Blessed Matrona, but the name of mother Alipia. Scared. I think: I wonder how is it? I then realized: “My dear, what are you running to the Blessed Moscow, you have your own Matron in the monastery, contact her, she will help.” And indeed, how much she turned to mother Alipia, she always helped.

If I tell how she helped me, people will say: “Yes, this is an advertisement.” Therefore, I will not tell. I will not say anything and say one thing: look at what is being done in the monastery — tens of thousands of people are standing in line to mother. So, last year, on the day of death, mother visited 100 thousand people, and this year about 80 thousand, no less. This is a proof of her favor before God.

The fact that mother Alipia is a servant of God is a fact, it’s just not yet time to canonize her. Before glorification, it is necessary that 30 years have passed. But sometimes there are exceptions. ”

The flow of people to mother Alipia did not stop until the evening. Another line stretches to the chapel at the site of the nun's exploits. Many people came with flowers. Every year, starting from the evening of October 29, for a day, the Goloseevsky Monastery is visited by more than 100 thousand believers from different parts of Ukraine and from abroad. In 2016, there were about 130 thousand, in this, in bad weather, according to preliminary estimates, more than 80 thousand were counted.

“On this day, people come to the nun Alipia no longer to ask, but to thank for the help that is being given to us. In past years, more than 100 thousand people came to thank mother for her prayers. And these are only those few who have the opportunity to come on this day, ”Bishop Isaac told reporters.

“Mother Alipia continued the spiritual exploits of the Goloseevsky elders. She carried the feat of foolishness for the sake of Christ, prayed day and night, received people, and healed their soul and body. In the humble bearing of sorrows, the Lord granted her the gift of healing and insight. People with their troubles and pain go to the nun and still every day. In the tomb, where the blessed old woman rests, at any moment, any day, 20-30 people stand in knee-prayer. And today, through mother Alipia, people come to God, ”said Bishop Isaac. When asked about when the canonization will take place, he replied: “While we are collecting materials. When God pleases, then canonization will be completed. ”

Among the pilgrims are both adults and children.

“We came to pay tribute to mother Alipia. She helps us a lot, protects us. We love her very much, respect her, ”said Maria and Alexandra from Vasilkov (Kiev region). Mary came to the funeral Liturgy on October 30 and last year. Together they visit the Goloseevsky monastery also regardless of the date. “We are very good here,” the women shared.

Milestones Biography

Recall that mother Alipia (Agafiya Tikhonovna Avdeeva) was born on March 16, 1905. At the age of about forty, she was tonsured a monk at the Holy Assumption Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. In 1979, she settled on the ruins of the Goloseevsk desert, where she carried her spiritual deed.

The nun rested on October 30, 1988 and was buried in the Forest Cemetery. On May 18, 2006, the body of the blessed old woman was reburied in the Goloseevsky Monastery, in the tomb under the church in honor of the Icon of the Mother of God "Life-giving Spring".

The nun Alipia has not yet been counted among the saints, but her veneration can be compared with the veneration of the blessed Matrona by Orthodox Christians. The days of special remembrance of the nun Alipia are celebrated on the 30th of each month (in February - the 28th), March 16, May 18 (the day of finding relics).

With the prayers of the Monk Alexei Goloseevsky and mother Alipiya, the works of the archimandrite (now bishop) Isaac (Andronicus) on the site of the monastery of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, which was devastated in the Soviet era, the monastery - Holy Pokrovskaya Goloseevskaya deserts - grew.

The cloister continues to evolve. A new Holy Trinity Temple is being built. In the spiritual and vocational school named after the Monk John of Damascus, which has been operating on the territory of the monastery for 7 years, this year the girls were recruited for the first time.

Yuri MOLCHANOV, music and TV producer (making a film about mother Alipia, talking with people who knew her closely)

“THE LORD THROUGH SUCH AS MOTHER ALYPIA Bring PEOPLE TO THE CHURCH ...”

I witnessed the acquisition of the remains of mother Alipia. The story of finding, by the way, was a little wild. The fact is that Father Isaac called me just after my birthday and said that I had to go to the Forest Cemetery at night. Mother’s remains were transported specially at night, so that believers would not be alarmed.

When I called the TV channel and said that I needed a car, an operator, an assistant and a camera at three in the morning at the cemetery, my colleagues thought that I, apparently, had celebrated my birthday too brightly.

“Of course, Molchanov, how about we go to the cemetery at three in the morning.” But I insisted that I needed a camera. Until the end, the guys thought that we were going to shoot in some club (smiles). When they saw that we were going to the cemetery, they scaredly asked: “Molchanov, what is happening?”

And when the operator had already removed everything, he said a brilliant thing: “If it weren’t for this camera eye, I would probably go to a psychiatric hospital. I decided for myself: I’m making a movie, so I don’t care about all this. ” When the remains were already in the temple in Golosievo, and we shot everything, we realized that something happened to us. There were no special effects - Angels did not descend, Cherubs did not sing, but the condition inside was blissful. We understood: something historical happened.

As for the influence of mothers on me ... I can’t say that I had healings or prophecies, but I witnessed a lot of amazing things related to her.

For example, my very close friend could not have children with his wife for a long time. And so, after spending half a day in line to mother under the completely non-optimistic accompaniment of his wife, because they were late for a trip to the sea, they had a baby. For 13 years they could not conceive a child - and such a miracle. Now a wonderful girl is growing.

And I know a lot of such examples. But there is healing, help from mother, and there is how it should be understood. It must be remembered that mother Alipia is not a "shop of miracles," not an "emergency room," not a "bureau for emergency repair of human organisms." But, thank God that even coming here as to a pharmacy, feeling the grace of God on themselves, people change their lives and no longer return, as Father Andrei Tkachev said, to “cinema, wine and dominoes”. I’ll also say that the Lord through people like Mother Alipia brings people to the Church, who then remain in Her forever.

