Venerable Kuksha - Odessa miracle worker - Wanderer - LiveJournal. Venerable Kuksha of Odessa: life, miracles, prayers Kuksha of Odessa helps with what

The Monk Kuksha was born on January 12 (25 AD), 1875, in the village of Arbuzinka, Kherson region, Nikolaev province, to pious parents Cyril and Kharitina, and was named Cosma in holy baptism. Kosma was born and grew up in those distant times when the Orthodox people went on foot on pilgrimage to the Kiev-Pechersk saints, and to the Lavra of St. Sergius of Radonezh, and to the far north - to the Valaam and Solovetsky monasteries, and to worship at the Holy Sepulcher in the Holy Land .
In those days, there was also a pious custom: if one of the children devoted himself to monastic life, the parents considered this a special honor, it was a sign of God’s special mercy. Kosma's mother Kharitina in her youth wanted to be a nun, but her parents blessed her for marriage. Kharitina prayed to God that at least one of her children would be worthy of asceticism in the monastic rite.
From an early age, Kosma loved prayer and solitude. Since his youth, the monk had compassion for people, especially the sick and suffering. For this, the enemy of human salvation took up arms against him all his life. The following event of his adolescence is known. Kosma had a cousin who was possessed by an evil spirit. Kosma went with him to an old man who was casting out demons. The elder healed the young man, and Cosme said: “Just because you brought him to me, the enemy will take revenge on you - you will be persecuted all your life.” The whole life of the saint was the fulfillment of this prophecy.
In 1895, Cosma went with pilgrims to the Holy Land. Having lived in Jerusalem for six months and examined all the holy places in Palestine, Cosmas, on his way back, visited the holy Mount Athos. Here he was especially inflamed with the desire to strive as a monk. The Queen of Heaven called him to Her earthly inheritance - Holy Athos - to serve God. However, first he had to return home and receive the blessing of his parents.
The mother accepted her son’s decision with joy and gratitude to God. The father had to be persuaded for a long time and tearfully begged, after which he let his son go with the words: “Let him go, God bless him!”
Guiding him on the road, Kharitina blessed Kosma with the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in a small old wooden icon case, with which the monk did not part throughout his life, and which was placed in his coffin after his death.
In 1896, Kosma arrived in Athos and entered the Russian St. Panteleimon Monastery as a novice. He zealously fulfilled the obedience of the prosphora man assigned to him by the abbot of the monastery.
In 1897, Kosma's mother Kharitina was heading on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. When the ship with travelers made a stop off the coast of Athos, Kharitina asked in writing the abbot of the monastery to bless her to visit the Holy Land and Kosme. The blessing was received - so the blessed mother, giving thanks to God, saw her son again.
In Jerusalem, two miraculous events happened to Kosma, which foreshadowed the future life of the saint.
When the travelers were at the Pool of Siloam, the following happened. Kosma was standing very close to the source, and someone accidentally touched him, and he suddenly fell into the water in his clothes. There was a custom for all pilgrims, especially barren women, to immerse themselves in the water of the Pool of Siloam. The Lord granted childbearing to the one who managed to plunge into the water first. People began to laugh, saying that now Kosma will have many children. But these words turned out to be prophetic, since the monk subsequently actually had many spiritual children.
When the pilgrims were in the Church of the Resurrection of Christ, they really wanted to be anointed with oil from the lamps that burned at the Holy Sepulcher. Then the Angel of the Lord, invisibly overturning the middle lamp, poured out all the oil on Kosma. People quickly surrounded Kosma and, collecting the oil flowing down his clothes with their hands, reverently anointed themselves with it. This event foreshadowed that subsequently the grace of God, abundantly resting on the monk, would be transmitted through him to people.
A year after these events, Kosma was sent for a year and a half to carry out obedience at the Holy Sepulcher in order of priority. Returning to Athos, Cosmas was assigned to serve as a hostel in a hospice for pilgrims, where he labored for 11 years. By diligently performing this obedience for such a long time, Cosmas acquired complacent patience and true humility.
Soon the novice Kosma was tonsured into the cassock with the name Konstantin, and on March 23, 1904 - into monasticism, and named Xenophon. Bringing His chosen one to spiritual perfection. The Lord prepares for Xenophon the lot of service to the suffering world. In 1912-1913 On Mount Athos, the so-called “name-worshipping” or “name-worshipping” heresy—the Troubles—arose for a very short time. Of course, Fr. Xenophon had nothing to do with this heresy, but the Greek authorities, fearing the spread of unrest, demanded the departure of many innocent Russian monks from Athos, including Fr. Xenophon.
In 1913, the Athonite monk Xenophon became a resident of the Kiev-Pechersk Holy Dormition Lavra. During the First World War, together with other monks, he was sent to the difficult obedience of a brother of mercy on a hospital train that ran along the Kyiv-Lviv line. At this time, rare spiritual qualities and virtues manifested themselves in him: patience, compassion and love in serving the seriously ill and wounded.
Upon returning to the Lavra, Fr. Xenophon carried out obedience in the Far Caves: he filled and lit lamps over the holy relics, dressed the holy relics, and monitored cleanliness and order. He really wanted to accept the schema, but he was refused because of his age.
Years have passed. At the age of 56, he unexpectedly fell seriously ill, as they thought, hopelessly. It was decided to immediately tonsure the dying man into the schema. On April 8, 1931, when he was tonsured into the schema, he was given the name of the Hieromartyr Kuksha, whose relics are in the Near Caves. After being tonsured, Father Kuksha began to recover and soon completely recovered - the Lord extended the days of his earthly life to serve people for their salvation.
