The relics of the Holy Blessed Elder Matrona of Moscow will be visited by all dioceses of the Kazakhstan Metropolitan District

June 28, 2024. His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus', in response to the petition of Metropolitan Alexander of Astana and Kazakhstan, gave his First Hierarchal blessing to bring the relics of the holy blessed elder Matrona of Moscow and part of her shirt to the borders of Kazakhstan.

The honest and multi-healing relics of the saint, revered throughout the Orthodox world, will visit all dioceses of the Kazakhstan Metropolitan District from September 27 to November 4 of this year.

The stay of the shrine in Kazakhstan is timed to coincide with the historical date - the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Astana and Alma-Ata diocese.

The schedule of visits by the ark with the relics of the blessed Matrona to the cities of the country will soon be posted on the official website of the Metropolitan District.

The Life of the Blessed Elder Matrona of Moscow

Blessed Matrona (Matrona Dimitrievna Nikonova) was born in 1885 in the village of Sebino, Epifansky district, Tula region. Her parents, Dimitri and Natalia, peasants, were pious people, worked honestly, but lived poorly. The family had four children: two brothers - Ivan and Mikhail, two sisters - Maria and Matrona. Matrona was the youngest.
Even before the girl was born, Matrona’s mother decided to send her unborn child to an orphanage where the children of the poor were raised at the expense of benefactors, but she saw a prophetic dream. The unborn daughter appeared to Natalia in a dream in the form of a white bird with a human face and closed eyes and sat on her right hand. Taking the dream as a sign, the God-fearing woman gave up the idea of sending the child to an orphanage. The daughter was born blind, but the mother loved her “unfortunate child.”
At the baptism, when the priest lowered the child into the font, those present saw a column of fragrant light smoke above the baby. The priest, Father Vasily, whom the parishioners revered as righteous and blessed, was incredibly surprised: “I baptized a lot, but this is the first time I see this and this baby will be holy.” Father Vasily also told Natalia: “If a girl asks for something, you will definitely contact me directly, go and say directly what is needed.”
Truly Matrona was God’s chosen one. The Lord taught her to fast even in infancy: her mother often complained to a friend: “What should I do? The girl doesn’t breastfeed on Wednesday and Friday, she sleeps for days on these days, it’s impossible to wake her up.” On the girl’s chest there was a bulge in the shape of a cross, a miraculous pectoral cross. Later, when she was already six years old, her mother once began to scold her: “Why are you taking off your cross?” “Mommy, I have my own cross on my chest,” the girl answered. “Dear daughter,” Natalia came to her senses, “forgive me!” That I keep scolding you..."
Other children often teased Matrona, even mocked her: the girls lashed her with nettles, knowing that she would not see who exactly was offending her. They put her in a hole and watched with curiosity as she groped her way out of there and wandered home. Matrona was not just blind - she had no eyes at all. The eye sockets were closed with tightly closed eyelids, like those of the white bird her mother had seen in her dream. But the Lord gave her spiritual sight. Even in infancy, at night, when her parents were sleeping, she would sneak into the holy corner, in some incomprehensible way take icons off the shelf, put them on the table and play with them in the silence of the night. Rejected by her peers, she found saints as companions in her childhood games.
From the age of seven or eight, Matrona discovered the gift of prediction and healing of the sick. One day the girl told her mother: “Mom, get ready, I’ll have a wedding soon.” The mother was surprised and told the priest about this, he came and gave the girl communion. And suddenly, after a few days, carts began to drive up to their house one after another, people were walking and walking with their troubles and sorrows, carrying the sick, and for some reason everyone was asking Matrona. She read prayers over them and healed many. “Matryushenka, what is this?” - asked her mother. And she answers: “I told you there will be a wedding.”

