Nun Maria Dobromyslova

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The author of the Life of Optina Elder Nikon was his devoted spiritual daughter, Nun Maria (in the world, Maria Semyonovna Dobromyslova). She was born in 1900 in Kozelsk. In 1917 Maria Semyonovna graduated the Kozelsk diocesan high school and became an elementary school teacher. When Optina became a museum in 1923, she moved there to work. There she lived, painting landscapes. Until 1927 she worked in the “Optina Hermitage Museum” as assistant director. When the museum was closed, a children’s home was organized in the skete, and Maria Semyonovna began to work there as a teacher. In 1934 she moved to Kaluga, where she remained to the end of her life. Soon after her move to Kaluga, Maria Semyonovna was secretly tonsured. St. Mary of Egypt became her heavenly protector. Those around her never guessed anything about this, and the outward life of the “desert-dweller in the world” took its normal course in the city, unnoticed by the atheist world. With her own hand, Maria Semyonovna copied and systematized the spiritual legacy of her elder and instructor, Hieromonk Nikon of Optina: his journal, letters, sermons, and talks. In 1965 she compiled his biography. She later rewrote it, correcting various errors, which are unavoidable in such a large work. On July 1, 1986, after a two-month illness, Maria Semyonovna Dobromyslova departed to the Lord.