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| Venerable Nektary of Optina (Feast Day - April 29) |
The last Optina elder elected by the Brotherhood was Venerable Nektary, a disciple of the skete's abbot Venerable Anatoly (Zertsalov) and Venerable Ambrose. He bore the cross of the service of eldership during the years of severe trials for the Russian Orthodox Church and for all of Russia. Elder Nektary spent fifty years in the Optina Hermitage, twenty of which were in seclusion. He ascended the spiritual ladder from seclusion to public service and was a worthy successor to the Optina elders. Endowed by God with the great gift of prophecy and foresight, he saw the coming troubles and sorrows of the people long before the revolution and civil war. Elder Nektary prayed for all of Russia, consoled people, and strengthened their faith. During the years of severe temptations, Venerable Nektary took upon himself the burden of human sins. He shared the fate of many of his believing compatriots: he was persecuted, exiled, and died in exile. Less is known about his life's journey - in connection with the persecution of the Church, the persecution of monasticism - than about his illustrious predecessors.
Venerable Nektary (in the world Nikolai Vasilyevich Tikhonov) was born in 1853 in the city of Yelets in the Oryol province to a poor family of Vasily and Elena Tikhonov. His father was a mill worker and died when his son was only seven years old. Before his death, he blessed his son with an icon of Saint Nicholas, entrusting his child to his care. The elder never parted with this icon his entire life.
Later, the Venerable Nektary often began stories about his childhood with the words: “It was in my infancy, when I lived with my mother. There were two of us in this world, and a cat lived with us. We were of low status and quite poor. Who would want people like us?” Nikolai had the warmest and most cordial relations with his mother. She acted more with meekness and knew how to touch his heart. But his mother also died early. The boy was left an orphan. From the age of 11, he began to work in the shop of a rich merchant. Nikolai was hardworking and by the age of 17 he had risen to the rank of junior clerk. In his free time, the young man loved to go to church and read ecclesiastical books. He was distinguished by meekness, modesty and spiritual purity.
When the young man turned twenty, the senior clerk decided to marry him to his daughter. At that time, in Yelets there lived an almost hundred-year-old schema nun, the Eldress Theoktista, the spiritual daughter of Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk. The owner sent the young man to her for a blessing for marriage. The schema nun blessed him to go to Optina to the Elder Hilarion. The owner let the young man go to Optina, and Nikolai set off on his journey.
In 1873, he came to Optina Hermitage, carrying only the Gospel in a knapsack on his back. Here, by God's Providence, he found his true purpose. For it is in the power of the Lord, and not in the power of the one walking, to direct his steps (Jer. 10:23). First, the young man went to the skete's head, Elder Hilarion, who sent him to Venerable Ambrose. At that time, so many people came to the great Elder Ambrose that they had to wait weeks for an appointment. But he received Nikolai immediately and spoke with him for two hours. What their conversation was about, Venerable Nektary did not reveal to anyone, but after it he remained in the skete forever. He became the spiritual son of Venerable Anatoly (Zertsalov), and went to the Venerable Elder Ambrose for advice.
His first obedience in Optina was to tend flowers, then he was appointed to the obedience of sexton. Venerable Nektary had a cell with a door facing the church, and he lived there for twenty years without speaking to any of the monks: he would only go to the elder or confessor and back. He himself liked to repeat that for a monk there are only two exits from the cell - to the temple and to the grave. In this obedience, he was often late for church and walked around with sleepy eyes. The brothers complained about him to Elder Ambrose, to which he replied: "Wait, Nikolai will sleep it off, he will be useful to everyone."
Under the guidance of his great mentors, the Venerable Nektary grew spiritually quickly. On March 14, 1887, he was tonsured into the mantiya; on January 19, 1894, he was ordained a hierodeacon; and four years later he was ordained a hieromonk by the Bishop of Kaluga. He was then forty-four years old.
Already in these years he healed the sick, possessed the gift of clairvoyance, miracle-working and wisdom. But in his humility he hid these high spiritual gifts under external foolishness. He had the elders' blessing for foolishness. The Optina elders often covered their spiritual greatness with foolishness - jokes, eccentricity, unexpected harshness or unusual simplicity in dealing with noble and arrogant visitors.
Venerable Nektary (in the world Nikolai Vasilyevich Tikhonov) was born in 1853 in the city of Yelets in the Oryol province to a poor family of Vasily and Elena Tikhonov. His father was a mill worker and died when his son was only seven years old. Before his death, he blessed his son with an icon of Saint Nicholas, entrusting his child to his care. The elder never parted with this icon his entire life.
Later, the Venerable Nektary often began stories about his childhood with the words: “It was in my infancy, when I lived with my mother. There were two of us in this world, and a cat lived with us. We were of low status and quite poor. Who would want people like us?” Nikolai had the warmest and most cordial relations with his mother. She acted more with meekness and knew how to touch his heart. But his mother also died early. The boy was left an orphan. From the age of 11, he began to work in the shop of a rich merchant. Nikolai was hardworking and by the age of 17 he had risen to the rank of junior clerk. In his free time, the young man loved to go to church and read ecclesiastical books. He was distinguished by meekness, modesty and spiritual purity.
When the young man turned twenty, the senior clerk decided to marry him to his daughter. At that time, in Yelets there lived an almost hundred-year-old schema nun, the Eldress Theoktista, the spiritual daughter of Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk. The owner sent the young man to her for a blessing for marriage. The schema nun blessed him to go to Optina to the Elder Hilarion. The owner let the young man go to Optina, and Nikolai set off on his journey.
In 1873, he came to Optina Hermitage, carrying only the Gospel in a knapsack on his back. Here, by God's Providence, he found his true purpose. For it is in the power of the Lord, and not in the power of the one walking, to direct his steps (Jer. 10:23). First, the young man went to the skete's head, Elder Hilarion, who sent him to Venerable Ambrose. At that time, so many people came to the great Elder Ambrose that they had to wait weeks for an appointment. But he received Nikolai immediately and spoke with him for two hours. What their conversation was about, Venerable Nektary did not reveal to anyone, but after it he remained in the skete forever. He became the spiritual son of Venerable Anatoly (Zertsalov), and went to the Venerable Elder Ambrose for advice.
His first obedience in Optina was to tend flowers, then he was appointed to the obedience of sexton. Venerable Nektary had a cell with a door facing the church, and he lived there for twenty years without speaking to any of the monks: he would only go to the elder or confessor and back. He himself liked to repeat that for a monk there are only two exits from the cell - to the temple and to the grave. In this obedience, he was often late for church and walked around with sleepy eyes. The brothers complained about him to Elder Ambrose, to which he replied: "Wait, Nikolai will sleep it off, he will be useful to everyone."
Under the guidance of his great mentors, the Venerable Nektary grew spiritually quickly. On March 14, 1887, he was tonsured into the mantiya; on January 19, 1894, he was ordained a hierodeacon; and four years later he was ordained a hieromonk by the Bishop of Kaluga. He was then forty-four years old.
Already in these years he healed the sick, possessed the gift of clairvoyance, miracle-working and wisdom. But in his humility he hid these high spiritual gifts under external foolishness. He had the elders' blessing for foolishness. The Optina elders often covered their spiritual greatness with foolishness - jokes, eccentricity, unexpected harshness or unusual simplicity in dealing with noble and arrogant visitors.
In 1912, the Optina brethren elected him as an elder. But the Venerable Nektary refused, saying: "No, fathers and brothers! I am feeble-minded and cannot bear such a burden." And only out of obedience did he agree to accept the eldership.
In the first period after his election as an elder, Father Nektary increased his foolishness for Christ's sake. He acquired a music box and a gramophone with spiritual records, but the skete authorities forbade him to wind them up. He played with toys. He had a bird-whistle, and he made adults who came to him with empty sorrows blow into it. He had a spinning top, which he let his visitors spin. He had children's books, which he gave to adults to read.
The elder's foolishness often contained prophecies, the meaning of which was often revealed only after time had passed. For example, people were puzzled and laughed at how Elder Nektary would suddenly light an electric flashlight and walk around his cell with it with the most serious expression, examining all the corners and closets... But after 1917, this "eccentricity" was remembered quite differently: this is exactly how, in the darkness, by the light of flashlights, the Bolsheviks searched the monks' cells, including Elder Nektary's room. Six months before the revolution, the elder began to wear a red bow on his chest - this is how he predicted the coming events. Or he would collect all sorts of junk, put it in a cabinet and show everyone: "This is my museum." And indeed, after Optina was closed, there was a museum in the skete.