Thus, from an early age, the Lord noted Matrona with the gift of spiritual reasoning, insight and healing. The girl felt the approach of danger and foresaw natural and social disasters. Through her prayer, people received healing from illnesses and consolation in sorrows. They began to visit her more and more often from everywhere. Not only from the surrounding villages and hamlets, but also from distant lands, the suffering came to her, they even brought bedridden patients, whom the girl raised to their feet. Wanting to thank Matrona, they left food and gifts for her parents. So the girl, instead of becoming a burden to the family, became its main breadwinner.
The Nikonovs' house was located near the Church of the Assumption of the Mother of God. Matrona’s parents were distinguished by deep piety and loved to attend divine services together. Matrona literally grew up in church, going to services first with her mother, then alone, whenever possible. Not knowing where her daughter was, her mother usually found her in church. She had her usual place - on the left, behind the front door, where she stood motionless during the service. She knew church hymns well and often sang along with the singers. Apparently, even in childhood, Matrona acquired the gift of unceasing prayer.
When her mother, feeling sorry for her, said to Matronushka: “You are my unfortunate child!” - she was surprised: “Am I unhappy? You have Vanya, the unfortunate one, and Misha.” She foresaw the future departure of her brothers from God.
Despite her blindness, Matrona spoke about the world around her as if she saw it through her eyes. She once told her friend: “God once opened my eyes and showed me the world and His creation. And I saw the sun, and the stars in the sky, and everything on earth, the beauty of the earth: mountains, rivers, green grass, flowers, birds...”
But not only spiritually did Matrona want to visit distant lands. She really wanted to visit holy places, to venerate the shrines of the Russian land. The daughter of a local landowner, the pious and kind girl Lydia Yankova, helped her in this. She took Matrona with her on pilgrimages: to the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, to St. Petersburg, other cities and holy places of Russia. Once in St. Andrew's Cathedral in Kronstadt, at the end of the service, Father John of Kronstadt asked the people to make way for the 14-year-old Matrona approaching the salt and said publicly: “Matronushka, come, come to me. Here comes my shift—the eighth pillar of Russia.” Mother did not explain the meaning of these words to anyone, but her loved ones guessed that Father John foresaw a special service for Matrona to Russia and the Russian people, as happened during the persecution of the Church.
At the age of 17, Matrona lost the ability to walk: her legs suddenly became paralyzed. Mother herself pointed to the spiritual cause of the disease. She walked through the temple after communion and knew that a woman would approach her and take away her ability to walk. And so it happened. “I didn’t avoid it—it was God’s will.”

Until the end of her days she was “sedentary.” And her stay in different houses and apartments, where she found shelter, continued for another 50 years. She never grumbled because of her illness, but humbly bore this heavy cross given to her by God.
Even at an early age, Matrona predicted the revolution, how “they will rob, destroy churches and drive everyone away.” She figuratively showed how they would divide the land, grab plots of land greedily, just to grab more for themselves, and then everyone would abandon the land and run in all directions. Nobody will need the land.
One day Matrona asked her mother to tell the priest that in his library, in such and such a row, there was a book with the image of the icon “Recovery of the Lost.” Father was very surprised. They found an icon, and Matrona said: “Mom, I will write out such an icon.” The mother was sad: how can she pay for it? But Matrona said: “Mom, I keep dreaming about the icon “Recovery of the Dead.” The Mother of God asks to come to our church.” She blessed the women to collect money for the icon in all villages. People donated to the icon from the bottom of their hearts, with deep faith, only one man gave a ruble reluctantly, and his brother gave one kopeck to laugh. When the money was brought to Matronushka, she sorted through it, mysteriously found this ruble and a kopeck and said to her mother: “Mom, give it to them, they are ruining all my money.”

Matrona ordered the icon painter to repent of his sins, confess and partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. Then she asked: “Do you know for sure that you will paint this icon?” He answered in the affirmative and began to paint the icon, but nothing worked for him. Then Matrona pointed out to him that there was still a sin that he had not repented of, and helped him realize it. He was shocked, went to the priest again, repented, took communion again, and asked Matrona for forgiveness. “Go, now you will paint the icon of the Queen of Heaven,” she told him.
With the money collected from the villages, with the blessing of Matrona, another icon of the Mother of God “Seeking the Lost” was commissioned in Bogoroditsk. When it was ready, it was carried in a procession with banners from Bogoroditsk to the church in Sebino. This image of the Mother of God became the main local shrine and became famous for many miracles. When there was a drought, they took him out to a meadow in the middle of the village and served a prayer service. After it, people had not yet managed to reach their homes when it began to rain.
Throughout her life, Blessed Matrona was surrounded by icons. In the room where she lived for a particularly long time, there were three red corners, and in them there were icons from top to bottom, with lamps burning in front of them.
In an incomprehensible way, the Lord revealed to His chosen one, who had never learned to read and write, even knowledge that is taught only in schools and institutes, if it was needed to help others. One of her friends, Zinaida Zhdanova, who revered her very much and helped her a lot, urgently needed to defend an architectural project. The authorities did everything to prevent this defense from taking place. Zhdanova later said: “Mother listened to me and said: “Nothing, nothing, you’ll defend yourself! We’ll drink tea in the evening and talk!” I could barely wait for the evening, and then my mother said: “You and I will go to Italy, to Florence, to Rome, and see the works of the great masters...” And she began to list the streets and buildings! She stopped: “Here is Palazzo Pitti, here is another palace with arches, do the same as there - the three lower floors of the building with large masonry and two entrance arches.” I was shocked by her work. In the morning I ran to the institute, put tracing paper on the project and brown I made all the corrections with ink. At 10 o’clock the commission arrived. They looked at my project and said: “Well, the project turned out great, defend yourself!”
Many people came to Matrona with their illnesses and sorrows. Having intercession before God, she helped many. Matrona prayed for the people, asking Him for miraculous help for the sick. She read a prayer over the water and gave it to those who came to her. Those who drank the water and sprinkled it with it got rid of various misfortunes. Only a priest can bless water according to church rites. Of course, Blessed Matrona, for whom the canons and institutions of the Church were an immutable spiritual law, did not dare to do anything like that, but we know that not only the water consecrated in the temple has blessed healing properties, but also the water of some reservoirs, springs, wells blessed with prayer the life of holy people near them, the appearance of miraculous icons.
After the 1917 revolution, both Matrona's brothers, Mikhail and Ivan, joined the Bolshevik party, Mikhail becoming a rural activist. They were ashamed of their sister. The presence in their home of the blessed one, who received people all day long, taught them in deed and word to preserve the Orthodox faith, became unbearable for the brothers. They feared reprisals. Feeling sorry for them, mother moved to Moscow, where she lived until the end of her days. In this huge capital city there were many unfortunate, lost, fallen from the faith, spiritually sick people with a confused consciousness, a soul poisoned by the poison of atheism. Her spiritual and prayerful ministry turned many away from death and led to salvation.

