Nun Barbara and Nun Veronika

May 19 - 37 years ago today the nuns Barbara (Vasilenko) /23.05.1915 - 19.05.1983/ and Veronika (Vasilenko) /1940 - 19.05.1983/, mother and daughter, were murdered in the Monastery of Gornya in Jerusalem.

The famous Russian writer Vladimir Krupin wrote in one of his essays about Gornaya Monastery: "And yet the monastery is invisibly guarded by the nuns who have died here and are devoted to the local dry land. Especially revered is the grave of two nuns, mother and daughter, Veronica and Barbara. A golden lamp is always lit on their grave. They are martyrs of our time. They were brutally murdered not long ago. By whom? Satan's servants.

In 1957 they became nuns of the Riga nunnery. In 1960 they were tonsured with the name Barbara, and her daughter was blessed with the monastic tonsure.

In the same year they were sent along with other sisters to serve in monastic tonsure at the Hornensky monastery near Jerusalem for three years.

After returning to their homeland in 1963, they continued to serve in the monasteries of Riga and the Transfiguration Hermitage near Riga. Here her daughter was also tonsured with the name Veronica.

In 1965 the starets Archimandrite Kosma (Smirnov) /† May 15, 1968, during their visit to the Spaso-Preobrazhenskaya Hermitage in Riga, warned them: "You will be killed there." After the departure of the mothers to Jerusalem, the elder was very sad. After 18 years, his sorrowful prediction came true.

Nuns Barbara and Veronica were diligent toilers and zealous prayer warriors. They fulfilled the obediences entrusted to them with great responsibility.

The years that the Lord blessed them to spend in Jerusalem were devoted to prayer, choir singing, and the study of God's word, as well as to economic work for the needs of the monastery and the Russian Spiritual Mission to the Holy Land.

Mother Barbara and Mother Veronica lived at the top of the mountain, one might say on the outskirts of Gornyi. In the mornings the light would come on early in their cell, they were getting ready for service, reading the rule.

Or in the evening you could see the door in the lower floor of the monastery open, Mother Veronica standing outside, reading aloud, and Mother Barbara doing something.

Mother Barbara is always silent, quiet, very friendly, with a constant smile on her face. Once tall and statuesque, after a spinal operation badly bent, she never left her daughter unsupervised. Veronica's mother would stop to talk to someone, come up to listen to what was being said, and if something was not serious, she would call: "Veronica, come here.

The Head of the Mission recalled Veronica's mother: "Surprisingly, of all the sisters who worked in the mission, she never objected to me, she listened silently and did not enter into an argument.

If you read the canon on the feast day, Mother Veronica was a wonderful reader. And a talented regent. To this day, the sisters remember how easily, with a special movement, her hand flew up at the end of the musical phrase.

Mother Veronica knew Hebrew, a little Arabic, and Greek, for which she was greatly respected by the local population.

If there was any misunderstanding, Mother Veronica would freely explain herself to the police. For example, once in Gorny someone set fire to gas cylinders, but they did not explode under God's miraculous cover, but only burned, which surprised and puzzled the visiting police and the press.

Had there been an explosion, it would have damaged not only the refectory, but also the church and nearby houses. "Yes, God is with you!" - said one of the policemen to Mother Veronica, who was explaining to them how everything happened.

Mother Abbess loved that on the day the icon of the Annunciation came to the monastery, Mother Barbara and Mother Veronica carried it. That was how they were remembered in the last year of their lives - with the icon of the Mother of God in front of the Temple.

They spoke anxiously of each other: "What will I do if Mother dies first!" or "What will I do if Veronica dies before me?!" And God let them die together.

It remains in the memory of the sisters that shortly before she died, the mothers somehow became especially zealous to go to church and to the Holy Sepulchre. "Veronica would come to the Tomb, stand in front of the Holy Sepulchre, and pray and pray," the sisters recalled.

They say that even before their tragic death, Mother Barbara and Mother Veronica were praying and wanted to receive holy communion in Gethsemane, but they received the communion of eternal life.

They had a presentiment of their near death, only they did not know how it would be. Their souls trembled and mysteriously prepared for something new.

Mother Veronica was offered the abbacy, but she shied away from earthly glory and power in every way, citing her failing health. When she was humiliated, she always "humbled herself" and remained silent.

After their deaths, Mother Veronica was seen in dreams in her abbess' garb, in her abbess' chair. She looked into with care the meals, the church and the sisters.

After the Litya over the martyrs, the priest said, "Yes, she is now an abbess in heaven."

Mother Veronica herself had extraordinary dreams. It is as if she enters a rich shop, and there is so much stuff there that she asks in amazement: "Who is the owner of the store?" and she hears the answer, "It's all Veronica's."

Or she dreamed about the icon corner and the crucifix - as if the Savior on the cross were alive.

And there was also a dream that the revered Mother of God walked out of the Gorny Temple during the service, and Veronica's mother followed her.

Before the end, the Lord gave them bodily infirmity: both fell ill with the flu, suffered bodily pain, and became weak.

On the morning of May 20, 1983, the sisters, disturbed by their absence from church services, discovered their lifeless bodies, strewn on the floor, covered in blood, in their cells.

The police were able to find the murderer, who turned out to be a Satanist who lived nearby. The dagger with three sixes and other circumstances of the case resemble like two drops of water another ritual atrocity that rocked the entire Orthodox world in the Optina Hermitage on Easter of 1993.

Ten years later, the murderer did not deny it, but told openly that his "god," Satan, had appeared to him and simply ordered him to do it. Whether he was a loner or belonged to a cult was never made clear. A court declared him mentally insane, and the authorities deported him from Israel to the United States.

Barbara died immediately, and Veronica was in agony; nine stab wounds were found on her body. In a dream vision, after the martyrs had already been buried, the sisters saw Barbara on the top of a high mountain in white shining clothes, and Veronica was climbing the steep slopes, falling and not able to get to the top.

And it was revealed to the sisters that this was because Barbara immediately and uncomplainingly accepted death, while Veronica clung to life, begged for mercy, and that was why it was so hard for her to climb to the top.

Day and night the sisters prayed for the poor martyr, and on the fortieth day it was revealed to one of them that Veronica had been absolved and was now with her holy mother in the glory of heaven. Now the martyrs pray for those who remain here on earth, and from the holy graves there are innumerable miracles and healings.

And one elder wrote in his letter to the Sisters of Gorno, "They are martyrs, happy are those who have laid their graveside."

The funeral of the martyrs turned into a solemn Christian celebration. Several bishops and many priests attended the funeral, and the prayers of the funeral service were sung with great hope in God's mercy for these martyrs.