Often, instead of answering, Father Nektary would place puppets in front of visitors and put on a short play. The puppets, characters in the play, would answer questions with their own lines. Thus, Bishop Theophan of Kaluga did not believe in the elder's holiness. Once he came to Optina and went to see Father Nektary. The latter, paying no attention to him, played with dolls: he punished one, beat another, and put the third in prison. The Bishop, observing this, became convinced of his opinion. Later, when the Bolsheviks put him in prison, he said: "I am sinful before God and before the elder. Everything he showed me then was about me, and I decided that he was crazy."
One day, Elder Barsanuphius, still a novice, passed by Father Nektary's house. And he was standing on his porch and saying: "You have exactly twenty years left to live." This prophecy was subsequently fulfilled exactly.
Archpriest Vasily Shustin told how the priest, without reading, sorted through the letters: “He put aside some letters with the words: ‘You need to give a response here, but these are letters of gratitude, they can be left unanswered.’ He did not read them, but he saw their content. He blessed some of them, and kissed some.”
There are many known cases of the priest healing terminally ill people. A mother whose daughter suffered from an incurable disease came to Optina. All the doctors had refused to treat the patient. The mother waited for the elder in the reception room and together with other pilgrims received his blessing. Before she could say a word to him, the elder himself addressed her: "Have you come to pray for your sick daughter? She will be well." He gave the mother seven gingerbread cookies and ordered: "Let your daughter eat one every day and take communion more often, she will be well." When the mother returned home, the daughter accepted the gingerbread cookies with faith, took communion after the seventh, and recovered. The disease never returned.
One day, the nun Nektaria came to him with a teenage boy who suddenly fell ill. His temperature rose to forty degrees. She said to the priest: "My little Olezhek is sick." And he answered: "It's good to be sick in good health." The next day, he gave the boy an apple: "Here's your medicine." And, blessing them for the journey, he said: "During the stop, when you feed the horses, let him drink some boiling water and he will be healthy." And so they did. The boy drank some boiling water, fell asleep, and when he woke up, he was healthy.
The Venerable Elder Nektary received visitors in the "hut" of the former elders, sometimes he left books on the table in the reception room, and visitors, while waiting for an appointment, looked at these books and, leafing through them, found answers to their questions. And the Venerable Nektary, in his humility, noticed that they were coming to the Venerable Elder Ambrose, and the cell itself spoke for him.
The priest had a cat that obeyed him unusually well, and the priest liked to say: “Elder Gerasimos was a great elder, because he had a lion, and we are small – so we have a cat.”
In appearance, the elder was short, stooped, with a round face and a small wedge-shaped beard. His face seemed ageless - sometimes ancient, stern, sometimes young in its liveliness and expressiveness of thought, sometimes childish in its purity and peace. He walked with a light, gliding gait, as if barely touching the ground. Only just before his death did he move with difficulty, his legs swollen like logs, oozing with fluid - this was the result of many years of standing in prayer.
For each person the elder had his own approach, “his own measure”, sometimes he left the visitor alone in the silence of the “hut” to be alone with his thoughts, sometimes he had a long and lively conversation, surprising the interlocutor with his knowledge, and people asked: “Where did the elder graduate from the university?” And they could not believe that he did not study anywhere. “All our education comes from the Scripture,” the elder said about himself.
The elder highly valued obedience. He instructed Metropolitan Benjamin (Fedchenkov): “Take this advice for your entire life: if your superiors or elders offer you something, no matter how difficult it may be or how lofty it may seem, do not refuse. God will help you for your obedience.” He gave a visual lesson in obedience to the student Vasily Shustin (the future archpriest), once saying that he would teach him how to make a samovar, because the time would soon come when he would have no servants and would have to make his own samovar. The young man looked at the elder in surprise, wondering where their family’s fortune could go, but obediently followed the priest into the pantry where the samovar stood. Father Nektary ordered that water from a large copper jug be poured into the samovar.
“Father, it’s too heavy, I can’t move it,” Vasily objected.
Then the priest approached the jug, made a cross over it and said: "Take it!" And the student easily lifted the jug, not feeling the weight. "So," Father Nektary instructed, "every obedience that seems difficult to us is very easy when performed, because it is done as an obedience."
Once an elder was asked whether he should take upon himself the sufferings and sins of those who came to him in order to ease them or console them. “There is no other way to ease them,” he replied. “And sometimes you feel as if there is a mountain of stones on you – so much sin and pain has been brought to you, and you simply cannot bear it. Then grace comes and scatters this mountain of stones, like a mountain of dry leaves. And you can accept it again.”
The elder often spoke about prayer with love. He taught constancy in prayer, considering the non-fulfillment of requests a good sign from the Lord. “We must continue to pray and not lose heart,” the priest taught. “Prayer is capital. The longer it lies, the more interest it brings. The Lord sends His mercy when it pleases Him, when it is useful for us to accept it... Sometimes after a year the Lord fulfills a request... We should take an example from Joachim and Anna. They prayed all their lives and did not lose heart, and what consolation the Lord sent them!” He once advised: “Pray simply: 'Lord, grant me Your grace!' A cloud of sorrows is coming at you, and you pray: 'Lord, grant me Your grace!' And the Lord will carry the storm past you.”
In the first period after his election as an elder, Father Nektary increased his foolishness for Christ's sake. He acquired a music box and a gramophone with spiritual records, but the skete authorities forbade him to wind them up. He played with toys. He had a bird-whistle, and he made adults who came to him with empty sorrows blow into it. He had a spinning top, which he let his visitors spin. He had children's books, which he gave to adults to read.
The elder's foolishness often contained prophecies, the meaning of which was often revealed only after time had passed. For example, people were puzzled and laughed at how Elder Nektary would suddenly light an electric flashlight and walk around his cell with it with the most serious expression, examining all the corners and closets... But after 1917, this "eccentricity" was remembered quite differently: this is exactly how, in the darkness, by the light of flashlights, the Bolsheviks searched the monks' cells, including Elder Nektary's room. Six months before the revolution, the elder began to wear a red bow on his chest - this is how he predicted the coming events. Or he would collect all sorts of junk, put it in a cabinet and show everyone: "This is my museum." And indeed, after Optina was closed, there was a museum in the skete.
Often, instead of answering, Father Nektary would place puppets in front of visitors and put on a short play. The puppets, characters in the play, would answer questions with their own lines. Thus, Bishop Theophan of Kaluga did not believe in the elder's holiness. Once he came to Optina and went to see Father Nektary. The latter, paying no attention to him, played with dolls: he punished one, beat another, and put the third in prison. The Bishop, observing this, became convinced of his opinion. Later, when the Bolsheviks put him in prison, he said: "I am sinful before God and before the elder. Everything he showed me then was about me, and I decided that he was crazy."
One day, Elder Barsanuphius, still a novice, passed by Father Nektary's house. And he was standing on his porch and saying: "You have exactly twenty years left to live." This prophecy was subsequently fulfilled exactly.
Archpriest Vasily Shustin told how the priest, without reading, sorted through the letters: “He put aside some letters with the words: ‘You need to give a response here, but these are letters of gratitude, they can be left unanswered.’ He did not read them, but he saw their content. He blessed some of them, and kissed some.”
There are many known cases of the priest healing terminally ill people. A mother whose daughter suffered from an incurable disease came to Optina. All the doctors had refused to treat the patient. The mother waited for the elder in the reception room and together with other pilgrims received his blessing. Before she could say a word to him, the elder himself addressed her: "Have you come to pray for your sick daughter? She will be well." He gave the mother seven gingerbread cookies and ordered: "Let your daughter eat one every day and take communion more often, she will be well." When the mother returned home, the daughter accepted the gingerbread cookies with faith, took communion after the seventh, and recovered. The disease never returned.
One day, the nun Nektaria came to him with a teenage boy who suddenly fell ill. His temperature rose to forty degrees. She said to the priest: "My little Olezhek is sick." And he answered: "It's good to be sick in good health." The next day, he gave the boy an apple: "Here's your medicine." And, blessing them for the journey, he said: "During the stop, when you feed the horses, let him drink some boiling water and he will be healthy." And so they did. The boy drank some boiling water, fell asleep, and when he woke up, he was healthy.
The Venerable Elder Nektary received visitors in the "hut" of the former elders, sometimes he left books on the table in the reception room, and visitors, while waiting for an appointment, looked at these books and, leafing through them, found answers to their questions. And the Venerable Nektary, in his humility, noticed that they were coming to the Venerable Elder Ambrose, and the cell itself spoke for him.
The priest had a cat that obeyed him unusually well, and the priest liked to say: “Elder Gerasimos was a great elder, because he had a lion, and we are small – so we have a cat.”
