“God Has Given Me Everything”. In Memoriam: Nun Dosithea (Verzhblovskaya)

Nun Dosithea (Verzhblovskaya). The 1940s

Nun Dosithea (secular name: Elena Vladimirovna Verzhblovskaya) was born in 1904 in the city of Kaunas in what is now Lithuania (according to some sources: in Voronezh in the south of Russia) into a family of doctors. Although she grew up in an atheistic Jewish family, from the age of six she felt drawn to the Orthodox faith and was baptized in 1941.

She was married to Igor Konstantinovich Romanovich, a literary translator. The couple was called twins because they looked alike—it seemed as though they “had one soul and one heart.”

On November 2, 1937, both were arrested. Igor Konstantinovich was arrested for translating texts by English writers, and Elena Vladimirovna, for “failing to inform on her husband who was translating a book that could not help build the city of Magnitogorsk.” She was charged with “participating in a fascist organization.” Despite being tortured during interrogations, she did not plead guilty. Sentenced to eight years in corrective labor camps, Elena Vladimirovna was sent to the Svobodny (“Free”) camp in Russia’s Far East. Her husband was sent to a camp near Rybinsk in the Yaroslavl region.

Schema-Abbess Maria (Gorbatova) While in the camps, she worked as a typist. In early 1940, she was unexpectedly released ahead of schedule. In 1943, Elena Vladimirovna managed to reach the camp where her husband was being held, only to find out that he had died in the camp two weeks earlier. It was a massive shock to her.

Her spiritual quest brought her to the secret convent of Zagorsk (Sergiev Posad), where in 1946 she took secret monastic vows, becoming a nun in the world with the name Dosithea. For eighteen years she was under the obedience of the true ascetic, Schema-Abbess Maria (Gorbatova; †08/16/1961). For the final ten years of her life, she was bedridden and blind. She was buried at the Novaya Derevnya cemetery in the town of Pushkino near Moscow.

She is the author of several books, including thae book of autobiographical stories, The Twin (Moscow: M. Rudomino Center, 2009).

From Nun Dosithea’s Reminiscences

I went with Father Peter to Zagorsk and stepped across the threshold of this little house. And I immediately found myself in a completely different world. It seemed that I was in the books of the writer Pavel Melnikov-Pechersky. A little house, low rooms, painted floors, a special smell of honey, wax, and burning icon lamps. And everything about it was amazing—the manner of speaking and greeting. “Bless me… Forgive me…” was heard all the time.

The house where the convent headed by Schema-Abbess Maria was located. Sergiev Posad, 28 Kustarnaya Street. Photo by S. Bessmertny

When we entered the little house, an old woman of short stature, unremarkable at first glance, came out to meet us. She silently and somehow quietly listened to Father Peter’s respectful introductory words: “Mother, I’ve brought my spiritual daughter... Please do not refuse, receive her, talk to her...” etc., etc. She glanced at me sideways, a look that seemed to pierce right through me—I felt it physically! They were small gray eyes, but with such a power. She drawled with a somewhat ironic intonation:

“Are you educated?”

“Yes,” I replied openly and obediently.

“Are you really going to obey me, an uneducated fool?”

“I will,” I answered resolutely.

“Will you obey me?”

“I will,” I repeated.

“Well then,” the eldress said. “We’ll see.”

Life in the small community in Zagorsk was absolutely extraordinary. It was an island amid the general life of Soviet Russia of that time. And it was impossible not to feel this. There was a special combination of the life of “everyday” late-nineteenth-century monasticism and, at the same time, a deeply mystical and intimate life, organically connected with the first centuries of Christianity, when there was no division of Churches—from the beginning to the fourth century—and later when the famous books of the Philokalia were compiled. It was as if two lives were running parallel in our small community: on the one hand, daily life, full of humor and mischief, funny and sometimes simply childish; and on the other hand, prayer and a mystical connection with the unseen realm, which felt especially close through the eldress.

Mother Maria had disciples who were typical nuns. Each of them, staying with her longer, naturally strove to please her as much as possible. Therefore, there was a competition between them; from my point of view, not very kind. For instance, the command: “Put the samovar on!” Mother Maria demanded that everything be done as quickly as possible, and this was quite difficult; it was wartime—no electricity and no kerosene. We would get up early, before dawn, and to cook food we used the stubs of church candles.