The blessed one loved Moscow very much, she said that it was a holy city and the heart of Russia, although for Matrona herself, life in Moscow was a constant wandering around relatives and friends, in houses, apartments, basements... She became a homeless wanderer. Novices—hozhalki—lived with her and looked after her. Sometimes she had to live with people who were hostile to her. Housing in Moscow was difficult; there was no choice. Matrona left some places hastily, foreseeing impending troubles in spirit, always on the eve of the police coming to her, since she lived without registration. Times were hard, and people were afraid to register it. In this way she saved not only herself, but also the owners who sheltered her from arrests and repression.
Zinaida Zhdanova told what hardships the blessed one sometimes had to endure. One day in the late autumn, during the war, she came to a small plywood house where Matrona lived at that time. There was thick, damp and dank steam in the house from some kind of stove. The blessed one lay on the bed, facing the wall, and could not turn around, because her hair was frozen to the wall and was forcibly torn off. She did not agree to move to a more convenient place: “God did not order it, so that you would not regret it later.”
Matrona lived in Moscow in different places, but for the longest time (from 1942 to 1949) she lived on Arbat, in Starokonyushenny Lane, with her mother Zinaida Zhdanova.
Many times they wanted to arrest Matrona; Most often, on the eve of a possible arrest, she moved to another place, but one day, knowing that they were going to come for her, she stayed in the house. When the policeman came to take Matrona away, she told him: “Go, go quickly, there is misfortune in your house! But the blind woman can’t get away from you: I sit on the bed and don’t go anywhere.” He obeyed, went home, and there was a fire in his house, and his wife was badly burned. He managed to get her to the hospital, thanks to which she remained alive. The next day, when he came to work, he was asked: “Well, did you take the blind woman?” “I will never pick up a blind one,” he replied. “If the blind woman hadn’t told me, I would have lost my wife.”
Outwardly, her life flowed monotonously: during the day - receiving people, at night - prayer. Like the ancient ascetics, she never really went to bed, but dozed, lying on her side, on her fist. Years passed like this.
Somehow in 1939 or 1940, Matrona said: “Now you are all quarreling, dividing, but the war is about to begin. Of course, many people will die, but our Russian people will win.” “Victory will be ours,” she said at the beginning of 1941. “The enemy will not touch Moscow, it will only burn a little.” There is no need to leave Moscow.”
Sometimes people could not understand the actions of the blessed one, but there was always some kind of spiritual meaning behind them. When the war began, mother asked everyone who came to her to bring willow branches. She broke them into sticks of equal length, peeled them from the bark and prayed. Her neighbors recalled that her fingers were covered in wounds. Matrona could be spiritually present in various places; for her spiritual gaze, space did not exist. She often said that she was invisible at the fronts, helping our soldiers. She told everyone that the Germans would not enter Tula. Her prophecy came true.
Matrona received up to 40 people a day. People came with their troubles, mental and physical pain. She refused to help anyone, except those who came with crafty intentions. Others saw in Mother a folk healer who had the power to remove damage or the evil eye, but after communicating with her they realized that this was a man of God, and they turned to the Church and its saving sacraments. Her help was selfless, she did not take anything from anyone, and everything that was brought to her was immediately given to those who lived next to her, and they distributed it to people. In fact, she had nothing of her own.

Mother always read her prayers loudly. Those who knew her closely say that these prayers were well-known, read in church and at home: “Our Father,” “May God rise again,” the ninetieth psalm, “Lord Almighty, God of hosts and all flesh” (from morning prayers) and others. She emphasized that it was not herself who helped, but God, through her prayers: “What, Matronushka is God, or what? God helps! - she said. Healing the sick, mother demanded that they believe in God and correct their sinful lives. “Do you believe,” she asked, “that the Lord is able to heal you?” She ordered everyone to wear a cross.
Sometimes, out of desperation to find help somewhere else, completely unbelieving people came to her. “I don’t know what it’s like to believe,” one woman told her. But mother helped everyone who was waiting for help, and through this their hearts warmed up and opened to faith and love for God. With her selfless service, the blessed one brought many souls to God.
One day, a believing woman who revered Matrona, on the way to her, met a general and his wife, who had just taken their daughter from a psychiatric hospital, but the doctors could not help her. Suddenly this girl (she was 18 years old) started barking. The woman said to her mother: “I feel sorry for you, let’s take our daughter to Matronushka...” This girl’s father, the general, at first didn’t want to hear anything, saying that it was all fiction. But his wife insisted, and they went to Matronushka. When the girl was brought to Matronushka, she was at first dumbfounded, then she began to spit on Matrona and struggled. “Leave her,” said Matrona, “now she won’t do anything.” The girl was released. She fell, began to thrash and spin around on the floor, and began vomiting blood. Then the girl fell asleep and slept for three days. They looked after her. When she woke up and saw her mother, she asked: “Mom, where are we?” “We, daughter, are with a visionary woman,” she answered and told everything that happened to her. From that time on, the girl was completely healed.

