“Yearning for heavenly glory and relinquishing the lowly desires of earthly pleasures by shying away from the busy world of men, you spent your life in angelic simplicity, and died, blessed Pelagia, Paraskevi, and Maria: pray unceasingly to Christ our God for us.” The blessed elders of Diveyevo are glorified with these words of kontakion.

The relics of the Diveyevo blessed women were uncovered in 2004 on the eve of the feast of the Nativity of the Mother of God. Maria Ivanovna’s grave was found at the village cemetery of Bolshoye Cherevatoye, while Pelagia and Pakaskevi’s relics were uncovered beside the Trinity Cathedral in the Diveyevo monastery. The ceremony of uncovering of all three of the elders’ relics was completed on September 20.

Beginning from 2009, this day was marked as the Seraphim-Diveyevo monastery’s feast commemorating the uncovering of the relics of the blessed saints Pelagia, Paraskevi, and Maria.

On the evening before the commemoration of the uncovering of the relics of blessed elders, a vigil service was held at the side chapel at Our Lady of Kazan Cathedral. The paraklesis with water blessing prayer service, the Divine Liturgy, and a prayer before the saints’ relics were served on the feast day.

The history of the Orthodox Church abounds with many examples of God’s elect who were called by the Lord to take upon a heavy deed of foolishness for Christ’s sake. The Diveyevo monastery, accepted by the Queen of Heaven as Her fourth lot on earth and as Venerable Seraphim of Sarov prophesied, has always been a fertile ground for spiritual elders and blessed women.

Calling Pelagia Ivanovna Serebrennikova a “great luminary,” Venerable Seraphim of Sarov used to say: “Go, matushka, go immediately to my monastery, take care of my orphans and become the light to the world to save many around you!”

Pelagia Ivanovna was vouchsafed to receive many heavenly visions and revelations. Venerable Seraphim of Sarov would frequently appear to her in a vision instructing to keep watch over the Queen of Heaven’s monastery. For her life’s holiness, Pelagia Ivanovna was called “the Second Seraphim.”

After having spent 47 years in the monastery, the blessed elder peacefully reposed in the Lord in 1884. Before her passing, she set blessed Pasha of Sarov as her replacement with the same goal of saving the souls of Christians from the attacks of the enemy of mankind, temptations, and passions as they were revealed to the clairvoyant saints.

Because of her thirty-year deed of hermitage dwelling in the woods of Sarov, strict fasting, lashings, and beatings she had suffered in the world like Pelagia Ivanovna, and by surviving a beating by thieves like Venerable Seraphim, Pasha became “the Third Seraphim in spirit and by sufferings” as well as the guardian of the Diveyevo monastery.

Blessed Paraskevi died in 1915 at the age of about 120 after a grave illness. The sisters had a revelation that, through her suffering on the deathbed, she redeemed the souls of her spiritual kin from hell. The blessed elder was buried next to Pelagia Ivanovna outside the altar of the Trinity Cathedral of the Diveyevo monastery.

Blessed Paraskevi pronounced blessed Marian Ivanovna as a successor who was to stay in the Diveyevo monastery. Her prayers and guidance, prophecies and foretelling helped many people to avoid danger and death during the hardship of revolutionary times in Russia and find a correct way out of challenging circumstances.

Maria Ivanovna, foreseeing the upcoming trials of the years of godlessness in Stalin’s camps and exile, and to edify the sisters of the monastery, would confidently share with them the stories of the future restoration of the Seraphim-Diveyevo monastery that came to fruition in 1991.

Shortly before her death, the blessed elder had to undergo arrest and interrogation but she was declared insane and let go. She died in 1931 at about the age of seventy and was buried at the village cemetery in Bolshoye Cherevatoye,