Many funny things also happened in daily life there. One day, Mother Maria told me, “Wash and cook the pasta!” She said it absent-mindedly. But I already realized how important obedience without reasoning was for me. From the Lives of the saints, I knew how St. John Damascene planted cabbages upside down out of obedience. And so, following his example, I decided to do the same. I knew, of course, that you do not wash pasta. And yet I washed it carefully, cooked it, and ended up with a large slimy lump. The food was ruined, and Mother Maria looked at me so expressively that I clearly heard her thought: “What can you expect from this educated fool? What do they understand about such things?” But I understood everything and did it on purpose. Behind these seemingly absurd commands lies the depth of obedience put into real practice. I believe that blind obedience is needed as training for cutting off your ego, mind and will.

During those two weeks, I learned a lot from the eldress.

Sometimes Mother Maria was hot and quick-tempered. Then she would tell us, “You are good for nothing! And yet you won’t go to hell. The demons are ready to drag you to hell, such scoundrels. But the Mother of God will say, ‘Don’t touch them! They are truly like swine, but they are My swine. Don’t touch them!..’ You will not go to hell—the Mother of God will not allow it.”

A special method of “education” was used by Mother Maria, in which I took part. Sometimes, a guest from the “nobility” would come to visit us. Mother Maria would call me and say, “Listen, I am going to call you now and scold you. But know that I am not scolding you, but her—let her listen. She is oversensitive; you can’t tell her to her face, as she will not bear it. But you just bow and say, ‘Forgive me, Mother,’ while remaining calm inside—It’s not you that I’m scolding, but her.”

Sometimes I would say, “Mother, I don’t have time to do this… I don’t have the strength…” She always answered me with a smile: “I don’t want you to have time… So that you won’t think you can manage… That’s right: You don’t have time, and yet you have to do it anyway.”

Nun Dosithea (Verzhblovskaya). 1979 I was a novice for three years. In 1946, Mother Maria decided it was time for me to be tonsured. She requested a blessing by letter from Father Jonah and asked also about Maren. She wanted Maren to be tonsured as well. The reply came back that I was blessed to be tonsured, and Maren—to remain in the world. There was no blessing for Maren’s tonsure.

Shortly after Father Jonah’s letter, I was tonsured into the riassaphore and given a new name.

During my tonsure, she told Archimandrite Joseph, “From now on, her name will be Dosithea.” The Archimandrite objected, “Mother, why are you changing her name, and to such a name? It will be very hard for her.” “No. That is my wish,” Mother Maria said firmly. Turning to me, she added, “Now, when you receive Communion, give only this name.” I never broke her orders, and I had a lot of trouble with this name at that time—because we don’t have such a female name, and if I say that my name is Dosithea, it is absolutely clear that I am a nun. But we were secret nuns, we were hiding, we were being persecuted, and therefore we couldn’t reveal our identity in any way. And then when we, by the order of our ruling hierarch, Vladyka (the future hieroconfessor) Athanasius (Sakharov), rejoined the official Church (the Moscow Patriarchate), I experienced many complications because of my monastic name. But I was afraid to violate Mother Maria’s word.

She always called our Soviet government “razboynichki”, or “little robbers” (a diminutive and affectionate form of “robbers” in Russian), and in a way that sounded almost tender. Because she did not know how to truly judge or be angry; the love with which she loved all people, as Christ commanded, conquered everything.

Once I said to her, “Mother, I’m worried—I work without identification documents, and when I grow old, I will have no pension. How will I live when I cannot work?” Mother Maria looked at me mockingly and said, “What?! From whom are you expecting a pension? From the little robbers?” And she raised her hand and pointed to heaven: “Here is your pension for you! He is the One Who will give you a pension! God will provide you with everything! What are you thinking? What can the little robbers give you?” She said it to me so convincingly that I stopped thinking about a pension. And she proved to be right: God has given me everything.

We prayed in the “catacombs,” but then, when the churches of the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra opened and a mass of people rushed there, we merged with these crowds; we did not dare to separate ourselves from them and doubt. We did not speculate or philosophize, but took the changes around us for granted and submitted with joy, considering it to be God’s will. And what disagreements could there be as we stood near the relics of St. Sergius of Radonezh? He called us and we went; besides, none of our catacomb pastors remained by our side by then. I want to say that the Church that remained in hiding is the same Church as it is now. It is part of the Church. After all, the persecuted Church was founded by the holy martyrs, the clergy of those terrible years, about whose earthly destinies it is now unbearably painful to even think and speak.

Mainly from: Those Who Suffered for Christ on the Radonezh Land During the Years of Persecution and Repression of the Twentieth Century. Commemoration Book with Brief Biographical Information, Compiled by Hieromonk Pafnuty (Fokin) (Sergiev Posad: Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra, 2022). 2:125–126.