April 3, 1934 Fr. Kuksha was ordained to the rank of hierodeacon, and on May 3 of the same year - to the rank of hieromonk. After the closure of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, the priest served until 1938 in Kyiv in the church on Voskresenskaya Slobodka. And in 1938, a difficult eight-year confessional feat began for Father Kuksha - as a “clergy minister” he was sentenced to 5 years in camps in the city of Vilma, Molotov region, and after serving this term - to 5 years of exile.
So at the age of 63, Fr. Kuksha ended up doing grueling logging work. In the spring of 1943, at the end of his prison term, on the feast of the Holy Great Martyr George the Victorious, Father Kuksha was released, and he went into exile in the Solikamsk region, to a village near the city of Kungur. Having taken a blessing from the bishop in Solikamsk, he often performed divine services in a neighboring village.
In 1947, after completing his eight-year confessional feat, Fr. Kuksha returned to the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, where he served as a candle maker in the Near Caves.
On about. Kuksha, skillful and experienced in spiritual life, who has sealed his loyalty to Christ through various trials, who has been purified by suffering sorrows, deprivations and persecutions, the Lord entrusts the feat of serving suffering humanity through the spiritual care of people - eldership.
The elder never condemned those who sinned or shunned them, but on the contrary, he always accepted them with compassion. He said: “I myself am a sinner and I love sinners. There is no person on earth who has not sinned. There is only one Lord without sin, and we are all sinners.” Confession was his main obedience all his life, and everyone sought to confess to him and receive soul-saving advice and edification.
The atheistic authorities were irritated and frightened by the life of the saint of God. He was constantly pursued and driven away by her. In 1951 Father Kuksha is transferred from Kyiv to the Pochaev Holy Dormition Lavra. The Most Holy Theotokos, whom the monk loved so much all his life, receives Her chosen one in the place where She miraculously appeared in ancient times.
And here, in Pochaev, hundreds of people stood in line to confess to him. The nation's love for the elder can be judged by the following event. Kuksha, according to Athonite custom, wore only boots all his life. From long and many exploits he had deep venous wounds on his legs. One day, when he was standing at the miraculous icon of the Mother of God, a vein burst in his leg and his boot filled with blood. He was taken to his cell and put to bed. Hegumen Joseph (schema Amphilochius), famous for his healings, came, examined the leg and said: “Get ready, father, to go home,” i.e. die - and left. A week later, the abbot again came to Fr. Kukshe, examined the almost healed wound on his leg and exclaimed in amazement: “The spiritual children begged!”
At the end of April 1957, after a two-month stay in seclusion, which the hierarchy assigned to him “to improve his ascetic life and carry out the highest feat of schemata,” the elder was transferred to the Khreshchatytsky Monastery of St. John the Theologian of the Chernivtsi diocese during Holy Week of Great Lent.
It was very quiet and simple in the small St. John the Theologian Monastery. The arrival of Elder Kuksha to this monastery was beneficial for her - the spiritual life of the brethren came to life. Just as sheep rush after a shepherd, wherever he goes, so after the good shepherd, Elder Kuksha, spiritual children rushed here, to the quiet abode of the apostle of love, and behind them - the people of God. All day long, a line of pilgrims stretched along the mountain path - some up the mountain, others towards. Mainly with funds transferred to Fr. Kuksha, which he immediately donated to the monastery, increased the buildings in the monastery. He himself, despite his senile weakness, felt good here. He often repeated: “Here I am at home, here I am on Mount Athos! Down below the gardens are blooming like olive trees on Mount Athos. Athos is here!
But towards the end of his life, the elder again suffered much evil, sorrow and persecution from the atheistic authorities. The enemy of the human race does not tolerate the welfare and prosperity of the Holy Church. In the early 60s. A new wave of persecution of the Church begins: churches, monasteries, and theological schools are closed. The Holy Apostle Paul says that “all who want to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Tim. 3:12). The godless authorities were fiercely hated by the spiritual authority, universal veneration and popular love that Elder Kuksha possessed.
In 1960 The Chernivtsi convent was closed. The nuns were transferred to the St. John the Theological Monastery in Khreshchatyk, the monks were sent to the Pochaev Lavra, and Father Kuksha was sent to the Odessa Holy Dormition Monastery, where he spent the last 4 years of his suffering ascetic life. But “all things work out for good to those who love God” (Rom. 8:28). Thus, thanks to the priest’s movements to different monasteries, the sheep of Christ’s flock throughout the south of the country were cared for by the gracious elder.
In the Holy Dormition Monastery, Fr. Kuksha was assigned obedience to confess people and help remove particles from prosphoras during the proskomedia.
Despite the authorities’ ban on visiting the holy elder, people here were not deprived of his spiritual guidance. Father Kuksha was very loved by His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy I. Alexy I came to the Odessa monastery every year in the summer. The Patriarch always invited the gracious elder “for a cup of tea,” loved to talk with him, and asked him what it was like in Jerusalem and Mount Athos in the good old days.
Having gone through the earthly field, having endured all temptations, sighing from the depths of his soul: “Turn, my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has done good to you” (Ps. 114:6), the Venerable Kuksha reposed in the Lord on December 11 (24), 1964, in the villages “where all the righteous rest,” offering prayers there for all who resort to his prayerful intercession.
The image of Father Kuksha is close to the image of St. Seraphim of Sarov. Father Seraphim said to one of the monks: “Acquire a peaceful spirit, and then thousands will be saved around you.” Around Elder Kuksha, who acquired this “peaceful spirit,” thousands of people were truly saved, for spiritual peace with God is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul testifies to this, saying: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22,23).

