1810–1829
A schema-nun of Diveyevo, born in 1810 to a righteous peasant family, glorified among the Diveyevo saints.
Our Venerable Mother Martha, Schema-nun of Diveyevo
Venerable Schema-nun Martha of Diveyevo, born Maria Semenovna Milyukova on February 10, 1810, was a Russian monastic of the Nizhny Novgorod region and a spiritual child of Saint Seraphim of Sarov. Born into a peasant family that lived in close association with the Elder of Sarov, she entered the Diveyevo community as a young girl and lived there only about six years before her early death at the age of nineteen.
Though she spent little time in the monastery, she became one of the most venerated figures associated with the founding generation of Diveyevo, remembered for the severity of her ascetic labors and her unceasing prayer. Saint Seraphim is recorded as having tonsured her into the great schema, and after her repose she was numbered among the saints of Diveyevo.
You attained a life like that of the Angels,
O wondrous virgin and converser with Saint Seraphim,
our lady and Mother Martha,
now that you rest with your incorrupt relics and stand at the Throne of God,
pray to the merciful God of Heaven for us,
O Superior of Diveyevo.
Text used with permission of the Orthodox Church in America (oca.org).
You were filled with heavenly meekness, silence, and unearthly joy,
young and unseen until now, O virgin of Diveyevo, our venerable Mother Martha;
you were tonsured into the Great Schema by Saint Seraphim,
therefore you dwell with the wise virgins in heaven,
and with the Angels, you always stand before the Ruler of All.
Text used with permission of the Orthodox Church in America (oca.org).
By the accounts preserved at Diveyevo, Saint Seraphim of Sarov personally tonsured Maria into the great schema, the highest degree of Orthodox monastic profession, giving her monastic vestments. After her death he is said to have revealed this tonsure to the sisters, who had not known of it during her lifetime, and to have instructed that she be recorded as a nun who had been found worthy of the schema.
Her relics rest in the Church of the Nativity of the Theotokos at the Holy Trinity–Saint Seraphim–Diveyevo Monastery in the Nizhny Novgorod region, where she is venerated together with the other saints connected to the community.
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