the holy new martyrs of eastern russia - Coptic Orthodox teaching

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"'I've never been a sailor,' I said, 'and I don't know how to command. I'll
sink the ship and drown myself.'
"They said: 'We can't leave you, for the Queen has sent you, you must go.'
"I went. We came to the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. At the quayside
of the river Neva there stood a beautiful sailing ship. We went onto it, and
suddenly the Queen, the Mother of God, came out and said:
"'So you must take this ship to the other side of the ocean, together with all
these people whom I'm entrusting to you.'
"I wept, and fell at the feet of the Mother of God and said:
"'I can't.'
"'Have no fear,' she said, 'I myself will be with you. Command the ship to
go out to sea.'
"We went out to sea, and a terrible storm rose up. Our ship was going fast
and the storm had no influence on it. On the sea we met two huge ships full of
people. The waves were hurling them off the ships from all sides, and you
think they're going to send them to the bottom of the sea now. We quickly
passed by them. They remained in the midst of the sea, but we quickly
arrived at the shore. It is impossible to describe how beautiful it was on the
shore; there were various trees and fruits. We all got out onto the shore and
the Mother of God said to me:
"'So we have passed over the terrible deep.'
"At that point I woke up.
"I told Hieromonk Fr. Ambrose about this. He said to me:
"'Write all this down, and for the time being tell nobody anything. The
Mother of God will entrust you to rule a flock.'
"And then we went into the church of the wonderworking icon 'The
Consolation of the Sorrowing' and served a prayer service to her and thanked
her for caring for us."
In 1902 Fr. Pitirim returned to Athos, and on September 25, 1904 he was
ordained to the priesthood. He continued to serve his obedience as a steward,
which involved feeding the vast numbers of pilgrims who came to the skete
for feasts. And with his engineering skills he was much in demand for
building projects both in the St. Andrew skete and the Thebaida skete.
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