Material prepared by Vera Sautkina

The connecting thread of Pravosaviya

Many people have encountered phenomena in their lives that convinced them that there is an invisible connection in the world that instantly connects people not only living in different parts of the earth, but also those who have already died and are in another world. For believers, this connection is obvious, and they know for sure that all their near and dear ones are connected by Orthodoxy. If any of them needs help, he knows that by turning with faith and hope to the Lord, he will receive help through good people, the shepherds of the Church and its saints, who work hard to realize this invisible connection of ours with God.
From time to time a new bright star rises in the church sky, another candle is supplied to the candlestick of Orthodoxy. We feel the special mercy of the Lord towards us when our connection with the saints is so close that people who personally knew them, communicated with them and received help from them hand-to-hand are still alive and well.
So in the St. Nicholas Church in the city of Pushkino, Moscow region, Father Alexy serves, who visited Elder Kuksha several times in Odessa. Father Kuksha had terrible wounds on his legs, and Father Alexy brought him healing and at that time very scarce sea buckthorn oil from Siberia. The wife of Fr. Alexia looked after the old man, changing the bandages on his legs and lubricating his wounds with oil. On their second date, Kuksha asked Fr. Alexia to pray for him after his death. Father Alexy was serving in Siberia at that time, and knowing how difficult it was at that time to communicate with him from Odessa, he was very surprised and asked how he would find out about his death. Kuksha replied that he would be informed. And indeed, despite the obstacles, Fr. Alexy knew everything immediately. Fulfilling the will of the priest, Fr. Alexy fervently prayed for Kuksha, who had reposed in the Lord.
For more than thirty years now, the Venerable Kuksha of Odessa (+1964) has been working diligently at the Throne of God, realizing the spiritual connection that is so necessary for all of us. Thanks to those spiritual children who are still alive here on earth, our communication is more visible and tangible.
The Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, at its meeting on October 4, 1994, having carefully studied the materials and evidence about the ascetic activity of Schema-Abbot Kuksha (Velichko), about the holiness of life and the long-term veneration of the elder by the people of God, presented by Metropolitan Agathangel of Odessa and Izmail, decided to canonize saints of the Orthodox Church, schema-abbot Kuksha (Velichko), who spent the last years of his life asceticizing in the Odessa Holy Dormition Monastery.
Father Kuksha is considered a locally revered saint, but for him the boundaries defined and contested here on earth no longer exist. He rushes to help where he is asked to do so.
Far from Odessa, near Moscow, Father Alexy is holding a funeral service for his only daughter, whose mother is dying of grief. No one knows each other and asks for nothing in particular. As if by chance, forty days after the death of her daughter, a mother from Pushkino ends up in the Odessa Holy Dormition Monastery at the grave of the then not yet famous Father Kuksha. And a miracle happened - the mother, who earnestly asked for her daughter, left the grave herself with peace settling in her soul for the first time. From that day on, her desire and strength to live on grew stronger...
Arriving home, she began to talk about Kuksha. These stories left a mark on the soul of the woman who buried her husband in Odessa. On her next visit to his grave, she decided to visit Father Kuksha. It so happened that she visited there after his glorification. Her legs ached seriously, her veins were swollen from thrombophlebitis, and she, completely exhausted, fell to the shrine with the holy relics and whispered: “Kuksha, help!” Only in Moscow, when she got off the platform and ran towards her son, she realized that she was healed: the tumor disappeared, the veins became normal, the pain went away! Then the woman did not yet know the life of Father Kuksha, who suffered seriously from thrombophlebitis... Having learned more about his life, she was able to tell others about the miracle that struck her consciousness.
The grain fell on the plowed ground. In the spring of 1996, Alla Aleksandrovna Shukshentseva, a singer at the St. Nicholas Church in Pushkino, again heard her story, as if by chance. A few days after hearing what she heard, a neighbor came to her in terrible grief - her husband had gangrene in his legs, amputation was inevitable. Alla Alexandrovna told her about Kuksha and his special mercy to those suffering from leg disease. Let's go to Fr. Alexy, who advised them to order a prayer service for Kuksha. Meanwhile, the patient had already been transferred to Moscow for surgery. Everything was ready for amputation, but doctors noticed that blood circulation began to be restored. “A miracle saved you,” this is what the doctors told the patient, who, of course, knew nothing about Kuksha or about the ordered prayer service. So Vladimir Ivanovich Makarov, through his believing wife, got the opportunity to walk again and enjoy life! Thus, the locally revered Ukrainian saint Kuksha, disregarding borders, helps both Ukrainians and Russians!
In the last year of the priest’s life, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy I blessed him to come to the Holy Trinity-Sergius Lavra for the feast of the discovery of the relics of St. Sergius of Radonezh. At the end of the festive Liturgy, when the priest left the Holy Trinity Church, he was surrounded on all sides, asking for blessings. He blessed people on all sides for a long time and humbly asked to let him go. But the people did not let the old man go. Only after a long time did he finally, with the help of other monks, hardly reach the cells.

Archive of the newspaper "Pyatnitskoye Compound"

Venerable Kuksha of Odessa
(1875-1964)

“Holiness is not just righteousness, for which the righteous are rewarded with the pleasure of bliss in the Kingdom of God, but such a height of righteousness that people are so filled with the grace of God that it flows from them to those who communicate with them. Great is their bliss, which comes from beholding the glory of God. Being filled with love for people, which comes from love for God, they are responsive to people’s needs and their prayers, and are also intercessors for them before God.”

Blessed John (Maksimovich)

The Monk Kuksha (Kosma Velichko) was born on January 12/25, 1875 in the village of Garbuzinka, Kherson district, Nikolaev province, into a large family of pious parents Kirill and Kharitina. His mother dreamed of becoming a nun in her youth, but at her parents’ insistence she got married. Kharitina fervently prayed to God, asking that one of her children would be worthy of asceticism in the monastic rite. By the grace of God, the youngest son, Kosma, from childhood with all his soul rushed to God; from an early age he fell in love with prayer and solitude, and in his free time he read St. Gospel.

In 1896, Kosma, having received his parents' blessing, retired to the holy Mount Athos, where he was accepted as a novice into the Russian monastery of the Holy Great Martyr Panteleimon.

In 1897, Kosma, having received the blessing of the abbot of the monastery, made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. In Jerusalem, when the pilgrims were at the Pool of Siloam, someone accidentally touched Cosmas, who was standing close to the source. The boy fell into the water first. Many barren women sought to enter the font among the first, because according to legend: the Lord granted childbearing to the one who was the first to immerse himself in the water. After this event, the pilgrims began to make fun of Cosmas, saying that he would have many children. These words turned out to be prophetic - Elder Kuksha subsequently indeed had many spiritual children.