And I am very happy that the Lord gave me the opportunity to touch the deed of mother. After all, this is fantastic: how man was an ascetic! This is a feat of pillars, and a feat of confession, and a feat of foolishness. She lived a very difficult life - the death of her parents, arrest, war, life in Soviet times without documents, with the guise of insanity. But then they trapped the homeless, arrested them. I think that by her feat she deserved to serve people like that after her death. I am sure that the Commission on the Canonization of Saints canonizes it. But let it not scare people away.

Of course, praying “Pray to God for me, saint of God Alipia” is not entirely correct according to the canons of the Church, but praying “If you are a saint of God, then pray God for me” is possible. But this is probably a formality, because the appeal to God, to the saints may not consist in canons and rules, the main thing is that in these prayers there is the soul of the person who prays.

I understand that someone's veneration of mother, akin to veneration of a saint, can be annoying. Even within the Church there are discussions: holy or not holy. However, this type of feat - foolishness - does not allow the first time to recognize holiness. Although the people who communicated with mother Alipia recognized that holiness in her. Well, by the fruits you will find out ... But the fruit of deeds and the main evidence of “simplicity”, mother’s foolishness are kilometer-long lines to her from early morning to night. ”

... A long autumn day rolled towards sunset. And people went to the mother of Alipia Goloseevskaya until late at night. With flowers and the most intimate - faith, prayer and hope.

Record: 1001606

Nun Alipia (in the world - Agafia Tikhonovna Avdeeva) was born on March 3/16, 1905 into a pious peasant family in the village of Vyshely, Gorodishchensky district, Penza province. The blessed father - Tikhon Sergeyevich Avdeev - was a big faster: during the fasts he ate only crackers and drank a decoction of straw. Mother, Vassa Pavlovna, was poor: she loved giving alms and gifts with her daughter's hands.

The blessed spiritual gifts appeared very early. The parents of Agathia loved to pray not only at home, but also in the temple of God. Even then, the girl was open: who goes to church to pray, and who goes to the house of God as a bazaar.

What kind of education Agathia received is unknown. She read the prayer book and the Psalter in Church Slavonic. Coming to someone on a visit, the future ascetic tried not to participate in conversations, but opened the Psalter and sat in a secluded corner.

The October Revolution of 1917 mercilessly turned over her life too: a punitive detachment of the Red Army broke into the Avdeev’s house and brutally cracked down on the owners. At that time, the Bolsheviks first of all killed those people who did not renounce their faith. Agafia miraculously survived: at that time she went away to her neighbor. Returning home, the girl saw the shot bodies of her father and mother. Suffering deeply, the teenage girl found the strength in herself to read the Psalm above them.

The tragic death of parents and subsequent trials made a final turning point in Agathia’s soul: she took her cross and followed Christ, ready to endure for Him everything, even painful death. Laconic by nature, she became still silent.

A few months before his death, the blessed one became very weak. Often I asked Maria’s cellmate and other people what day of the week October 30 was. My mother also said: "I will leave when the first snow begins and frost sets in."

The first snow fell on October 17/30, 1988, and the first frost hit. After the service, many people came to the cell to the old man: everyone was in a hurry to say goodbye to the blessed one and take her last blessing from her. Spiritual children cried and prayed. Realizing how hard it would be for them to see the death of a spiritual mother, mother blessed everyone, with the exception of one woman, to go to the Kitaevskaya desert and pray for her at the graves of St. Dosifei and Blessed Theophilos ... When spiritual children prayed for her in Kitaevo, a dying old woman earnestly asked the Lord that He would not leave her orphaned children ...

The homeland of Agathia Avdeeva (the mundane name of mother Alipiya) is Penza. Here is what is written in the Church book, which is stored in the Penza archive: "Agafiya Avdeeva, year of birth 1905, March 3 (new style March 16). Father - Tikhon Sergeyevich Avdeev. Mother - Vassa Pavlovna, legal wife. Both Orthodox. Baptized 4 Martha". This year marks the 105th anniversary of the birth of the nun Alipia, who, even after moving to another world, continues to invisibly help people, praying for them to the Lord. Even during the earthly life of those who came to her, mother asked to pray for the repose of her parents Tikhon and Vassa, as well as grandparents: Paul, Euphemia, Sergius and Domna: "Pray for the repose of my parents, and I will pray for you at the throne of the Lord." The death of mother’s parents was tragic. They were killed without trial by the Red Army right at home during the Red Terror. Then anyone under the pretext of a "class enemy" was shot without trial. Agafia, at that moment, was not near at that moment, she went out to her neighbors, and when she returned, she saw the corpses of her father and mother lying on the floor. But the most stunning thing for the average person was next. This information is not even in the book about mother. She was told at a concert from the stage by Valery Malyshev (he talked with people who knew mother). When the girl saw the killed parents, she did not get angry at those who did it. As a child, she was given the gift of seeing what others do not see. For example, sitting on the porch of her house, she knew, looking at passers-by, who goes to the temple and who goes to the bazaar. So with the same "spiritual eyes" she "saw" where the killers are, found and got a job in their service. For two years she washed their footcloths and prayed to God that she would not punish them, because they did not know what they were doing. A nine-year-old child prayed for those who killed his father and mother! Only on this fact alone can we judge the uniqueness of mother, of her chosenness. And how many deeds of this old woman are hidden from us ...

