THE DAY OF THE ARCHANGEL MICHAEL

‘Our entire life is a great divine mystery. Everything that surrounds us, however insignificant it appears, possesses enormous significance. We will only fully understand the meaning of our experiences in the life to come. We should treat our life with such care, yet we skim it like the pages of a book, without understanding what it contains! Nothing in life is accidental, everything proceeds in accordance with God’s will.’

Holy starets Varsanoufios of Optina

This book (whose original title is The feast-day of the Archangel Michael) is an autobiographical work of the author’s with accounts of her life near the monastery at a time when Optina was a ruin and people came from all over Russia, united in faith and impelled by an inner urge, and volunteered to help in restoring the monastery. There are stories about how she worked alongside the fathers in the Monastery, the workers, the people in the countryside around, and the pilgrims from everywhere. All the accounts are linked by faith, the spiritual life, and, above all, by miracles.

Front cover illustration: The White Angel. The angel before the empty tomb tells the women bringing myrrh that Jesus ‘has risen, he is not here’.  ‘His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow’.

Fresco from the Monastery of Mileseva, Central Serbia.