Another significant event took place in the Church of the Resurrection of Christ: by God’s providence, the middle lamp was overturned on Kosma. All the believers wanted to be anointed with oil from the lamps that burned at the Holy Sepulcher; people surrounded the youth and, collecting the oil flowing down his clothes with their hands, reverently anointed themselves with it.

A year after returning from Jerusalem to Mount Athos, Kosma was lucky enough to visit the Holy Land again; he was honored to serve in obedience at the Holy Sepulcher for a year and a half. Soon the novice Kosma was tonsured into the ryassophore with the name Constantine, and on March 23, 1904, into monasticism, and named Xenophon. By God's providence, the youth had to spend 16 years learning the basics of monastic life in the monastery of the Holy Great Martyr Panteleimon, under the guidance of the spiritual mentor Elder Melchizedek, who labored as a hermit in the mountains. Subsequently, the ascetic recalled: “Until 12 at night in obedience, and at 1 o’clock in the morning he ran into the desert to the elder Melchizedek to learn to pray.”

One day, while standing at prayer, the elder and his spiritual son heard in the silence of the night the approach of a wedding procession: the clatter of horse hooves, playing the accordion, cheerful singing, laughter, whistling...

- Father, why is there a wedding here?

- These are guests coming, we need to meet them.

The elder took the cross, holy water, and rosary and, leaving the cell, sprinkled holy water around it. While reading the Epiphany troparion, he made the sign of the cross on all sides - it immediately became quiet, as if there was no noise at all.

Under his wise guidance, the monk Xenophon was honored to acquire all the monastic virtues and succeeded in spiritual work. Despite the fact that Xenophon was outwardly an illiterate person, he could barely read and write, he knew the Holy Gospel and the Psalter by heart, and performed church services from memory, never making a mistake.

In 1913, the Greek authorities demanded the departure of many Russian monks from Athos, including Fr. Xenophon. On the eve of departure Fr. Xenophon ran to his spiritual father:

- Father, I’m not going anywhere! I’ll lie down under a boat or under a stone and die here on Athos!

“No, child,” the elder objected, “God wants you to live in Russia, you need to save people there.” “Then he took him out of the cell and asked: “Do you want to see how the elements submit to man?”

- I want to, father.

- Then look. “The elder crossed the dark night sky, and it became light, crossed it again - it curled up like birch bark, and Fr. Xenophon saw the Lord in all glory and surrounded by a host of angels and all the saints, he covered his face with his hands, fell to the ground and shouted: “Father, I’m scared!”

After a moment the elder said:

- Get up, don't be afraid.

Father Kuksha rose from the ground - the sky was normal, the stars were still twinkling on it. The Divine consolation received before leaving Athos supported Fr. Xenophon.

In 1913, the Athonite monk Xenophon became a resident of the Kiev-Pechersk Holy Dormition Lavra. In 1914, during the First World War, Fr. Xenophon spent 10 months as a “brother of mercy” on the Kyiv-Lviv ambulance train, and upon returning to the Lavra, he carried out obedience in the Far Caves; he filled and lit lamps in front of the holy relics, re-clothed the holy relics...

From the memoirs of Elder Kuksha: “I really wanted to accept the schema, but due to my youth (in my early 40s) I was denied my desire. And then one night I re-veiled the relics in the Far Caves. Having reached the holy relics of the schema-monk Silouan, I changed them, took them in my arms and, kneeling in front of his shrine, began to fervently pray to him so that the saint of God would help me be worthy of tonsure into the schema.” And so, kneeling and holding the holy relics in his hands, he fell asleep in the morning.

Dream o. Xenophon’s dream came true a few years later: on April 8, 1931, the terminally ill ascetic was tonsured into the schema. When he was tonsured, he received the name Kuksha, in honor of the holy martyr Kuksha, whose relics are in the Near Caves. After tonsure Fr. Kuksha began to recover quickly and soon recovered.

On April 3, 1934, Father Kuksha was ordained to the rank of hierodeacon, and a month later to the rank of hieromonk. After the closure of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, Hieromonk Kuksha served until 1938 in Kyiv, in the church on Voskresenskaya Slobodka. It took great courage to serve as a priest at that time. In 1938, the ascetic was convicted, served a five-year sentence in the camps of Vilma, Molotov region, and then spent three years in exile. In the camps, convicts were forced to work 14 hours a day, receiving very meager food, to “fulfill the quota” at grueling logging work. The sixty-year-old hieromonk patiently and complacently endured camp life and tried to spiritually support the people around him.

The elder recalled: “It was on Easter. I was so weak and hungry, the wind was shaking. And the sun is shining, the birds are singing, the snow has already begun to melt. I walk through the zone along the barbed wire, I’m unbearably hungry, and behind the wire the cooks carry trays of pies on their heads from the kitchen to the dining room for the guards. Crows fly above them. I prayed: “Raven, raven, you fed the prophet Elijah in the desert, bring me a piece of pie too.” Suddenly I heard overhead: “Karrr!” and a pie fell at my feet; it was the raven who stole it from the cook’s baking sheet. I picked up the pie from the snow, thanked God with tears and satisfied my hunger.”

In the spring of 1943, at the end of his term of imprisonment, on the feast of the Holy Great Martyr George the Victorious, Hieromonk Kuksha was released, and he went into exile in the Solikamsk region. Having taken a blessing from the bishop in Solikamsk, he often performed divine services in a neighboring village.

In 1947, the time of exile ended, the eight-year feat of confession ended. Hieromonk Kuksha returned to the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, and here the feat of serving the suffering—elderhood—began. Elder Kuksha strengthens those of little faith, encourages those who grumble, softens the bitter, and through his prayer believers receive spiritual and physical healing. Just as half a century earlier in Jerusalem, pilgrims surrounded Cosmas and tried to take from his head and clothes the oil that miraculously poured out of the lamp in order to anoint them with it, so now an endless line of people walked to Elder Kuksha’s monastery, waiting for God’s help and grace.