Those who saw her during life thought that she had a hump. In fact, she carried on her shoulders a large icon of her heavenly patroness - the martyr of Agathia, as well as heavy chains (about a hundred keys). She was a holy fool. For us, the present, it is a synonym for a man with oddities. And from a spiritual point of view - the greatest feat. "The essence of this feat is the voluntary acceptance of humiliation and insults to achieve the highest degree of humility, meekness and goodness of heart and thereby for the development of love, even in relation to enemies and persecutors, this is a struggle not for life, but for death, not only with sin, but also with the very root of sin - with pride "- we read in the book" Got Love ". And again: "... So that he would not be mistaken for a saint, the holy fool rejects the appearance of dignity and peace of mind, evokes respect and prefers to seem unhappy ... deserving of ridicule and even violence. The main ministry of the holy fool is to open the eyes of society, even if it’s the opposite of ours "a way, to her ugliness from the side. An easy, invisible hint, mother pointed out to people their weaknesses and made them seriously think about them."

During the war, the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra opens, where Mother Alipiya comes in search of a spiritual refuge for the soul seeking the Lord. People from different parts of the country flocked here at that time, mainly from Russia. The Lavra priesthood was distinguished by high spirituality; these were priests who had been tested in camps and exiles. Here at that time lived the great perspicacious elders, wise in spiritual life: Rev. Kuksha of Odessa (Velichko), whose sermons had been heard by mother Alipiya, also a highly spiritual person, an experienced mentor and leader was the governor of the Lavra, Archimandrite Kronid (Sakun), who became the spiritual father of Aga and he tonsured her monasticism with the name Alipiya (in honor of the Monk Alipy of the Caves). After the death of Archimandrite Kronid in 1954, Mother spiritually nourished herself at the other lamp of the shimonakh Damian (Korneichuk). He was a great perspicacious old man, the former cell-man of the Monk Jonah, especially close to the saint.

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God bless Alipia and make her in Paradise, even the faces of the saints, Lord, and the righteous shine like luminaries; your dead people rest, despising them all sins

The holy fool Nun Alipia (Agafya Tikhonovna Avdeeva) is a famous ascetic, healer and diviner. In strength and holiness it can be compared with Motron of Moscow. Mother Alipia was a native of Mordovia. In Holy Baptism, she was called Agathia. Out of a sense of reverent love for the heavenly patroness, mother carried her icon on her back all her life.

From childhood, she experienced incredible sorrows and hardships. Her parents were shot and at the age of seven she remained an orphan. Such a crumb, and she read the Psalter by her parents. From her youth her wandering life began, accompanied by hard work, persecution and poverty. Lived by the fact that God would send, spent the night in the open air; often hired for a day job to have a piece of bread and a roof over her head. She survived the persecution, prison, military hard times and the persecution of the authorities.

Shortly before World War II, the wanderer Agafia came to Kiev. They say that during the occupation she led many people out of the concentration camp. Small, inconspicuous, she could penetrate to whom the entrance would be closed to another, and, apparently, the apostle Peter himself helped her to penetrate the dungeons and save people. During the war, the Pechersk shrine was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church, and Archimandrite Kronid dressed the servant of God Agathius in a small schema named Alipia in honor of the first Russian icon painter. All her life she remained committed to the Pechersky fathers: "I am a Lavra nun." The spiritual father blessed mother to work in the hollow of a tree, following the example of ancient ascetics. At the bottom of the nearby caves there was a giant oak tree, from which mother Alipia henceforth settled. When Archimandrite Kronid rested on the Lord, shemons Damian blessed his mother to move closer to the people.

Alipia settled in an earthen cave, lived on alms. And then again she was taken to prison - for refusing to work for Easter. The memory of this prison was a toothless mouth and a hunched back. They released mother when they had already dispersed the stronghold of the Pechersk. Mother Alipiya settled on Demeyevka (in a quiet area of \u200b\u200bKiev, where there was an open church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross). The boys teased her, threw stones, she also endured and prayed. And then, with a blessing from above, she moved to the Goloseevsky forest. It is located on the outskirts of Kiev, Lavra hermitages - deserts were arranged here. Here the consoling elder hieromonk Alexy (Shepelev), as well as the hieroschimonos Parthenius of Kiev. Mother settled in an abandoned dilapidated house and lived there until her death, having neither a residence permit, nor a passport. The police repeatedly tried to "deal" with my mother, but the Lord kept her, and it was not possible to evict her from Goloseev.

At this time, mother Alipia entered the service of the people in the feat of foolishness. She went in a plush blouse, in a children's hood or with a cap with earflaps, on her back she dragged a bag of sand, and on her chest a large bunch of keys: the sins of spiritual children that mother took upon herself, hanging a new key as a sign of this.

Mother saved her city, prayerfully protected it from the perniciousness, circumvented how it performed the procession. Before Chernobyl explosion  she shouted for several days: "Father, don’t need fire. Father, why fire? Extinguish for the sake of animals, for the sake of small children." Watered with water: "Girls, the earth is burning." She fell to the west of the sun and prayed: "Mother of God, deliver us from the gas." People could not understand her phrases: "Under the earth burns, grief goes." She probably did not know such words as “reactor” and “radiation accident”. She started talking about the fact that “grief is coming” even in the winter, long before Chernobyl on April 26th. And the day before the accident, she walked along the street, crying out prayerfully: “Lord! Pity the babies, spare the people! ”The people who came to her that day advised:“ Close the doors and windows tightly, there will be a lot of gas. ” When the accident happened, they asked: to leave? She said no. When asked what to do with food, she taught: “Wash, read“ Our Father ”and“ Theotokos ”, cross and eat, and you will be healthy” ...

Shortly before the Chernobyl disaster, mother Alipiya began to offer "Goloseevsky feasts" (there were plank tables on the street, gathering ten to fifteen people daily). All the refreshments of the Goloseevsk ascetic were prayerful. For the old woman it was important who brought the food, whose hands touched the food, through whose heart the offering passed. She did not accept at all. “You need to balance your spirit,” mother used to say, kneel down, sing her strong voice “I believe,” “Our Father,” “Have mercy on me, God.” He baptizes the table: "Eat," and she lays down on the bench, resting. The portions were blessed enormous, and everything had to be eaten without fail. “As long as you can, I can help you,” and people with serious illnesses were healed at her table.

