January 27 is the day of the repose of Nikolai Alexandrovich Motovilov. After the liturgy, the sisters met by his grave and a remembrance litya service was served there. 

Nikolai Alexandrovich Motovilov, a companion to Venerable Seraphim of Sarov and a long-standing trustee of the Seraphim-Diveyevo monastery, was a landlord with the estates in Simbirsk and Arzamas. While still a young man, he became gravely ill and received healing through the prayers of Venerable Seraphim. Nikolai Alexandrovich has since experienced such love and trust to father that he strived to visit him every month arriving from his far-away estate in Simbirsk. They knew each other for a short period of two years. Before his death, the venerable father entrusted the Diveyevo monastery in Motovilov’s care and Nikolai Alexandrovich became one of its major providers and benefactors. He would vigorously and boldly defend it so that life at the monastery was in full concordance with the instructions of the Queen of Heaven and Venerable Seraphim. 

Father Seraphim shared with his young friend the innermost visions and prophecies about the future of Russia and Diveyevo. He simply and artlessly explained to him that the aim of a Christian life is to acquire the grace of the Holy Spirit. At this, the Lord bestowed Nikolai Alexandrovich with the vision of the venerable father illuminated by the Holy Spirit while he too was enveloped in this light. 

Motovilov. a layperson and a married man, loved God, the Mother of God, and the saints dearly, and he reverently cared for Diveyevo. He reposed peacefully in the Lord on January 27, 1879, in his estate in Simbirsk. His coffin was transferred to Diveyevo for burial and was laid to rest at the southern side of Our Lady of Kazan church’s altar. 

During the Soviet times, the graves near the Kazan church were destroyed with the whole area covered in asphalt. The only reference point left was an old birch tree beside Motovilov’s grave. In the 1970s, the local authorities made an attempt to uproot it but failed. 

Before the celebration of the translation of relics of Venerable Seraphim to Diveyevo in the summer of 1991, the asphalt was removed that uncovered the burial sites of the venerable maidens of Diveyevo with the grave of Motovilov situated next to theirs.