Mother Matrona fought all her life for every soul that came to her. She never lamented or complained about the difficulties of her feat. “I can’t forgive myself for never feeling sorry for Mother, even though I saw how difficult it was for her, how she rooted for each of us,” Zinaida Zhdanova later recalled. — The light of those days still warms us. In the house, lamps glowed in front of the icons; mother’s love and her silence enveloped the soul. There was holiness, joy, peace, and gracious warmth in the house. There was a war going on, and we lived like in heaven.”
Matrona consoled, calmed the sick, stroked their heads, made the sign of the cross, sometimes joked, sometimes sternly rebuked and instructed. She was not strict, she was tolerant of human weaknesses, compassionate, warm, sympathetic, always joyful, and never complained about her illnesses and suffering. Mother did not preach, did not teach, she was generally taciturn. She gave specific advice on what to do in a given situation, prayed and blessed.
Matrona taught to surrender oneself to the will of God, to live with prayer, to often make the sign of the cross on oneself and surrounding objects: “By the power of the Honest and Life-giving Cross, save yourself and defend yourself!” She advised me to partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ more often. She taught to love and forgive the old and infirm: “If the old, the sick, or those who have lost their minds say something unpleasant or offensive to you, then do not listen, but simply help them.” My mother did not dissuade me from seeking treatment from doctors; I even advised that it was necessary to undergo treatment. She said that the body is a house given by God, and if necessary, it needs to be repaired.
Matrona often confessed and received communion. Continuous prayer and communion helped the blessed one to bear the cross of serving people. Scolding the possessed, praying for everyone, sharing people’s sorrows in her soul, mother was so tired that by the end of the day she could not even talk to her loved ones and only moaned quietly, lying on her fist.
The inner, spiritual life of the blessed one remained a mystery even to those close to her. Like a true ascetic, the blessed one taught not with words, but with her whole life. Unable to walk, she taught and teaches people to follow the difficult path of salvation.
Matrona found her last earthly refuge in a house near the Skhodnya station near Moscow, where she settled with a distant relative. Only just before her death, mother, already quite weak, limited the reception, but people still came, and she could not refuse help to some. The time of her death was revealed to her by the Lord three days in advance, and she made all the necessary orders. She ordered no wreaths or plastic flowers to be brought to the funeral.

Before her death, a priest came to confess her. Matronushka looked excited. “Are you really afraid of death too?” - asked the priest. “I’m afraid,” mother answered, out of her humility, for she saw herself as an ordinary sinful person.
On May 2, 1952, she died. On May 3 at the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, a note about the repose of the newly deceased blessed Matrona was submitted for a memorial service. Among many others, she attracted the attention of the serving hieromonk. “Who filed the note? he asked excitedly. - What, she died? (many Moscow priests and inhabitants of the Lavra knew and revered Matrona well). The old woman and her daughter, who came from Moscow, confirmed: the day before mother died, and this evening the coffin with the body will be placed in the Moscow Church of the Deposition of the Robe on Donskaya Street. This is how the Lavra monks learned about the death of Matrona and were able to come to her burial.
On May 4, the Sunday of the Holy Myrrh-Bearing Women, the burial of Blessed Matrona took place in front of a large crowd of people. At her request, she was buried in the Danilovsky cemetery in order to “hear the service” (one of the few functioning Moscow churches was located there). The funeral service and burial of the blessed one were the beginning of her glorification among the people as a servant of God.
Before her death, the blessed one said: “Everyone, come to me and tell me, as if alive, about your sorrows, I will see you, and hear you, and help you.” People came to her grave at the Danilovskoye cemetery not only from all over Russia, but also from abroad with their troubles and illnesses.
The nature of the feat of Blessed Matrona is rooted in the centuries-old traditions of popular piety, therefore the help that people receive by prayerfully turning to the righteous woman brings spiritual fruits: people are confirmed in the Orthodox faith, filled with hope and love, and are introduced to everyday prayer life.
Matrona is known to hundreds of thousands of Orthodox people. “Matronushka” is how many affectionately call her. She, just like during her earthly life, helps people. This is felt by all those who with faith and love ask her for intercession and intercession before the Lord, towards whom the blessed old woman has great boldness.

On May 2, 1999, Blessed Elder Matrona was glorified as a locally revered saint, and in 2004 - for church-wide veneration. Her holy relics rest in the stauropegial Pokrovsky Convent in Moscow.