Mother accepted all of them: fornicators, liars, robbers, she only denounced the evil ones, she could not bear deception. She even grasped the shadow of thought. One woman told. She went to her mother with an "ascetic husband" with the thought: ask her mother if he would be allowed to go to the monastery, all the more so since they had no children. She could not ask this question in public, but all the time she was thinking about it. And so they began to leave, and each mother asks his name. So her husband comes up and calls his name: "Sergius." And his mother corrected him: "Not Sergey, but Sergey." So that woman received an answer to a question she did not ask.

Another story: the priest’s wife came to mother, who had been dreaming about the monastery all her life and before marriage, now that all her children had grown up (and three of them had already become priests), thoughts about the monastery returned to her again. And so she went to Kiev to ask mother Alipiya about this. When she and her daughter came to the Goloseevskaya desert and entered the courtyard, they saw the sleeping mother Alipia in the courtyard of the house. They began to wait when she woke up. They waited a long time, decided to leave already, and now, when they had already approached the gate, the old woman suddenly jumped up, blocked the path of her guests, and before the one who chose a new path of life, she lowered a long pole on the gate - this was a silent answer to her questioning: there is no way for her to the monastery. Although so many people received a blessing from monk Alipia for monasticism, and the sisters of the Florovsky Monastery took turns spending her days in the shack, and mother called them "cousins."

Most often, people did not even suspect that their burden was laid on their mother. Hugs, kisses, - it would seem, blesses, and she takes their ailment upon herself. “Do you think I’m boiling ointment? I’m crucifying myself for you,” she admitted once. One patient gave the Cahors a drink for the healing of body and soul, and while she drank, she fell without feelings.

Mother gave predictions in parables, in holy foolish deeds, and sometimes explicitly, simply, without allegory - how could anyone save. Once, in the midst of a feast, I sent one nun into a ravine with a candle to read the Psalter. Then it turned out: at that very hour her brother was nearly killed. Did the nun who had worked in the Gornensky monastery come for advice? Should I come back? “You will be higher here,” my mother did not bless. Now she is the abbess of one of the ancient Russian monasteries.

The servant of God Olga, a psychiatrist, first came to see her mother. The landlady showed her where to sit, she left. Suddenly they shouted at Olga: "How dare she?" It turns out that she sat in mother's place. I got scared, got up. Returning from the yard, mother Alipia said sternly: "Why are you standing, sit down, where you are told." Everyone understood that this is mother’s will. Now this servant of God is striving in Jerusalem, in the Gornensky monastery.

One woman-singer came to mother with her fiancé, and all the time, while they were sitting at the table, mother pointed to them with her hand and said: "But the girl’s funeral service for the boy, and the baby girl funeral service." Soon he drowned before her eyes, and she really sang a requiem for him.

Once upon a time, mother seemed to have taken off her cover, and she became different, not a holy fool - a concentrated, sad person. “The confessor is scary,” my mother opened. “One must pray for him, that the Lord will give him help in the fight against demons fighting against him and protect him from all evil, because the sins of his father fall on the child. With him, it’s necessary to build a spiritual foundation for communication. the faith of the child, the Lord reveals to the confessor His will about him ... "

She repeatedly publicly spoke negatively about M. Denisenko ( Filaret), at that time the Kiev Metropolitan. When she saw the photograph of Filaret, she said: "He is not ours." They began to explain to her that this was the metropolitan, thinking that she did not know him, but she again firmly repeated: "He is not ours." Then the priests did not understand the meaning of her words, and now they are surprised at how many years ahead Mother had foreseen everything. Once, in the Church of the Ascension of the Lord, on Demeevka, of which she was a parishioner, during the hierarchal service, she suddenly exclaimed, seeing the future: “Glorious, glorious, but you will die a peasant.” At that time, she was expelled from the temple. once again she saw a magazine with a large photograph of Filaret. Mother grabbed the magazine, poked him in the eye with two fingers and shouted: “Ooh, y'arly, how much grief you bring to people, how much evil you will do. Wolf climbed into sheep’s skin! Into his stove, into the stove! ” Crumpled up a magazine and threw it into the stove. Those present at the same time were confused by surprise and silently sat, listening to the magazine burning in the stove, dying. Mother was then asked: “What will happen?” Mother smiled with her wide children's smile and said: “Vladimir will be, Vladimir!” And when there was a split in our church, we without any doubt and hesitation went after the one whom Mother had indicated to us another year and a half before her death and almost five years before the events.

Like many blessed ones, mother Alipia was surrounded by animals with whom she spoke, whom she regretted. Mother cats and chickens were all some kind of ailing, soiled, frail - with pustules, with dry paws. "Why are your animals so sick?" - once asked my mother. - "People live fornication, they do incest, everything is reflected in the creatures of the earth."

Shortly before her death, mother Alipia had twelve kittens. Blind, they lay in a box, then began to grow up, left one by one. Every time Mother was happy: "He left, he left!" Finally she said: "Almost everything is free." There was the last, strongest, most clinging to mother. After the death of the old woman, he laid on her chest, stretched out and died.

A year before her death, mother Alipia began to live according to her known numbering. She called this calendar Jerusalem. Then her happened prediction of war:

“The war will begin on the apostles Peter and Paul (the day of Saints Peter and Paul - June 29 or July 12 in a new style). This will happen when the corpse is taken out .... You will lie: there is a hand, there is a leg .... This will not be a war, but the execution of peoples for their rotten condition. Dead bodies will lie in mountains, no one will undertake to bury them. Mountains and hills will decay, be razed to the ground. People will run from place to place. There will be many bloodless martyrs who will suffer for the Orthodox faith. ”

   "The Lord will not allow his people to death; he will keep the faithful on one prosphora."