Numerous testimonies have been preserved about miracles of healing through the prayer of Elder Kuksha; here are just a few of these testimonies:

Seriously ill A., who was about to have a malignant tumor that had appeared on her forehead removed, came to see the elder before the operation. Father Kuksha confessed the sick woman for a long time, then gave her communion and gave her a metal cross, which he ordered to press against the tumor all the time. The patient stayed in the monastery for 4 days, with the blessing of the elder, she took communion every day, and reverently pressed the cross to her forehead. Returning home, I discovered that half of the tumor had disappeared, leaving white empty skin in its place, and two weeks later the second half of the tumor also disappeared, the forehead turned white, cleared, and there were no traces of cancer left.

The elder healed one of his spiritual children from a mental illness that had tormented her for a month - in absentia, after reading her letter asking him to pray for her. After the elder received her letter, she became completely healthy.

Elder Kuksha had from God the gift of spiritual reasoning and discernment of thoughts. He was a great seer. Even the most intimate feelings were revealed to him, which people could hardly understand themselves, but he understood and explained who they were from and where they came from. Many came to him to tell about their sorrows and ask for advice, and he, without waiting for an explanation, already met them with the necessary answer and spiritual advice. The elder never condemned those who sinned or shunned them, but on the contrary, he always accepted them with compassion. He said: “I myself am a sinner and I love sinners. There is no person on earth who has not sinned. There is only one Lord without sin, and we are all sinners.”

In 1951, Father Kuksha was transferred from Kyiv to the Pochaev Holy Dormition Lavra. In Pochaev, the elder carried out obedience to the icon of the miraculous icon, when monks and pilgrims kissed it. Besides this, Fr. Kuksha was supposed to confess to people. He performed his duties with fatherly care for all those who came, lovingly exposing their vices, and warned against spiritual falls and impending troubles.

One day, a general, dressed in civilian clothes, arrived at the Pochaev Lavra and watched with curiosity as Art. Kuksha confesses. The elder called him over and talked with him for some time. The general walked away from the elder, very pale, extremely agitated and shocked, asking: “What kind of man is this? How does he know everything? He exposed my whole life!”

According to the testimony of his spiritual children, Elder Kuksha once called a man who had a wife and two children a hieromonk. Subsequently, after the death of his wife, the man devoted his life to serving the Lord, and a few years later he was ordained to the rank of hierodeacon, and then to the rank of hieromonk.

One woman asked Elder Kuksha to bless her daughter M. to get married, the seer replied: “M. will never get married!” The woman tried to explain that the newlyweds had everything ready for the wedding, all that was left was to sew the dress, and after Easter they would get married, but the elder confidently repeated: “M. will never get married.” A week before the wedding, M. suddenly began to have epileptic seizures (which had never happened to her before), and the frightened groom immediately went home. A few years later, M. became a monk with the name Galina, and her mother with the name Vasilisa.

Another pious girl asked the priest to bless her for monasticism, but the elder blessed her for marriage. He told her to go home, saying that a seminarian was waiting for her there. The elder’s prediction came true; the girl soon married a seminarian. The elder's spiritual daughter raised seven children and raised them in love for God.

One spiritual daughter of the elder said that she really wanted to know how Elder Kuksha felt during the Divine Liturgy:

“Once upon entering the Cave Temple, when Fr. Kuksha served the Divine Liturgy there, I immediately felt a strong closeness of my soul to God, as if there was no one around, but only God and me. Every exclamation about. Kukshi lifted my soul to “mountain” and filled it with such grace, as if I was standing in heaven in the face of God Himself. My soul felt childishly pure, unusually light, light and joyful. Not a single extraneous thought bothered me or distracted me from God. I was in this state until the end of the liturgy. After the liturgy, everyone was waiting for Fr. Kuksha will come out of the altar to take his blessing. I also approached my spiritual father. He blessed me and, firmly taking both my hands, led me along, carefully looking into my eyes with a smile, or rather, through my eyes into my soul, as if trying to see what state it was in after such a pure prayer. I realized that Father gave me the opportunity to experience the same holy bliss that he himself always experienced during the Divine Liturgy.”

From the memoirs of the elder’s spiritual daughter Kuksha:

Sometimes he blessed, placing both palms of his hands crosswise on my head, reading a prayer to himself, and I was filled with extraordinary joy and boundless love for God... I remained in this state for three days.

The elder advised everyone not to approach the Holy Chalice with money, so as not to “become like Judas,” and he forbade the priests to stand at the altar with money in their pockets and perform the Divine Liturgy.

Hundreds of people in the temple stood in line to see him. He received many in his cell, not sparing himself and spending whole days almost without rest, despite his advanced age and senile illnesses. According to Athonite custom, he wore only boots all his life. From long and many exploits he had deep venous wounds on his legs. One day, when he was standing at the miraculous icon of the Mother of God, a vein burst in his leg and his boot filled with blood. He was taken to his cell and put to bed. Abbot Joseph, famous for his healings, came, examined the leg and said: “Get ready, father, to go home” (that is, to die), and left. All the monks and laity fervently prayed with tears to the Mother of God for the granting of health to the dear and beloved elder. A week later, Abbot Joseph again visited the patient, examined the almost healed wound on his leg and exclaimed in amazement: “The spiritual children prayed!”

At the end of April 1957, during Holy Week of Great Lent, the elder was transferred to the Khreshchatytsky Monastery of St. John the Theologian of the Chernivtsi diocese. With the arrival of Elder Kuksha, the spiritual life of the brethren of the monastery revived. Spiritual children flocked to the quiet abode of the apostle of love, with funds donated by Fr. Kuksha, the buildings in the monastery increased.

In 1960, Elder Kuksha was transferred to the Odessa Holy Dormition Monastery. Here he was to spend the last four years of his ascetic life. At the Holy Dormition Monastery, Elder Kuksha was greeted with love by the inhabitants of the monastery. He was assigned obedience to confess people and help remove particles from the prosphora during the proskomedia.

The elder got up early in the morning, read his prayer rule, tried to take communion every day, he especially loved the early liturgy. Every day, going to the temple, the elder wore his Athonite hair shirt made of white horsehair under his clothes, which painfully pricked his whole body.

