People’s veneration of St. Matrona is best answer to skeptics—Patriarch Kirill

Moscow, May 3, 2017

Photo: Vidania.ru

The life of the Orthodox Church “has never stopped” throughout history, as evidenced, in particular, by the example of St. Matrona of Moscow and her veneration amongst the people, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow stated after celebrating the Divine Liturgy at Pokrov Monastery where St. Matrona’s relics are kept, on the 65th anniversary of the death of this revered Russian saint, reports RIA-Novosti.

“By the example of St. Matrona, we can feel… why the life of the Church has never been broken in history—no matter how she was defamed, no matter how she was driven out, no matter how they represented everything the Church does as some kind of superstition and the result of ignorance and little awareness of scientific matters,” His Holiness said.

These arguments, he added, are “constantly thrown at the Church,” “And what? Ask those standing in this long line to St. Matrona: ‘Do these words mean anything to you?’ No, because their faith is based not on words, but on a real experience of the presence of God, and the miracles of God, which the power of the Holy Spirit, through people both dead and alive, pours out upon mankind,” the primate declared.

His Holiness also commented on St. Matrona’s immense popularity, reports Interfax-Religion.

“To whom of those great, and powerful and glorious do so many people come every day, as they come to the blind eldress Matrona, who laid in bed all her life? There is not one world ruler who receives such a daily pilgrimage of thousands of people; no one stands all night to touch their tombs!”

There is no real connection with worldly heroes, the patriarch continued, “but a real connection is preserved with the saints; the saints are present in our lives.”

According to Pokrov Monastery abbess, Igumena Theophania (Miskina), between one and five thousand people visit the convent daily from throughout Russia and the whole world to stand sometimes for hours to venerate the relics of the beloved St. Matrona.