Sergiev Posad, Russia, October 23, 2019
Photo: stsl.ru
The remains of a holy pre-revolutionary elder have returned to his native monastery after 83 years.
A memorial service was served at the grave of Elder Zacharias of the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra (1850-1936) in Moscow on Saturday October 19, after which his precious remains were transferred to the Lavra in Sergiev Posad, 50 miles northeast of Moscow, reports the monastery press service.
Throughout his long life, Elder Zacharias performed many miracles that were testified to by eyewitnesses. He was thrice vouchsafed a vision of the Holy Trinity and the Most Holy Theotokos, and he was twice known to have walked on water as on land. By his prayers, a man was raised from the dead, and he healed the sick and had a special gift for confessing penitents.
After the revolution in 1917, Elder Zacharias was the last to leave the closed Lavra and moved to Moscow with his spiritual children.
The Elder reposed on June 15, 1936. After his funeral in the Church of the Resurrection, he was buried in the German cemetery in Moscow.
Photo: stsl.ru
83 years later, Elder Zacharias, the confessor of the Lavra brethren, returned to his native monastery.
Abbess Ksenia of St. Alexei Monastery in Moscow, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s legal service, spoke of how she used to take care of orphans at a boarding school in the 90s, directly across from the cemetery where the Elder was buried. People were just beginning to return to the Church then, and she would take the children to pray at his grave.
omolenko.com “One of the first lives I read was the hagiography of Elder Zosima (Zacharia). It is notable that he was a Lavra monk, and for me, he immediately became a model of holy, pure, and selfless podvig.”
The Elder’s grave had become unattended in Moscow and was not being taken care of and was in danger of being completely forgotten. Therefore, Abbess Ksenia raised the question of reburying Elder Zacharias with Patriarch Kirill, and the matter was successfully handled in the courts.
“I believe that for the life of the Lavra, in spiritual terms, this is a great event, because he was one of the last monks and confessors of the brotherhood, who remained in the Lavra after its closure. After all, he himself did not want to leave the walls of the monastery until the authorities forcibly removed him from there,” Mother Ksenia commented.
The relics of another great 20th-century Russian elder, St. John of Valaam, were also recently exhumed, being placed in the church at New Valaam Monastery for the veneration of the faithful.
Photo: stsl.ru
