Stop thinking about comfort and start praying

In honour of the celebration of the Feast of Holy Martyr, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, we talked with the abbess of the Saints Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy, the Mother Superior Elizabeth (Pozdnyakova), about what we can learn from the Saints today, what examples from their lives can guide us.

Become even better Christians

Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna is a saint, who lived a hundred years ago. There are parallels in many events of that time and today. In your opinion, what can we learn from her experience? What are the most important lessons for us today?

— The Holy Martyr Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna is unique in many aspects of her personality. The brightest of them, which is very important for us today as the guideline, is the integrity of her Christian path.

All her life, from the early childhood, she perceived as a Christian path to God. It does not matter that at first she belonged to the Lutheran Church, and then she converted to Orthodoxy, having realized its truth. She always understood that her life was a pose of prayerful intercession before God. And this attitude towards everything was the defining one.

Children in the family of the future Martyr Elizabeth were raised very strictly in accordance with Christian ideals. Under difficult circumstances — her mother, the Duchess Alice, died — Ella, as they called Elizabeth Feodorovna at home, took care of the whole family: her father and younger children.

Abbess of the Saints Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy, the Mother Superior Elizabeth (Pozdnyakova)

Having got married and moved to Russia, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna following the Gospel devoted herself to her husband and the country that became her motherland. She began to do charity, help others. She was not interested in the life of a high society lady, who lived in her own world without being involved in what is happening beyond her house. In their Ilynsky estate she began to watch how people were living around. And she became actively engaged in the lives of these people and used all the resourcefulness to help. Moreover, they did not ask for help and did not understand how necessary it was. Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna opened a maternity hospital there, seeing how high infant mortality is. Firstly, the women did not want to go to this hospital, for them it was something new, it was frightening. But Elizabeth Feodorovna found an approach to these people and thereby helped to reduce infant mortality in the village.

When her husband died, she perceived these circumstances, in which the Lord has placed her, with resignation. She did not say: “For what I suffer, I help all people, and I have such sorrows. Does not God love me?” She accepted what was happening as God’s will for her and continued her service.

She created the Saints Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy in memory of her husband, and this was the next consistent step in her spiritual path.

When clouds were gathering over the royal family and over the whole Russia before the revolution, she again remained faithful to God, who guides her through life. She did not leave Russia; she stayed here, with Russian people, with the country. She explains this by saying that a child is not abandoned when he is ill.

 All decisions in her life are dictated precisely by Christian values. Even when she is arrested, she cares for those who are close to her, about the sisters left behind. She writes them small notes. From her meager reserves, in prison regime, she manages to send them comforting gifts, writes her letter to each sister in accordance with her state of mind, in order to comfort each one personally.

Even at the edge of the grave, she retains calmness, presence of mind, fidelity to Christ, and until the last minute of her earthly life she remains a Christian.

And integrity on the path of following Christ is that important quality of the Grand Duchess, which should be an example and a guide for us.

When difficult times begin, many are lost; it seems to them that some other life is now beginning. But no, depending on the circumstances, we do not stop being Christians, so our task today is to continue to live as a Christian. Perhaps even be even more attentive to yourself, reconsider your life and try to become even better Christians than we were before.

A sign of today’s times is that we tend to feel sorry for ourselves, we strive for comfort. Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, after her husband’s death, does not seek some kind of supportive environment for herself, does not go to resort, she rather quickly begins to create the Convent. Is the creation even in difficult circumstances a path for every Christian?

— It is probably difficult to talk about a single path for all. But Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna chose this path not by chance. As we know, the thought about creation of the Saints Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy came to her while she was praying by the relics of the Saint Aleksey, metropolitan of Moscow, whose relics were situated in Chudov Monastery. Grand Duke Sergei Aleksandrovich was buried in the crypt of this monastery. This thought, the idea was the fruit of the prayer of the Grand Duchess to God, the prayer for her husband and for her Christian path. It was in prayer at that moment that she found support and comfort. Maybe that is what we lack today.

We do not know how to pray, we do not find consolation in prayer, draw strength from it. Probably, this is what we must learn how to do today, and not only lay people, but also monks need to learn how to pray. Perhaps this is just one of the ways that help and heal in commotion.

Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna

Yes, in my opinion, this is one of the problems of our time — we all feel sorry for ourselves. Each in his own degree, but we got used to comfort. And this comfort becomes a fundamentally important component of our life. If a person does not have something, which is not vital, he begins to feel sorry for himself, begins to think how he can get it. Priorities are changing. And this is objectively bad for all of us.

The example of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna shows us that no matter what happens around you, even if the loved ones die or a war breaks out, the main strength of a Christian is prayer. We need to pray and then the Lord will manage things. God will give both reason and strength, show where to go.

And that is why today we should also address to God more often in our thoughts. Do not watch the news, and, maybe, in our thoughts address to the events, that are happening now in Ukraine, in the Donbass; imagine, in what conditions are our soldiers and the doctors who are saving lives. And this should be sobering. Now is the time to think about the main thing, about giving up some of your old habits and starting to pray.

If we can help in some way, this is very good, we need to do it: to help, and if called up for military service, then to go following the duty. But if we cannot do something by ourselves, then it is important to at least start praying and give up the habit of thinking about our comfort and well-being. It is better to think about how we can be useful and help being in our place.

Our nearest are the most important

Life and service of the sisters in the Convent at the beginning of the last century, their relationship with each other, the attitude of Elizabeth Feodorovna towards them — you are likely to have studied all this. What is the most important and interesting did you discover for yourself?

— Actually, very little information remains about that period and about the relationship between the first abbess of the Convent and the sisters, but there are bits of valuable information, which we can use for teaching ourselves.

When we were working in the archives of FSB, we learnt about one fact, which seemed to me very interesting. The sister of the Convent was describing the following situation at the interrogation. She was a cell-attendant for one of the sisters of princely family.

When one of these sisters was away on business and returned late, the cell-attendants had to wait for her with a hot dinner. They couldn’t go to bed until they helped the arrived sister to change clothes and have dinner. And when Elizabeth Feodorovna learnt about this detail, she was very unhappy, because she did not allow to be served in a special way, although there were sisters that helped her in her everyday life. She never allowed anyone to wait for her and asked to simply leave the dinner for her. And this is another example of how important it is to give up unnecessary comfort. It may even be necessary to be content with the little, and to direct other resources, for example, to help those in need.

Today we are witnessing the flourishing of humanism when earthly life becomes an absolute value. But we see that for the saints the main value was Christ, service to God, eternal life. Are we going astray?

— It seems to me the idea of humanism in isolation from Christian values is wrong and contrary to the Christian path. The Lord said: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind… and love your neighbor as yourself.” Nothing is said about self-service. Only – as himself. And we love ourselves a priori, it is inherent in us. And He said that on these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. The Lord directs us completely outwards. And humanism today takes on abnormal outlines. A person removes all prohibitions thinking that everything he wants is possible and, more than that, it is good. People even consider themselves entitled to oppress other people who try to adhere to traditional values and ideas. Therefore, probably any person who reads the Gospel and tries to live according to the Gospel can recognize the substitution of true values. Sometimes it is not easy to resist this, but if it is God’s will, let’s hope that through the prayers of our saints He will give us firmness, reason, wisdom to see all these trends and resist them, not to merge with evil.

If earlier the devil acted somehow ingeniously, with subtle methods, now he acts so clearly that it is not necessary to look hard to see evil. Good and evil are somehow especially polarized. Man has always faced a choice, but now this choice is especially obvious — to stay with the Lord or to go other side. Our aim is to choose God.

                                                                           The interview by Julia Semenova