1,264
edits
Changes
→Biography
Matushka Eugenia Rymarenko was the daughter of prominent landowners in the province of Poltava. She studied in St. Petersburg and later transferred to Moscow. She had slowly moved away from the Church but after the death of her parents and her experiences connected with the Revolution she returned to the city of Romny, in the province of Poltava. There she met her future husband who had given her several religious books and inspired her to go to Optina. In recalling her first visit to Optina Monastery, she said:
<blockquote>
“Why I went to Fr. Anatoly at that time, I do not know. I had almost no understanding of eldership. I had only read Lodyzensky’s Trilogy: Higher Consciousness, Light Invisible and Dark Forces and [[w:Sergei Nilus|Sergei Nilus]]’ book On the Bank of God’s River. Actually I wanted to visit the elder in order to get a look at him and hear from him some prediction of the future… Instead of a prediction of the future, I experienced joyful moments of repentance, and an unusual, peaceful state of mind and submission to the will of God. I was so won over by Batyushka that later, it was enough just to think of him in order to acquire a peaceful, bright state of mind.”
</blockquote>
He describes his first meeting with the Elder thusly:
