Igumenia Evdokia Levshuk Biography

Igumenia Evdokia Levshuk: In the years, it was the turn of on March 21 on March 21 of the Saturday of the abbess Evdokia Levshuk, the abbess of the Polotsk Transbaso-Evfrosinievsky Monastery, recalls how, after the arrival of Metropolitan Filaret in Belarus, a monastic life began to revive. Mother, do you remember your first meeting with Vladyka Filaret? How old were you when you came to the monastery?

For the first time I began to ask for when I was 16, in the year. I often came to the monastery, I liked it so. It seemed that if I were put among the sisters, they tied a black scarf, they would allow me to sing, read, work - there would be no more happiness ... But then they did not accept it to the monastery. I studied, then worked for 3 years, and the time has come when, thanks to Vladyka, Filaret was allowed to take it in the monastery.

It was the beginning of the year. He arrived in Belarus at the end of the year, and at the beginning he agreed with the authorities, so that 3 people per year were allowed to accept in the Convent. Gradually formed a queue. At first, the sisters were designed as hired workers, after some time they were registered in the monastery, and new ones were designed to their jobs. I was accepted in August, and on April 6, to the Annunciation, I was registered and put on a cash.

In the year with God's help, I was accepted, in the year I got to the Lord in the diocesan house. There I learned everything: to wash and cook. The sisters were placed in the building of the closed seminary now this is the fraternal building. There were fewer brothers, only 15 people, they were already elderly and lived in a one -story building near the Yavlensky Temple. The main works on the monastery were done by sisters, the brothers served.

In the documents, we wrote: "Grodno female holy-denial-monastery, in the wen." And here, in Polotsk, at that time only a small Savior-Preobrazhensky temple acted, he was parish. There was a cancer with the relics of the Monk. Many sisters who lived in Polotsk remained there for the sake of relics. They lived with someone in the apartment, and someone managed to buy a small house.

They looked after the relics, prayed, read, were like psalmers, cleaned the temple. The relics from the year, when the reverend returned to Polotsk, were constantly under the supervision of sisters. Even in those two decades, when they were in the Vitebsk Museum: the sisters were settled to work there as cleaners. When did the revival of monastic life in Polotsk began? Since the year, the headman of the Transfiguration parish was the servant of God Tatyana Nikodimovna Khrapovitskaya, later the nun Taisiy, who put a lot of efforts to revive the Polotsk monastery.

Our monastery was supposed to become a tourist complex: the Crusader Cathedral - the Planetarium, the Preobrazhensky Temple - the Museum, the Monastery Corps - the hotel. Tatyana Nikodimovna, becoming the headman, began to achieve the opening of the monastery. She waged a heavy struggle for the monastery. A commission came from Leningrad, but they could not do anything either.

Go and continue your business. He directed her and gave advice. At what these trips were well conspired, because they followed her. At first she was traveling to her father John the Krestyankin, in the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery. She spoke with him, then went out, changed clothes and, going out through other doors, went to the Lord Filaret, discussed further actions with him, received a blessing and returned to Polotsk.

They connected the people. People wrote letters, collected signatures. In the year, a meeting was held at the city executive committee, at which the monastery was defended. Was there a difficult time? When we moved, and the territory of the monastery remained two corps in which worldly people lived. And we lived in the same building with them - in the brown building, near the arch. In a small room they lived in the sisters.

I said then that good hosts have more order in the barn than in this case: there was nothing to water, no heating, no sewage. The stoves drowned. And the other corps was completely populated by strangers. Gradually, the state allocated their apartments to them, and they left. Then we began to engage in repair. Mother, tell me, how did you decide on the revival of the reverend crayfish?

The monastery barely made ends meet, and it was still necessary to make the repair of the buildings. Naturally, this was not affordable for us. We did not have sponsors who would provide regular assistance. Single donations were from the one whom the Lord directed. But once Natalya Fyodorovna Ostrovskaya came to us on an excursion. We introduced her to Vladyka Filaret, and he - with Nikolai Petrovich Kuzmich, who restored the cross.

The decision to recreate crayfish was made on the Holy Synod. Then Vladyka Filaret turned to the name of our president, because the reconstruction of the crayfish required kg of silver, and we, without the permission of the head of state, have no right to use precious metals in such quantities. But in the end, the state’s assistance turned out to be much more significant.

Natalya Fedorovna paid the first fee to the layout, then on a tree, which became the basis for silver crayfish, but could no longer help in acquiring silver. She told us about this.But so much has already been done ... And now Vladyka Filaret turned to A. Lukashenko with a request to highlight the kg of silver to recreate crayfish of the Monk Euphrosyne. We sent a request to the presidential administration with a detailed description of the crayfish, its history.

After some time, the head of state gave his resolution: to single out the kg of silver to recreate crayfish of the Monk Euphrosyne Polotsk. But there was a different difficulty. And again, Vladyka turned to the president: with a request to roll silver. The resolution was obtained again, and the silver rolled out. Then the Holy Synod was convened and Metropolitan Filaret asked that every lord from his diocese would make a contribution to the manufacture of crayfish.

And, of course, the people connected. People made voluntary donations. As a result of all this great work, cancer was done for the relics, the whole people took part in the creation of Kotroy. Mother Evdokia, in your opinion, what is the point of the revival of such shrines as cancer of the Monk? Why was all this done? And I believe that this cancer was arranged in provision precisely in order for all of us, taking part in its creation, to restore the Monk to petition for us, about our country before God, so that they go righteous.

After all, the meaning of life on earth is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. What do you wish him these days? So that the Lord strengthen his health and extend the days of his life. The priest Alexander Kuit spoke.