The predicted start date of the war may not correspond to the generally accepted chronology, since mother Alipia, a year before her death in 1988, began to live according to one of her famous calendar, which she called Jerusalem. The day of Peter and Paul is marked on her calendar in the fall.

It is also curious that, starting in 2000, the church celebrates November 2 as a memorial day for the new martyrs Peter and Deacon Paul, who were killed during the Stalinist repressions in 1937.

It is noteworthy that Nostradamus also mentions this episode in his quatrains: “when the corpse is carried out”, which will serve as an occasion for the outbreak of the third world war.
   She also taught: “When you go to Khreschatyk in Kiev, pray because it will fail.”

From the memoirs of nun Marina about mother Alipia: “We cross the street, there are cars in three rows. Mother threatened them with a fist - and the column faltered, but she could crush us like insects. We go across the road without crossing, the cars are standing in their tracks. “Soon these turtles will completely die,” said mother; “Do not leave Kiev,” my mother punished, “there will be hunger everywhere, but there is bread in Kiev.”

To the question, when will this terrible time come? Mother Alipia showed half a fingertip and said: "That's how much time is left, but we will not repent, and this will not happen ...".

In the year of the millennium of the Baptism of Russia, 1988, the blessed old woman schema-nun Alipia departed to the Lord. Once she dropped that Florovsky Monastery would bury her. And so it happened. After the first lithium, the requiem was taken to the monastery, where they buried in a cathedral in the church. The burial took place on November 2. "As the first snow goes, so bury me." And, indeed, the first snowflakes spun that day.

After the death of her mother, her house in the Goloseevsky forest was demolished, but in its place a marvelous miraculous source appeared. Mother’s enemies bombarded this source completely and scored a stake, so that it’s impossible to pull it out. The nuns of the Florovsky monastery tried to pull out the stake, but, alas, nothing came of it. And then one day he pulled the fountain three meters up. So mother Alipia, even after her death, assured the faithful of her children that she had found favor with the Lord, and the "rivers of living water" pour out in prayers to her.

On May 18, 2006, with the blessing of His Beatitude Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine Vladimir, the honest remains of the nun Alipia were reburied in the Holy Protection Pokrovsky Goloseevskaya desert, in the tomb under the church in honor of the Icon of the Mother of God, called the "Life-Giving Spring".

When the coffin with the remains of an ascetic was brought into the church, a cross appeared over the temple. On the same day, two healings of seriously ill patients from cancer occurred. Since the transfer of the relics of the blessed to the Goloseevsky monastery, a lot of evidence has been collected about healing from serious illnesses.

Every day, hundreds of people come to the tomb of a nun Alipia. Every 30th day, and especially on October 30, the day of the blessing of the blessed, thousands of admirers of her memory come to the Goloseevsk desert. People say that people do not go to an empty well.

How to get to the Holy Protection Monastery (Goloseevskaya desert) in Kiev.

To the left of the main entrance to the monastery is the bell tower, to the right is the “Shop”, where you can buy candles, icons, and the biography of mother Alipiya. For example, such a picture of her in a frame costs 20 UAH:

We move to the temple, on the right side of the temple there will be steps down to the tomb in honor of the icon of the Mother of God, called the "Life-Giving Spring". There you can pray mother Agapia, write her a note with a request, put food on the table so that they are sanctified.

The nun Alipia (in the world Agafya Tikhonovna Avdeeva) died in 1988. And the year of her death was significant - they celebrated the Millennium of the Baptism of Russia, and blessed Xenia of St. Petersburg was counted among the saints.

“Having kept her life in obscurity,” Agafya Tikhonovna spoke scantily and little about herself. From the age of five, she helped with the housework - she sat with a twig on the mound, watched so that the chickens would not run away. And she herself inexplicably knew which of the neighbors was going to the bazaar, who was going to church ...

At seven, she remained an orphan. After the death of her parents, she was hired for daily work, dragged water, chopped wood, worked at a brick factory. But she left everything very early and went on a pilgrimage across Russia - thousands of miles came out on foot. She did not care about food or clothing, she looked for the kingdom of God and his truth and believed that everything needed would be added, according to the Savior. She was lucky everywhere. Apparently, already in his youth, Agafia received a blessing for the feat of foolishness. She wandered homeless, homeless and was honored with special blessed gifts.

Once I came to Chernigov. He stayed at Vespers in the church, but no one takes her to sleep. I saw that the household was in a hurry to the headman: the daughter was dead on the stove. Everyone ran, the wanderer - after them. In a hut a child without signs of life lies. Agafia prayed to St. Theodosius of Chernigov, rubbed the child with holy water, baptized - the child sighed. The page was sheltered. I did not stay long in a hospitable house - I went on. I went into all the monasteries, bowed to the great elders, at all the relics of the sins of Russia atone.

After the October Revolution in the south, near Odessa, Agafier also suffered. The stranger was seized and thrown into the cell to the criminals. She told them: “Do not come!” - and they did not dare to approach. The guard looked through the peephole and saw: the prisoner was standing, baptized, and above her head there was a bright halo, as they say on the icons. The guy's heart trembled: he pushed back the bolt, ran into the cell and put his head to her handkerchief so that the radiance would come upon him.

Priests languished in the dungeons. They were tortured without return. Three remained in the cell: the old archpriest, his son and Agafya. "In the morning we will not be alive, we will serve a memorial service on our own." “And about me,” the wanderer asked. “You will leave,” the priest consoled. And so it happened: it’s not known, but on the commanded hour she secretly went into the vineyard. He was cordoned off and guarded. Agafya crawled not along the planted vines, but under the wattle fence, in the morning she was by the sea. Long wandered between the rocks and finally left the chase.

