the holy new martyrs of eastern russia - Coptic Orthodox teaching

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someone else would caress her or help her to lie more comfortably. In this
way she grew up surrounded by an atmosphere of deep spirituality and
prayer.
"Then we spoke about the purpose of life, about faith, about God. Listening
to her, I was struck by the wisdom of her judgements and her spiritual
insight. In parting she said:
"'When you stand before the Throne of God, remember the slave of God
Matrona.'
"At that time I had no thought of becoming a bishop and was not even a
priest. Concerning herself, she said that she would die in prison.
"Sitting beside her, I understood that before me lay not an ordinary sick
woman but someone great in the eyes of God. It was such a comfort and a joy
to be with her that I hated to leave, and I promised myself to visit her again as
soon as I could. But this never came to pass. Soon Matronushka was dragged
off to prison, to Moscow, and there she died."
*
After the closure of the Kirsansky women’s monastery, the clairvoyant
Eldress Aquilina and the virgin Marina (nicknamed Morya) wandered
around Tambov province together. They went to the families of clergymen –
either those who had already been arrested, or who were about to be arrested,
- prayed with them and comforted them. Thus in 1937 they came to the
matushka of Fr. Peter Kotelnikov, Helena Fyodorovna, and foretold Fr.
Peter’s martyric end. However, in the same year they were bestially killed by
the NKVD, and their bodies were covered with straw.
*
The following were convicted in the group case, “The Case of Hieromonk
Pachomius (Ionov) and others, Mari (or Mordovia) ASSR, 1935”:
Hieromonk Pachomius, in the world Peter Matveyevich Ionov. He was
born on January 15, 1883 in the village of Troitskoye, Kamensky uyezd, Penza
province. He became a monk in 1901 in the Trinity Skanov monastery in
Penza province. He lived in the monastery until its closure in 1928, becoming
a hieromonk before that date. Then he lived at home tending his apiary,
which was confiscated in 1930. He was a member of the Penza branch of the
True Orthodox Church. However, after the liquidation of that branch, as his
1935 indictment reads, “hiding from arrest, Hieromonk Peter Matveyevich
Ionov, who is elder ‘Pachomius’, went into an illegal situation. He settled in
the village of Pichury [Kovylskinsky region, Mari Autonomous Republic], in a
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