The blessed old woman Matron among the people is revered as a saint. Her name is best known to residents of St. Petersburg and the region, because it was here that she lived most of her righteous life. Here, on the courtyard of the Zelenetsk Holy Trinity Monastery, her grave is located, people come to her, thirsting for bodily and spiritual healing.
Mother Matrona, often called the Sandal Matron, became famous during her lifetime as a miracle worker and diviner. People turned to the old woman for prayer help, advice and guidance. Her prophecies and predictions helped many to avoid death and dangers, cope with difficult circumstances and find the right path in life.
The life of the righteous
Matron was born into a peasant family in a small village Vanino (Kostroma province). Information about how her childhood passed was not preserved. It is known that at one time she became the wife of the Kostroma tradesman E. Mylnikov. They didn’t live richly, but still did not live in poverty, as the 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 the sandal-matronushka. 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 the money to the poor and began to live alms, turning into a wanderer. For the rest of her life, at any time of the year, she wore only summer clothes and went barefoot, which is why she received the name Matron the sandal. Barefoot, she visited all the holy places of immense Russia and four times made a pilgrimage to Palestine, where she received the schema. She visited the Solovetsky miracle workers.
Matron spent the last three decades of her life in St. Petersburg. People always saw her praying at the church chapel of the Sorrow Church - barefoot, in white clothes and a staff in his hand. Thousands of people visited Matronushka annually. She was perspicacious, and her prayer to the Lord had great power. All took the blessed old woman, consoled, advised, prayed with people asking for God's mercy. Her prayers got rid of alcoholism and other ailments, there were cases of miraculous healings of hopeless patients. A sandal matron warned people of imminent danger, and they remained unharmed. The focus of her spiritual life was compassion for people, coming from the heart, the sign of the cross, prayer and the Orthodox Church. Sandal matrons did not exist many years ago, but she helps people with her intercession before God and after death.
After death
The old woman died in 1911, on March 30, when the ice drift began on the Neva. Even the day before, she said that she would leave with ice and water, so it happened. The day of her funeral was Palm Sunday. They buried Matron in the fence of the Grieving Church, near the chapel, where she loved to pray. After the revolution, the church was destroyed, the chapel was closed. The trace of Matronina’s grave was also lost. Only in 1997, in the churchyard of the male Zelenetsk Holy Trinity Monastery, formed around the chapel, was discovered a crypt with the tomb of Matronushka. The coffin with the relics of the old woman was buried in the same place, and again people come to Matron to ask for prayer help.
Prayer Matrone Sandals
Before her death, the old woman told people to come to her and, as a living person, narrated her sorrows, promised to help them with her intercession to the Lord. And people are coming. A matronushka can be asked for healing, for getting rid of suffering, for motherhood, for preserving a marriage, for meeting a fiancé, for help in everyday affairs and solving money problems, for getting rid of alcoholism, for help in work and school.
Thanks be to God that there were such prayer books on earth as the Matron-sandal, which even now, after death, consoles and helps with her prayers. Despite the fact that Matronushka, who was an example of mercy and great patience with her whole life, has not yet been canonized, she can still be contacted with requests for intercession.