Shortly before the Great Patriotic War, the wanderer Agafya came to Kiev. It is said that during the occupation she brought people out of the concentration camp. They were guarded with dogs, and she is small, inconspicuous - as if only her spirit ...

During the war, the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra was returned to the Orthodox Church, and Archimandrite Kronid, who became the abbot of the Lavra, tonsured the wanderer Agafya into a small schema named Alipiya, in honor of the first Russian icon painter Alipiy Pechersky, who was also a skilled doctor, healing those who were sick with their colors. Archimandrite Kronid, who did not escape the cruel persecution of faith, was the spiritual father of the nun Alipia, and he blessed the blessed to work in the hollow of a huge tree, following the example of old ascetics.

The treasured tree - a huge oak tree that previously served as the haven of the blessed Theophilos - grew in the middle of the Goloseevskaya thicket, which itself is a shrine. It is located in a deep ravine near the entrance to the Far and Near Caves of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. In the Holosiivskyi wilds, famous ascetics carried their solitary monastic feat - Hieroschimonk Parfeny of Kiev, Blessed Paisius of Lavra and the same elder girl Dosifeya who blessed St. Seraphim of Sarovsky as a monk when he came to Kursk from Kiev.

In this prayer place, blessed Alipia, the spiritual successor to the glorious pillars of the Goloseevsky, made her life's journey.

The 20th century exceeded the second half, and the blissful lived in a hollow, illuminated by the faint light of a lamp, undergoing in the wood cave both cold and hunger. Mother Alipia had nothing of her own; she lived in her hollow like a bird of heaven. Sometimes Father Kronid came and brought a mantle full of rusks. He will fall asleep at the oak and leave - he was strict, he did not give indulgences. If it became unbearable, he blessed to read the forty-ninety-ninth psalm "Alive in the help of the Almighty."

“As it falls asleep with snow, it’s cold, the tooth doesn’t hit the tooth,” the blessed one recalled, “you will go to the monks who will give bread and which will drive out.” In severe frosts, she was sent to his seniors by shegumen Agapit. "Warm up? - Ask after a while. “Now save yourself.” And she left.

When Archimandrite Kronid passed away, shechimon Damian, a Lavra elder, blessed her to move closer to the people. Mother Alipia settled in an earthen cave, lived on alms. She broke her leg - was cured without doctors and plaster. It is true that it was then that she discovered the secret of making a wonderful ointment, which subsequently the blessed healed so many afflicted ...

There was no end to the trials. Blessed was dragged from her cave and sent to prison for several years. Imprisonment has aged her, but she has not broken her spirit. Punished for everything: she sang “Our Father”, and she taught her classmates - the punishment cell, refused to work for Easter — a toothless mouth remained in memory.

They released from prison - did not live in the Lavra for a year, dispersed the stronghold of the Caves - during the Khrushchev persecution of the Church. When the monks were evicted, a woman cried under the walls of the monastery. “Do not cry, sister,” the fathers consoled, “we will all be taken to one place, we will pray to God there.” They thought everyone was going to prison, but it turned out that they went into the world to preach, some for Christ's sake, some for parishes.

In 1963, a terrible misfortune struck Kiev: a dam broke in the Kurenevka area. Streams of dirt swept away everything in its path. It was early in the morning, half-naked people climbed the rooftops. Those who did not have time to wake up died. After the disaster, a one and a half meter layer of clay remained. The builders for a long time raked the arms, legs, body parts with buckets of excavators. Few understood that this was a punishment for dispersing the Lavra.

Blessed settled in Dimeevka near the Ascension Church in an abandoned house. When the Kiev party workers tried to master the Goloseevsky forest, the residents began to be evicted, the street was empty. Mother Alipia refused to leave. The police found fault with her, they say, dirty. “So the girls will be removed,” she answered. “Who settled you here?” They asked. “Almighty,” she answered. And they did not dare to touch her. Blessed never had a passport. The boys teased her, threw stones, she tolerated and prayed.

Mother Alipia was non-Russian in her guise, she spoke not very clearly, she called women in the masculine gender. She went in a plush blouse, a children's hood, dragged a sandbag on her back, which made her seem hunchbacked. A huge bunch of keys always hung on his chest, symbolizing the sins of the spiritual children, which the blessed one took upon herself, hanging a new key as a sign of another acceptance of sin. In recent years she wore chains, chains were eaten into the body.

In her house there was a cramped room with a low ceiling, a sofa, paper icons, a wall cabinet with simple aluminum utensils, and a stove in the corner. At the exit - a tiny entrance hall, in which simple edible supplies were stored. The bed was nearly toppled to the ceiling: mountains of bags, shelves, worn clothes, everything was twisted, tied up in huge knots. The blessed one sorted through these garlands of rags, moving her lips in concentration: she prayed for someone's lost souls. The devastated mother’s cell resembled the home of many holy fools.

At night she never slept, until dawn she counted innumerable obeisances, remembering the living and dead elders, spiritual children, comers and benefactors. She didn’t have any pets, she didn’t bring anyone closer to her, she was engaged in farming, in spite of her most advanced years. When there is someone first under the elders, he unwittingly begins to dispose of, to command. Mother Alipia all were equal. Until the Chernobyl disaster, which she predicted,  only a narrow circle of admirers gathered in the Goloseevsky forest. After the accident, people poured into the cell. The blessed one entered public service only two years before the end of her life.

She never ate alone and at first sat hungry for weeks, waiting for her to be visited. In recent years, there have been plank tables on the street, gathering ten to fifteen people daily. Cooked porridge miraculously multiplied by any number of arrivals ...

