September 25/October 8

These events took place at the dawning of Christianity in Byzantium. Let us now take ourselves back into recent history, to Russia in the 1730s.

After the reign of Peter, times were difficult for people who were monastics. In those days, there lived an aristocratic girl named Darya. She spent several of her childhood years being instructed by her grandmother at the monastery. Upon returning to her parents’ home, Darya no longer wanted to pursue the secular, aristocratic way of life, and she struggled to become pious. At the age of 15, fearing that she would be given in marriage and that her striving after God would be extinguished, Darya secretly left her family.

Fearing that she would be found and forcibly returned, the spiritual struggler followed the example shown by holy Byzantine monastic women and took up her struggle "in the guise of a man." She bought peasant clothing, cut off her hair, and called herself the fugitive serf Dositheus. Her deep voice and emaciated, sunburned face made it impossible to recognize that "Dositheus" was a girl. For three years, she struggled at the Holy Trinity – St. Sergius Lavra. On one occasion, Darya’s relatives came to the Monastery and recognized the refugee, but she immediately hid from them and departed for Kiev. There, on the Kitaevsky Hill, the spiritual struggler carved out a separate cave for herself, and moved in.

In but a few years, Elder Dositheus' austere way of life in the desert and his prophesying (one could converse with the spiritual struggler through a little window in the cave) attracted the world’s attention. In 1744, Empress Elizaveta Petrovna visited the "Kitaev elder." He made such an impression on her that for several days thereafter, she declined to attend balls, and remained in prayer. All the while, the 35 year old sovereign did not guess that this insight into spiritual life had been given to her by a 23 year old maiden. Many years later, Venerable St. Dositheus of Kitaev received the blessing to go to the Sarov monastery of the future great elder, Venerable St. Seraphim.

In his will, "Elder Dositheus" directed that his body be committed to the earth without being washed, and the Kitaev brethren followed his instructions. It was only through the persistent efforts made by Venerable St. Dositheus’ sister (spending her entire life in search of the lost Darya) to find her, that everyone learned of the Eldress’ secret.