Mother of Everyone

"There is something in war that makes people listen — not all, but many — and suddenly, amidst the roar of cannons, the rattle of machine guns, the groaning of the wounded, they hear something else, they hear the distant, warning trumpet of the archangel.

"We know the results of great wars: essentially they even out the losses of the victors and the vanquished, they let blood from both sides. Statistics count up the numbers of dead and wounded in tens and hundreds of thousands, if not millions; statistics tell us of incredible material impoverishment, of billions blown up in the air, sent to the bottom of the sea, burned, destroyed, annihilated.

"There is also, in a sense, a more terrible phenomenon, which cannot be accounted for by statistics: it is the brutalization of nations, the lowering of the cultural level, the loss of creative ability — the decadence of souls. Every war throws the whole of mankind back. . . .

"And yet, . . . while maintaining the truth of all these arguments, I still say with full conviction that there is something in war that constitutes our only chance, as it were, in mankind's current situation. That does not mean that we should want it. But, once it has broken out, it should be made use of. I think that now, as war spontaneously overtakes nation after nation and it is hard to foresee who else will be drawn into it, and generally hard to foresee anything in the political, diplomatic, economic, and even purely military sphere, there is one sphere in which there is nothing to foresee — it is all so clear. This is the sphere of the human spirit.

"The war demands of us, more than ever, that we mobilize absolutely all our spiritual powers and abilities. . . . In our time Christ and the life-giving Holy Spirit demand the whole person. The only difference from state mobilization is that the state enforces mobilization, while our faith waits for volunteers. And, in my view, the destiny of mankind depends on whether these volunteers exist and, if they do, how great their energy is, how ready they are for sacrifice."

"In fact, war is the wing of death spread over the world, war is for thousands and thousands of people an open gate to eternity, war is the collapse of philistine order, coziness, and stability. War is a call, war is an insight."

~ Born in 1891 in Riga, Latvia, Elizaveta Pilenko, the future Mother Maria, became a promising poet, a gifted amateur painter, a theological student in St. Petersburg, and a mayor all before becoming an Orthodox nun in 1932. Following the death of one of her children, she felt obliged to "become the mother of everyone." This desire to empty herself in service of others was at the core of her vision of the monastery in the world. Mother Maria saw each person as "the every icon of God incarnate in the world." She believed that one who is materially poor can be a treasure source of gifts.

"When the Nazis took Paris in World War II, Jews soon approached the house asking for baptismal certificates, which Father Dimitri would provide them. Many Jews came to stay with them. They provided shelter and helped many escape. Eventually the house was closed down. Mother Maria, Fr. Dimitri, Yuri, and Sophia were all taken by the Gestapo. Mother Maria was sent to the camp in Ravensbrück, Germany. On Holy Saturday, 1945, Mother Maria was taken to the gas chamber and entered eternal life. It is suggested that she took the place of another who had been selected for that death."
~ Wikipedia