The elder's cell in the monastery building adjoined directly to St. Nicholas Church. They also placed a novice cell attendant with him, but the elder, despite the infirmities of his advanced age, did not use outside help and said: “We are our own novices until our death.”

One day, with a joyful face, he said to his spiritual daughter: “The Mother of God wants to take me to Herself.” In October 1964, the elder fell and broke his hip. After lying in this state on the cold damp ground, he caught a cold and contracted pneumonia. He never took medicine, calling the Holy Church a “medicine.” Even suffering from a dying illness, he also refused all medical help, only asking to receive the Holy Mysteries of Christ every day.

The blessed ascetic foresaw his death. The elder’s spiritual daughter, schema-nun A., recalls:

Father sometimes said: “90 years old - Kuksha is gone. They will bury him as quickly as possible, they will take spatulas and bury him.” He died when he was about 90 years old.

Fearing the crowd of people at the funeral, the authorities demanded that the body of the deceased be taken home. The abbot of the monastery replied that the monk’s homeland was the monastery. Then the brethren allotted two hours for the elder’s burial.

Elder Kuksha said that after his death, believers should come to the grave and talk about their sorrows and needs. Anyone who came with faith to the place of his earthly rest always received consolation, admonition, relief and healing from illness through his godly prayers and intercession.

Story by Ksenia Kibalchik: “It was the 50s, when Rev. Kuksha lived in the Pochaev Lavra. The wanderer Nymphodora came to me and asked me to give her hard work and to feed her for it. Here's what she said about herself:

She went to confession to Father Kuksha, told about herself that she had been in a monastery, in a commune, and married, and had not received communion for 40 years...” After confession, she began to mourn her life with sincere repentance and bitter tears. Later, seeing a crowd of people surrounding Fr. Kuksha and those wishing to receive the blessing, realizing herself unworthy to approach him, walked behind everyone. Suddenly he turns around, looks at her and says to her: “The Lord has forgiven, forgiven everything.”

Bye o. Kuksha was in Pochaev, Nymphodora confessed only to him each time and, with his blessing, often received communion. But in April 1957, he was suddenly transferred to the distant monastery of St. Apostle John the Theologian, and then it became difficult to get to him for confession. Nymphodora began to turn to the hieromonk, who was usually on duty at the Assumption Cathedral, but he did not allow Nymphodora to go to confession; she came without money every time. And this is what happened to her one day: having prepared for Holy Communion, she went to confess to the same hieromonk, and was again refused... Here the Liturgy was already coming to an end. They sang “Our Father...”. The participants approached the Royal Gates, and Nymphodora stands and cries inconsolably about her unworthiness, in full confidence that the Lord Himself does not allow her to the Holy Chalice. Her gaze was directed to the Pochaev Icon of the Mother of God, located in front of her... Suddenly she sees through her tears that the Chalice seems to be separated from the icon and slowly floats through the air straight towards her. Approaching her lips, this full Chalice stops for a second, and Nymphodora takes a sip from the Chalice, and immediately the Chalice begins to rise through the air towards the same icon, but, without reaching it, it blurs in the air and becomes invisible. Realizing her unworthiness, Nymphodora is afraid to even for a moment believe what a wondrous miracle of God’s mercy was sent to her.

Soon after this event, some kind people invited Nymphodora to go with them to Father Kuksha, promising to cover all travel expenses. So they came to him. They entered his cell... He, trying to caress everyone, pay attention to everyone, still glances at Nymphodora from time to time and says to her with a smile: “You, Participant!” She tries to object... To her objection he strictly replies:

Shut up, I saw it!!!

It was then that she believed the truth of the miracle.”

When the elder was in the St. John the Theologian Monastery, he sent his spiritual daughter V. to look at a place where a large building could be built for many monks. She went and, through the prayers of the elder, found a good place on the mountain, right above the monastery. When V. returned, the elder said that there would be a large monastic building there, and that he should prepare the place. His prediction began to come true 30 years later: after the opening and return of the monastery, a new generation of monks, who did not know the elder and his prediction, began construction of a temple and a monastic building on the very spot in question.

In the fall of 1993,” recalls one of the elder’s spiritual daughters, “I went to the grave of Father Kuksha and saw many people there who had come from Moldova. They said that one woman was seriously ill with her stomach. Taking earth from the elder’s grave, she placed it on her stomach and fell asleep. When she woke up, she felt healed. A cancer patient, seventy-two-year-old M., a resident of Odessa, was also healed.

In 1995, by decision of the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Elder Kuksha was canonized with the rank of venerable.

Prophecy of St. Kuksha of Odessa

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. +

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ of our Lord Jesus Christ. Peace be with you from our Lord Jesus Christ with Grace. I thank you for the letter that I received not so long ago. God bless you for not forgetting me, a sinner. My dear sisters, I believe in your grief and from the bottom of my heart I thank the Lord for everything, but it’s a pity that I cannot save you from it. But be patient, my dear brothers and sisters, for this is what our Heavenly Father God ordained.

Know, my dear sisters, that everything is sent from God, good and bad, and sorrowful. Accept everything with joy, as from the hand of the Most High God, the Lord, do not be afraid. God will not leave you, He will never send you sorrow and grief beyond your strength, and will never place a heavy burden on you, but according to your strength, He will give you as much as you have. you have enough strength.

Know, my sisters, if your grief is great, then know that you have a lot of strength to endure it, and if it is little, then there is little sorrow to endure. God will never put grief on you, so that you do not find yourself without strength, but endure this or that grief of a person, for time is moving towards destruction, now the last chapter of the third book of the prophet Ezra is beginning to be fulfilled, destruction is rolling towards us quickly, oh, oh my sisters, what a time is coming that you will not want to live in this world.

But now, terrible disasters are coming to the earth, fire, hunger, death, destruction and destruction. And who can avert them. If it is appointed by the Lord for the sins of people and this time is already close, behold. And do not listen to anyone who says that there will be peace, there is no peace and there will not be peace.

