Pokrovsky Women's Monastery , where today there are the relics of the blessed Saint Matrona of Moscow , the Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich founded in 1635. Initially, the monastery was a man's and was built in memory of Patriarch Filaret. Later, in 1655, the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Virgin was founded on the territory of the monastery. Many buildings for a long history were destroyed and ruined, but eventually rebuilt again. During the reign of Soviet power, the church of St. Matrona in Moscow was closed, and the building of the monastery was given to the printing press and the editorial office of the magazine. Only in 1994 the Pokrovsky Monastery was again given to the Russian Orthodox Church and resumed its work already as a female monastic monastery. In the spring of 1998, the relics of Matrona Dmitrievna Nikonova, who was canonized as a local saint a year later, and the church in 2004, were brought to the temple.
Since then, the church of St. Matrons in Moscow daily line up a huge line of pilgrims who want to repent and ask the holy most cherished for themselves and for their loved ones.
Biography of Saint Matrona of Moscow
Matrona Nikonova was born in 1881 in a small village of Sebino, Tula region. She was the youngest of four children in the family and was born blind. From the thought of leaving a blind newborn daughter in a shelter, the mother of the girl saved an unusual prophetic dream in which a blind white bird appeared to the woman. Matrona since the early childhood showed healing abilities and began to treat people. But by the age of majority the girl was expecting another attack - she lost the opportunity to walk. However, this did not prevent her and her friend from visiting many holy places in the young years. After the revolution, Matrona settled in Moscow in the Arbat area, and spent her last years in the village of Skhodnya, Moscow Region, where she literally took all the people who came to her to the last days of her life. Matron died on May 2, 1952 and was buried in the Danilov cemetery. Her grave for many years was a place of national pilgrimage and only in 1998 the relics of Mother Matrona were transferred to the Intercession Church in Moscow.
There is a legend described in the books about the life of the saint, that Joseph Stalin came to the matron for advice when the question arose of the threat of the capture of Moscow by the Germans. According to the legend, the saint predicted to him that victory would remain for the Russian people. This scene is depicted in the painting "Matrona and Stalin" by the icon painter Ilya Pivnik. However, there is no evidence of this event or real evidence.
It is worth mentioning that there is one more canonized holy Matrona of Anemniasieva, who in Moscow at the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, that in Vladykino, in 2013, a chapel was built. These two namesakes both had a unique gift for healing people, but, in addition, they had the same physical ailments: blindness and inability to walk.
How to get to Pokrovsky Monastery?
On the map of Moscow, the Matrona temple is located approximately at the same distance from the metro stations "Taganskaya", "Marxist", "Proletarskaya" and "Peasant Zastava." On foot from these stations the road will take 15-20 minutes. A bit closer from the metro station "Proletarskaya", moving along Abelmanovskaya street to the women's Pokrovsky monastery. You can also get by public transport (bus or trolleybus), passing one stop.
The address in Moscow, on which the Matrona Moskovskaya temple is located: Taganskaya street, 58. Monday to Friday, the entrance to the monastery for parishioners is open from 7:00 to 20:00, on Sundays from 6:00 to 20:00.