In appearance, the elder was short, stooped, with a round face and a small wedge-shaped beard. His face seemed ageless - sometimes ancient, stern, sometimes young in its liveliness and expressiveness of thought, sometimes childish in its purity and peace. He walked with a light, gliding gait, as if barely touching the ground. Only just before his death did he move with difficulty, his legs swollen like logs, oozing with fluid - this was the result of many years of standing in prayer.
For each person the elder had his own approach, “his own measure”, sometimes he left the visitor alone in the silence of the “hut” to be alone with his thoughts, sometimes he had a long and lively conversation, surprising the interlocutor with his knowledge, and people asked: “Where did the elder graduate from the university?” And they could not believe that he did not study anywhere. “All our education comes from the Scripture,” the elder said about himself.
The elder highly valued obedience. He instructed Metropolitan Benjamin (Fedchenkov): “Take this advice for your entire life: if your superiors or elders offer you something, no matter how difficult it may be or how lofty it may seem, do not refuse. God will help you for your obedience.” He gave a visual lesson in obedience to the student Vasily Shustin (the future archpriest), once saying that he would teach him how to make a samovar, because the time would soon come when he would have no servants and would have to make his own samovar. The young man looked at the elder in surprise, wondering where their family’s fortune could go, but obediently followed the priest into the pantry where the samovar stood. Father Nektary ordered that water from a large copper jug be poured into the samovar.
“Father, it’s too heavy, I can’t move it,” Vasily objected.
Then the priest approached the jug, made a cross over it and said: "Take it!" And the student easily lifted the jug, not feeling the weight. "So," Father Nektary instructed, "every obedience that seems difficult to us is very easy when performed, because it is done as an obedience."
Once an elder was asked whether he should take upon himself the sufferings and sins of those who came to him in order to ease them or console them. “There is no other way to ease them,” he replied. “And sometimes you feel as if there is a mountain of stones on you – so much sin and pain has been brought to you, and you simply cannot bear it. Then grace comes and scatters this mountain of stones, like a mountain of dry leaves. And you can accept it again.”
The elder often spoke about prayer with love. He taught constancy in prayer, considering the non-fulfillment of requests a good sign from the Lord. “We must continue to pray and not lose heart,” the priest taught. “Prayer is capital. The longer it lies, the more interest it brings. The Lord sends His mercy when it pleases Him, when it is useful for us to accept it... Sometimes after a year the Lord fulfills a request... We should take an example from Joachim and Anna. They prayed all their lives and did not lose heart, and what consolation the Lord sent them!” He once advised: “Pray simply: 'Lord, grant me Your grace!' A cloud of sorrows is coming at you, and you pray: 'Lord, grant me Your grace!' And the Lord will carry the storm past you.”
After the monastery was closed on Palm Sunday 1923, Venerable Nektary was arrested. The elder was taken to the monastery's bread building, which had been converted into a prison. He walked along the icy path in March and fell. The room where he was put was not partitioned off all the way to the top, and in the second half, guards sat and smoked. The elder was suffocating from the smoke. On Great Thursday, he was taken to prison in Kozelsk. Later, because of an eye disease, the elder was transferred to a hospital, but guards were posted.
Upon his release from prison, the authorities demanded that Father Nektary leave the Kaluga region. The elder lived in the village of Kholmishchi in the Bryansk region with a peasant, a relative of the priest's spiritual son. The Cheka threatened this peasant with exile to Kamchatka for sheltering the elder. In the autumn of 1927, he was subjected to a particularly heavy tax.
Despite the difficulties, spiritual children made their way to Kholmishchi in search of consolation and advice; a stream of people from all over Russia flocked to the elder. The Holy Patriarch Tikhon consulted with the Venerable Nektary through his trusted persons. Getting to the village, especially in the spring, due to the flooding of the rivers, was difficult; even horse transportation ceased. Sometimes it was necessary to walk a detour of up to seventy-five miles past the forest, where there were many wolves. They often came out onto the road and howled, but according to the holy prayers of the elder, they did not touch anyone.
Venerable Nektary, being a seer, predicted in 1917: “Russia will rise up and will not be materially rich, but will be rich in spirit, and in Optina there will be seven more lamps, seven pillars.”
