13 March 2023 года

Litya at the grave of Archpriest Vasily Sadovsky

Today is the day of ordination of Archpriest Vasily Sadovsky (1802-1884), father-confessor of the nuns of Diveyevo. Rev.Fr. Daniel Gatin, the clergyman of the Seraphim-Diveyevo monastery, served litya at his grave in the altar of the southern side chapel of the Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God.

Upon graduation from the Nizhny Novgorod seminary, Father Vasily served for twenty-eight years as a parish priest of the Kazan Church in the village of Diveyevo and was later attached to the Diveyevo monastery. Overall, he stayed with the sisters of Diveyevo for a half of a century.

Venerable Seraphim personally directed the spiritual growth of a young priest, already known for his great many moral qualities and profound faith. At one of his last meetings, Baitushka Seraphim put on Father Vasily his liturgical cuffs and, reiterating the main commandments of the Community by the Mill, said: “Watch over my monastery, to you I entrust it and pray: serve it all your life, for the sake of me, lowly Seraphim, and do not forsake it!”

Until the end of his life, Father Vasily remained the confessor of the sisters of Diveyevo and acted as their true shepherd. The sisters always treated him with love, and it has preserved to this day: the Museum House of Blessed Paraskeva of Diveevskaya exhibits the icon of Venerable Basil the Confessor and Blessed Nicholas Salos the Fool-for-Christ painted by nuns of Diveyevo for the fiftieth anniversary of the ordination of their batiushka.

Before the Seraphim-Diveyevo monastery’s closure in 1927, a great number of its clergymen were related to Father Vasily, and it speaks of a particular blessing of God for this faithful servant of the altar.

In Father Vasily’s diary, there is a record of the prophecy by Venerable Seraphim: “Your lady friend (that is, your spouse) will depart before you to the Lord. Two years after her, you too, batiushka, will be gone. Keep in mind: there are twelve, and you, batiushka, are the thirteenth. And so this is my command for you: when you are on your deathbed, you are to find rest on the right side of the altar of the Church of the Nativity, Mishenka will be on the left, while I will rest between you both; and we will all be together!”

Everything turned out just as the great ascetic of Sarov had predicted. When the first twelve sisters of the monastery have passed away, Fr. Vasily has been the thirteenth dying after them. It took place on June 14/17, 1884. Batiushka was buried on the right side of the Nativity Churches. In 2009, new churches were added and the honorable remains of the righteous pastor were reburied in the same crypt, but this time in the altar of the southern side chapel of the Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God.