War and then immediately a strong, extreme famine, look where everything will immediately disappear, there will be nothing to eat, and then death, death and death, everyone will be driven to the east, men and women, but not a single soul will return from there, everyone will die there. There will be a terrible and great death from hunger. And whoever remains from hunger will die from pestilence, from pestilence, and this contagious disease will be impossible to treat. It was not in vain that the holy prophet said and wrote: “Woe, woe, woe to you, our land.” One grief will pass, a second will come, a second will pass, a third will come, and so on. Oh our God.

Know, dear sisters, that God has now put an end to all earthly blessings. Truly, truly, I tell you that now it is no longer possible to get married and have a wedding, because these are the days of the Lord. God gave us these days only for repentance, for carnal repentance, and not for feasting and weddings, not for excess and drunkenness, and partying. We must leave all this. We should beg and beg day and night in tears and sobs of the True God for our sins and ask Him for mercy and mercy at His Last Judgment. For after all these disasters there will come a Great and Glorious “Day.” And the Terrible Day, the Last Judgment of God.

The Scripture says that God’s chosen ones will know, that is, God can reveal to them the year and month of the end of the world, but only the day and hour no one knows, but only God alone knows. Oh, what a terrible time is approaching us. Oh, God forbid we see him, since the creation of the world there has never been such a time as there will be now and there will never be such a time again. God! Who will not fear you, Lord?

Listen, my brothers and sisters, and know what I tell you.

That God has prepared such a “pit” for the world that there is no bottom in it. And all those rejected by God, He will put there in this “pit”. ABOUT! God forbid, Lord have mercy! I’ll tell you straight away, without hiding from you, that this was revealed to me personally by God. Truly, truly, I tell you, I am not deceiving you, that telling a lie is a terrible sin. God forbid now to think about marriage, now you can’t not only talk, but even think, it’s sinful. This is a terrible sin, not only young people and girls cannot marry and get married, but even all spouses living before this time, legally living together, cannot touch each other, in short, live according to the flesh. God save you, and God forbid. Save and have mercy. There was a time when we lived and God blessed us, but now all this has come to an end.

But the people of this world will continue to do this until the very end. They will commit lawlessness. And for this they will fly into a bottomless pit, into hell and eternal fire, because they do not know that they cannot do this. The Lord has not revealed everything that I write. My dear brothers and sisters in the Lord, for the people of this world this is all a secret, I feel sorry for everyone that they don’t know any of this, and don’t want to know. It’s a pity that people walk like blind people and don’t see the bottomless pit in front of them, and that they will soon fly into it.

With all my heart and soul I thank the True God for the merciful One who told me about this and showed me everything, everything that should soon happen. But the Lord does not give everyone such joy as He vouchsafed to see me, a great sinner. Give Him thanks and praise forever and ever! Amen.

People say goodbye to earthly blessings, for no one will ever live. Amen, amen.

Save yourself, O Lord, cherish the precious time given to us to acquire eternal life, adorn yourself with deeds of mercy and love for others, fulfill the Gospel commandments, the last time has come, soon there will be a “Great Council” called “Holy”, but this will be the “Eighth Great Council”, the council of the wicked. It will unite all faiths into one faith. Holy fasts will be abolished, bishops will be married, monasticism will be completely destroyed, a new style will be everywhere. In the entire Universal Church.

Be careful and try to visit the Temple of God now, while it is still ours. And soon, soon we will no longer be able to go to the Temple. There, when everything will change and they will even drive you to the Temples, but then you can’t go. We ask you all to stand in the Orthodox faith until the end of your days and your lives and save yourself. May peace and salvation be upon us forever. Amen. The blessing of the Lord from Mount Holy Pochaevskaya, the grace and peace of God be with you. Amen.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Children of Christ our God! Why is there no fear of God and faith in God in human souls! Because people abandoned prayer and love left people’s hearts. But the devil entered and with his rage darkened all spiritual love, they replaced it with evil, and the joy of God was replaced with wickedness, evil joy, and the world of God left us and moved away. We have trampled on the grace of God. And there is no peace and quiet in our hearts, and a large ice floe has closed our souls. Instead of simplicity, greed appeared, instead of the wisdom of God, envy appeared, instead of the kindness of Christ, hatred. Instead of the Grace of God, lies and deception reign in people. There is no fear and there is no God. In all lives the fire of the enemy and the hissing of the serpent. The Lord will not tolerate these machinations of the enemy for long.

Children, do not be poor and naked and blind and beggars and hypocrites before the Lord God. Rather, dress in the clothing of good deeds and be enlightened by the enlightenment of the mind and mind of Christ. Be humble and do not anger God’s wisdom. Children, do not destroy your souls and do not give them over to the power of the spirits of evil in high places. The end of everything is coming and you stand on the Divine guard as soldiers of Christ, looking to the head of the world, to the Lord, be victorious on guard of your souls, so that the victory is of God, and not of the enemy.

Voluntarily go to the suffering feat, there is nothing to wait for, it’s all over. Take care of yourself from the deception of the devil; if bodily hunger befalls you, then renounce everything, the evil world. But if spiritual hunger befalls the human soul, this is terrible, it is eternal death, hell and tartarus. Be careful not to renounce the Lord God and it is very scary to renounce the Lord and fall forever into the clutches of the devil, to eternal reproach, oh scary, oh scary and very scary. Children, enjoy my words, for soon my lips will be closed and there will be no verb. The Lord will comfort you in every possible way, and exhort you and convict you. But soon, everything will end. Wait for the new service and the new charter, wait, and in the meantime, partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ more often.

And bring repentance for your sins more often, cleanse yourself from leprosy, from all passions, bodily, and endure everything that happens with joy, for we will soon be freed from this earthly life and move into eternity, into endless joy, if we tolerate and endure everything, do not resist nowhere. This lays the foundation of our Orthodox faith, when a person has firmness and hope in the Lord, then he is not afraid of anything and he waits every day and hour for him to soon be separated from the sinful body and the world in order to achieve eternal Bliss. But whoever has given up prayer and love for one’s neighbor strives only here, and for him it seems like a long time.