Since 1927, the elder began to feel seriously ill, his strength was fading. In December, his health deteriorated sharply, they decided that Father Nektary was dying, but then there was some improvement. In April, the priest felt ill again. Father Sergei Mechev came to him , he gave the elder communion. On April 29, 1928, Father Adrian made it to Kholmishchi with difficulty, in whose arms the Venerable Nektary died that same night. Shortly before his death, when asked where to bury him, the elder pointed to the local cemetery. When asked whether his body should be taken to Kozelsk, he shook his head. The elder did not order to bury him near the Pokrovskaya Church in the village of Kholmishchi either, saying that it would be worse than a pig pasture there. And so it happened. The temple was destroyed, and a fair and dance floor were set up in the cathedral square. Fulfilling the elder’s wish, he was buried in the local village cemetery two or three miles from the village of Kholmishchi.
In 1935, robbers dug up the elder's grave, hoping to find valuables there. They tore off the lid of the coffin and placed the open coffin leaning against a tree. In the morning, the collective farmers who came to the cemetery saw that the elder was standing there incorruptible - waxy skin, soft hands. The coffin was closed and lowered into the grave with the singing of "Holy God."
Upon his release from prison, the authorities demanded that Father Nektary leave the Kaluga region. The elder lived in the village of Kholmishchi in the Bryansk region with a peasant, a relative of the priest's spiritual son. The Cheka threatened this peasant with exile to Kamchatka for sheltering the elder. In the autumn of 1927, he was subjected to a particularly heavy tax.
Despite the difficulties, spiritual children made their way to Kholmishchi in search of consolation and advice; a stream of people from all over Russia flocked to the elder. The Holy Patriarch Tikhon consulted with the Venerable Nektary through his trusted persons. Getting to the village, especially in the spring, due to the flooding of the rivers, was difficult; even horse transportation ceased. Sometimes it was necessary to walk a detour of up to seventy-five miles past the forest, where there were many wolves. They often came out onto the road and howled, but according to the holy prayers of the elder, they did not touch anyone.
Venerable Nektary, being a seer, predicted in 1917: “Russia will rise up and will not be materially rich, but will be rich in spirit, and in Optina there will be seven more lamps, seven pillars.”
Since 1927, the elder began to feel seriously ill, his strength was fading. In December, his health deteriorated sharply, they decided that Father Nektary was dying, but then there was some improvement. In April, the priest felt ill again. Father Sergei Mechev came to him , he gave the elder communion. On April 29, 1928, Father Adrian made it to Kholmishchi with difficulty, in whose arms the Venerable Nektary died that same night. Shortly before his death, when asked where to bury him, the elder pointed to the local cemetery. When asked whether his body should be taken to Kozelsk, he shook his head. The elder did not order to bury him near the Pokrovskaya Church in the village of Kholmishchi either, saying that it would be worse than a pig pasture there. And so it happened. The temple was destroyed, and a fair and dance floor were set up in the cathedral square. Fulfilling the elder’s wish, he was buried in the local village cemetery two or three miles from the village of Kholmishchi.
In 1935, robbers dug up the elder's grave, hoping to find valuables there. They tore off the lid of the coffin and placed the open coffin leaning against a tree. In the morning, the collective farmers who came to the cemetery saw that the elder was standing there incorruptible - waxy skin, soft hands. The coffin was closed and lowered into the grave with the singing of "Holy God."
After the revival of Optina Hermitage, on July 3/16, 1989, on the day of remembrance of Metropolitan Philip of Moscow, the relics of Venerable Nektary were uncovered. As the solemn procession moved through the monastery, a wonderful fragrance emanated from the relics: the elder's mantiya was found to be incorruptible, and the relics were amber in color. In 1996, Venerable Nektary was canonized as a locally venerated saint of Optina Hermitage, and in August 2000, he was glorified for Church-wide veneration by the Jubilee Bishops' Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. Currently, the reliquary with the relics of Elder Nektary is located in the western part of the Ambrosievskiy Chapel of the Vvedensky Cathedral of the monastery.
Both during the life of the elder and after his blessed death, everyone who turns to him with true faith receives gracious help. Through the prayers of the Venerable Nektary, people get out of difficult life situations, miracles of spiritual and physical healing occur. Our Venerable Father Nektary, pray to God for us!
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
Both during the life of the elder and after his blessed death, everyone who turns to him with true faith receives gracious help. Through the prayers of the Venerable Nektary, people get out of difficult life situations, miracles of spiritual and physical healing occur. Our Venerable Father Nektary, pray to God for us!
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