Before eating a common prayer. It is not by chance that the Holy Fathers called prayer food for the soul. “When you read a prayer, everything around is sanctified,” said Mother Alipia. - Not only your house and heart, the earth, air, animals are sanctified. Read the prayer lying down, read the sitting as you can, just read it! ”

For the blessed it was important who brought the food, whose hands touched the food, through whose heart the offering came. She did not accept at all. And then everyone will gather at the table, the mistress of the hut will kneel down, sing with her strong voice: “I believe,” “Our Father,” “Have mercy on me, God,” crosses the table, says, “Eat,” and she lays down on the bench, rests . I blessed huge portions, one family would have been enough for a week, and everything had to be eaten. “As much as you can, I can help you”  - so it was meant. So it was: people with serious illnesses were healed at her table.

By his first miracle in Cana of Galilee, the Lord turned water into wine, blessed it, pointing to the healing power of grape wine. Something similar happened at the mother’s table. Shortly before the Chernobyl disaster, the blessed one began to offer Cahors with Pepsi-Cola to the table, as if indicating where to look for cures for the infection spread in the air. The famous Goloseevsky feasts, on which the old woman regaled Kiev residents with church drinks, became him a protection against radiation sickness. To this day, not one of my mother’s children suffers from radiation sickness.

The Blessed One led her life in extraordinary simplicity, did not turn her life into a mysterious performance, deliberately hid her spiritual gifts, in every possible way rejected the glory of man ... But meanwhile, miracles worked around her. Everyone’s life was open to her in advance, as if in a mirror, she saw the thoughts and feelings of her neighbors, the Creator’s intentions about her children.

She accepted everyone: a harlot, a liar, a robber, she only denounced the evil ones, and could not bear tricks. Spiritually untidy people and sugary-sweet people in conversation went to her. This cast a shadow on the mistress of the house, therefore, her foolishness was often perceived negatively. But the blessed one did not drive anyone away from herself, following the gospel word of rain, which pours out both on the righteous and on the sinners.

She only prayed for everyone, and by the gift of insight, the blessed knew how to deal with whom. Once a young man and a girl came to Golosievo. “How dirty she is,” the girl thought when she saw the old woman. Mother Alipia asked her to read the Epistle to the Jews by the Apostle Paul. When the young man reached the words: “Those whom the whole world was not worthy, wandered through deserts and mountains, through caves and gorges of the earth,” mother stopped: “Enough” and carefully looked at the girl. She lowered her head, her face burned ...

As for the disorder in the mother’s cell, the “secret” is revealed by her spiritual daughter L. Cherednichenko, which testifies that the blessed was neatest of all. “Once, in early spring, I passionately wanted to help my mother with something: whether to throw away the snow, bring water or firewood, put it in her cell or wash her clothes. My mother looked at me and said: “I’ve clean, I haven’t washed and washed all winter, but absolutely clean,” she lifted her skirt and showed her snow-white linen shirt. But she herself heated the stove, cleaned ash, carried firewood, water, cleaned her cell, did a lot of dirty work in the yard "...

The spiritual daughter of mother Alipia E. Badyanova recalled: “I especially remember the time of 1983-1984, when I was threatened with expulsion from the university for poems that department number 1 became interested in. In difficult times, as always, she went to mother Alipia. After listening to me, she asked with a simple-minded smile: “But what about the KGB - is that a curse? - After a pause, she added: - No, you won’t be in prison. ”  My soul trembled. Then she asked me to read “my prayers,” as she called poetry. Head down, mother listened attentively. There was one incident that happened after lunch in her kindergarten. My mother lay down next to a raspberry bush on the grass and said to me: "Lie down."  I lay down next to you. She closed her eyes as if sleeping. Already the dishes were washed by the nuns of the Frolovsky monastery who came to mother, look at us in surprise, wait. Then I still could not know that my mother was predicting a long illness for me. As a result of all the nervous upheavals, I spent several months in the hospital, torn away from relatives, relatives, and the church. Only then did she understand: my mother said a wondrous prayer over me, which saved me from an impending thunderstorm, helped to successfully graduate from the institute, to avoid prison and to recover ”...

While exposing the thoughts and actions of people, the blessed one spoke in parables, but so that the person to whom the admonition was intended understood what was being said. She left, for example, to spend the night at her guest, she gave a sheet of clothes, and put it under the head of a ragged rooster, saying: "It was he who plucked his hens." Another woman said: “Quietly, there are nine chickens lying under a rag, they are dead.” The guest turned pale, lost her feelings: she had nine abortions.

Most often, people did not suspect that the relief of their illness or fate fell heavily on the old woman. Hugs, kisses - it would seem, blesses, and she takes on someone else’s ailment, even blissfully admitted: “You think I’m cooking ointment (the healing one, prepared every time anew for a specific person. - N. G.)?  I’m crucifying myself for you. ” Once she gave the patient a drink of the sacred blessed by her prayer and, while she drank, the blessed one fell without feelings.

The old woman did not bless one spiritual daughter to go to Leningrad, but she did not obey. The owner of the apartment in which she was staying wanted to rape her. The woman began to scream, call "mommy" Alipia. The man seemed to be thrown away from the victim. That night, the old woman's arm was swollen, swollen, blackened - so she suffered for a naughty child.

Many amazing things happened around blissful. Once she, surrounded by several good friends, was returning home from church. It was a Trinity festival. Not far from the hut of a blessed tractor they uprooted a forest: the roar was incredible. She stopped, hit the ground with a small stick and, looking towards the rumbling equipment, firmly said: “Don’t be shy today, don’t shy!” Someone from the company grinned: “Do they really hear?” But after a couple of hours, when the mother’s followers returning home along the same road, they were surprised by the silence that stood in the forest and saw that the tractors were standing: someone was picking his motor, someone was just lying on the grass.

