The Woman did not Want to Admit and Repent that She Used to Steal While Working in Trade

"I love everybody". Memories of Archimandrite Pavel (Gruzdev).

Archimandrite Pavel (Gruzdev) (1910 - 13.1.1996)

In 1985, I took courses in Yaroslavl. At the beginning of winter, I took a commuter train. A woman sits down next to me and wonders how far it is to the Shestikhino station. I answer her that I go there, and I will tell when to go out. She asks: “They say you have an elder living there?” “We have Father Pavel. I'll explain how to get to him".

The woman was traveling from the Chita region. She said that she was full of all sorts of diseases. She was in hospitals, nothing helped, she decided to go to holy places. She got to Yaroslavl. In Yaroslavl, she was told that such a miracle-worker lives not far from Nekouz. I explained how to get to Nikulskoye, and we said goodbye.

A couple of days later I hear a knock at the door. I open it, that lady is standing. I wonder: "How did you find me?" “I asked where such and such a teacher lives, and they told me.”

Well, you can’t kick her out since she came. I began to find out how she went to the Father in Verkhne-Nikulskoe. “Oh, oh,” she says, “I don’t even know what to say. He scolded me all over, just about beat me.”

She arrived in the evening. Father Pavel let her spend the night in the lodge. In the morning the woman met him and began to talk about her misfortunes, passions and illnesses. He cut her off and asked: “Listen, my dear, and where do you work?” “I don’t work now, I’m retired. And I worked all my life in trade. I worked as a store manager, head of a depot, director of a restaurant. “How he, — she says, — shouted with bad language at me: “You bastard, you stole so much in your life! And now you want the Lord not to punish you yet? You deserve yours, so gulp down now. Take your baggage and get out of here.” She was upset, kept repeating: “What should I do? What to do?"

This woman did not go home immediately. Through acquaintances, I learned that she lived for a month at the Cathedral of the Feodorovskaya Icon in Yaroslavl, cleaned the church and tried to find a person who would solve her problems with one movement of his hand.

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