The oldest sister of our monastery, nun Georgia (Glafira Nikitichna Yarutina) turns 90

Mother Georgia

Mother Georgia comes from Sokolovo village of the Kamensk-Uralsky district. This is where she has spent all of her life with the exception of the several years of forced flight from the state persecutions in the years of the dispossession of kulaks. The large family where Glafira was the oldest daughter went to Altay, having been left without a roof over their heads. All of the adults in the family, including the 16-year-old Granya, had to go without food, giving the little they were able to get to the four children. In the villages of Altay where the family had to wander, young Glafira, ready for any work, on many occasions surprised the villagers with her ability to sew clothes and prepare dishes of which they never heard about. Through her labor the young woman helped her family to survive.

Having returned home, Granya did not go to kolkhoz; she worked at the railroad station, on the mill, pressed the felt boots at a factory where she was considered a pace-maker, then worked as a nurse in the hospital of Maminskoe village where she was also greatly respected for her diligence. After work she would often run to Shilovo where several nuns resided after the closing of monasteries. Glafira Nikitichna took care of them until their last breath.

Fr. Ignatius (Kevroletin) (holy confessor John of Verkhoturye) was close to the Yarutins family. Shortly before his death, he blessed Glafira for future monasticism. She took on monastic vows in 1972 from schem-archimandrite Amvrosy (Balabanovsky), now a glorified saint. There were two other holy people with whom mother Georgia's life came in contact. In her very early childhood she used to meet with a schema-nun Evfrosinia (Mezenova), her distant relative, whose grave mother Georgia looked after her whole life. After the war, the house of the Yarutins frequently extended hospitality to hermit Antonia (schema-nun Arsenia) (Sycheva) - the confessor of Orthodox faith.

To our monastery nun Georgia came in 1997. Her tireless hands have never remained idle here either: she knitted more than a hundred hats, mittens, and socks for the sisters. Today the main obedience of the respected nun is prayer.