Once in the heat in the hut there was nothing to drink: both kvass and compote were over. The old woman prayed, went to the barrel, opened it: he was again full to the brim. The blessed one turned into a red corner, said: “Who poured?” She always turned to the icons and received a direct answer to all her questions. Sometimes the old woman gave strange orders, but later it turned out that they were saving. Once, in the midst of a Goloseevsky feast, she sent one nun into a ravine with a candle to read the Psalter. Then it turned out: it was at that hour that her brother was nearly killed.

Did the nun, who had previously been a resident of the Gornensky Jerusalem monastery, come for advice? Should I go back there? Mother did not bless: "You will be higher here."  Today, this nun is the abbess of one of the ancient Russian monasteries.

Olga, a psychiatrist, first got to her mother. The landlady showed her where to sit, and she herself left. Then they began to shout at Olga, how dare she sit in mother's place. She got scared, got up. Returning from the yard, the old woman said sternly: " Why are you standing, sit where you are told! ”  Everyone understood that this is mother’s will. When those present began to disperse, that woman who screamed the most, on the road all the time fell out of the blue. Today, the very slave of God Olga is a nun in the Gornensky monastery.

One woman was about to go to the army, where her son served. A machine gun was stolen from him, a soldier was threatened with disbath. Mother came to the blessed. “He is not to blame,” she said, “Vasily stole the machine gun.”  The woman asked the military authorities: “How many are Vasiliev in the unit?” “Three,” they answered her. She went to one, looked into his eyes, he could not stand it, lowered them. “Who are you serving?” She asked. "The Capter." They found the stolen weapon in the capter.

If the old woman did not find it necessary to answer the question, she simply did not answer, she could even turn away, making it clear that the conversation was not in its part. A person could receive an instruction only regarding himself, the elder did not report anything about third parties. “My sister also comes to you, but you know her,” some tried to insist on an answer. Blessed was angry: "I know no one."

Once, when she saw a friend among the guests, mother got excited, she started shouting: “They will kill, they will kill!”  Barely reassured her. And what? That man began to fool around without blessing, he was beaten by the police, and he died in agony. After all, the old woman warned him in her own way that one should not be unjustly foolish, this is a serious, dangerous step, but he did not listen to her words.

The intercessionary prayer of the old woman was miraculous. For her, some exceptional conditions were not needed; she helped with her own glance. There were always people in the hut, it was not always possible to talk alone, but the blessed one paid attention to everyone. “What were her eyes! End to end, huge, I drowned in them! Not blue, not gray - none. There was no pattern or protein in them; one depth was bottomless. Native, sympathetic eyes! ”- many of the blessed spiritual children spoke in a similar way.

Mother Alipia ascended to such a height of sympathy for all living things, that she understood the language of the earth, spoke with herbs, with birds, cats, prophesied on wordless creatures.

Just one example. One woman had a son who fought in Afghanistan. There was no news from him for a long time. Exhausted by anxiety, the mother came to the Goloseevsky hut, told the old woman about her concern. She saw the chick that had fallen from the nest, wrapped it in a white rag and climbed the stairs up to the walnut tree. After a while, the old woman came down and said: “The nestling is alive, it flew away and it took away a rag on the back.”  Soon the woman’s son returned, alive, but commissary, with a spinal injury.

There were many cats in the Goloseevsky house. Something mysterious is always associated with them. Obviously, they were in the service of the old woman, sharing with her the work of healing others. Her cats were scientists: who needed help, because the flies on honey were sticky, and from others, like scalded ones, they bounced off. One woman suffering from radiculitis, mother's ward, so stuck in the back that they did not immediately tear off. And from this "massage" the patient forgot to think about her radiculitis.

But it also got to the same cats. They were all sick, with pustules, with dry paws. Blessed begged people, animals as if took a blow at themselves. The hens were also skinny, skinny, falling from the roosts. “Why are your animals so sick?” Asked the old woman. "People live fornication, they do incest, everything is reflected in the creatures of the earth." It would drive away the blessed demon from a person, he would get angry and leave the potato. All beds are green, juicy, and one bush suddenly withers, wrinkles. "The unclean has died," she will only say.

All the donations of good people the old woman spent on church commemoration. I bought armfuls of candles and set them in front of all the icons in the Diveevo church, gathered a lot of bread, so I barely brought it to the funeral table. She left some loaves for requiem, others, sitting on a small bench, crumbling pigeons. Seeing her hunched figure, they flocked in whole flocks.

The birds of heaven are reliable representatives before the Lord. In many cases, when it is necessary to pray for a sinful soul, the elders bless feed the pigeons. So it was clear to the perspicacious mother of Alipia, for whom, what sacrifice to make: for some she served on the funeral table, others handed over to the representation of a pigeon ...

A year before her death, she announced: " That's all, girls, I'm leaving you. ”  From that day she began to serve people. She herself looked after the guests of the Goloseevskaya meal, thereby indicating the mission of the monk - to be all a servant, because many old nuns of the Frolovsky monastery went to the old woman; she asked them to read about herself a living funeral Psalter.

On Sunday, October 30, 1988, there were especially many people in the Goloseevsky house. After the meal, the old woman lay down. Everyone parted, there was only one married couple to clean up. As the dishes were removed, they looked at mother, and she lay lifeless with a radiant face. Husband and wife ran to call, and when they returned, they saw that a dead, still warm kitten, which was the last in the Goloseevsky hut, was lying on the chest of the blessed one.

Once, before her death, the blessed one dropped out that the Frolovsky Monastery would bury her, so it happened. Blessed Grave - on the monastic site of the Forest Cemetery. The grave and the lifetime covenant, like all blessed ones: “Come to my grave, the more people come, the more grace there will be. Shout, I will hear! ”