And Christ said through the Apostle Paul: “Lift up your heads, for the day of your salvation has come.” Everything will disappear like rubbish in this vain world, only what we deserve will be ours, good or evil, unclean and nasty, will be ours. The righteous judge attracts a person to himself every minute so that the person understands and sees the Light, but the person loves darkness more than the Light, and does not want to understand about the Light, does not even want to understand about God and remains an endless captive of the devil, and he attracts people to himself with its evil power.

There is no prayer and fasting and everyone has lost the Light of God and has trampled and walked without looking back into the pitch darkness. Everyone doesn’t want to call on the Merciful God, they don’t even want to think about Him. And for this, the Lord has prepared for the sinful world a “bottomless pit.” People have no humility and sincere repentance, conscience is closed, and conscience sleeps in a sinful sleep and man, like mindless cattle, considers dirt to be virtue, and considers nothing to be virtue.

Children, don’t look for much, and don’t delve into the depths; if you need anything, then ask God and you will get it. May God's justice be with you. Jesus Christ teaches us and He will guide us and guide us into all truth, and teach us everything, and remind us of everything, and what we need to know ahead of us and give us strength and strength, the Grace and fear of God and the help and spirit of Holy Wisdom, joy, strength and blessed consolation. Just do not extinguish His Holy Name in your hearts. Always remember Jesus Christ. It will be easy for you about His crucifixion when the spirit of malice comes in all its rage, and then nothing will frighten you. The Lord will live in you, and you in Him, and you will always be with the Lord.

Say the Jesus Prayer endlessly. Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me, a sinner.

Troparion to Saint Kuksha of Odessa, voice 4

From your youth you left the world of wisdom and the evil one, / having been enlightened by divine grace from above, O Reverend, / with much patience in your temporal life you have accomplished the feat, / you also exude miracles of grace to all who come with faith to the race of your relics, / Kuksho, our blessed father.

During his visit to Odessa in 2010, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus' visited the Holy Dormition Monastery, where he said the following words: “In this monastery, in the last years of his earthly existence, the Venerable Elder Kuksha, an Odessa miracle worker, canonized saints

Venerable Kuksha of Odessa

I remember how every time we visited this holy place, we went to the monastery cemetery and prayed at the modest grave of Father Kuksha. Even then everyone understood that this man lived a special life, that he was holy before God. And it is wonderful that the time has come when we can turn to him as a saint of God, asking for his intercession and prayers for this monastery, and for the city of Odessa, and for our entire Church.”

Elder Kuksha the New, Kuksha of Odessa, in whose name the name of a large Black Sea Russian city is now forever enshrined, just recently, on February 2–3. g., by the decision of the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, in the galaxy of 33 locally revered Russian ascetics of different times, was blessed for church-wide veneration.

This is one of those “cordial elders” who, on the one hand, are cordial by nature, by self-denial for the sake of others, and on the other, our hearts, reaching out to meet them, continue to be warmed by the light of these ascetics even many years after their death.

The Monk Kuksha (in the world Kosma Velichko) was born on January 12 (25 AD), 1875 in a village with a characteristic “Kherson” name - Arbuzinka, Kherson district, Nikolaev province, in the family of Kirill and Kharitina; the family had two more sons - Fyodor and John, and a daughter Maria.

Since her youth, Kharitina dreamed of being a nun, but her parents blessed her for marriage. She prayed to God that at least one of her children would go to a monastery, since in Rus' there was a pious custom: if one of the children devoted himself to monastic life, the parents considered it a special honor, it was a sign of God’s special mercy. From an early age, Kosma loved prayer and solitude, avoided games and amusements, and in his free time read St. Gospel. All his life he kept the icon of the Kazan Mother of God in a small old wooden icon case, with which his mother blessed him as parting words for the journey. This icon was placed in the saint's tomb after his death...

And Kosma received a blessing for the Athos feat from the famous Kyiv elder Jonah, to whom the Mother of God appeared twice on the Kiev cave shore.

Venerable Kuksha of Odessa

In 1897, during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land from St. Athos, when the monk Cosmas was joined on the journey by his mother, two miraculous events happened to him in Jerusalem, which foreshadowed the future life of the saint.

There was a custom for all pilgrims, especially barren women, to immerse themselves in the water of the Pool of Siloam. The Lord granted childbearing to the one who managed to plunge into the water first. While at the Pool of Siloam, Kosmas stood close to the source. Someone accidentally touched him, and he unexpectedly fell first into the water of the font. People started laughing, saying that he would now have many children. But these words turned out to be prophetic, for the saint later actually had many spiritual children. When the pilgrims were in the Church of the Resurrection of Christ, they really wanted to be anointed with oil from the lamps that burned at the Holy Sepulcher. One lamp overturned, pouring out all the oil on Kosma. People quickly surrounded Kosma and, collecting the oil flowing down his clothes with their hands, reverently anointed themselves with it. Also a significant case...

A year after arriving from Jerusalem to Athos, Cosmas once again visited the Holy City - for a year and a half, serving as obedient at the Holy Sepulcher.

Having finally returned to Athos, Cosmas was assigned to serve as a hotel attendant at a hospice hotel for pilgrims, where he labored for 11 years. Athos icon with the image of Panteleimon the Healer. Kuksha put it in an icon case and kept it until his death.

The novice Kosma was tonsured into the ryassophore with the name Constantine, and on March 23, 1904 - into monasticism, and named Xenophon.

Grave of St. Kuksha of Odessa

Xenophon's spiritual father was the elder Fr. Melchizedek, who labored as a hermit in the mountains. Subsequently, the monk recalled his life at that time: “Until 12 at night in obedience, and at 1 o’clock in the morning he ran into the desert to the elder Melchizedek to learn to pray.” Despite the fact that Xenophon barely knew how to read and write, he knew the Gospel and Psalter by heart and performed church services from memory, never making a mistake.

In 1913, after the Greek authorities expelled Russian monks from Mount Athos, Xenophon became a resident of the Kiev Pechersk Holy Dormition Lavra. During the First World War, he, along with other monks, was sent for 10 months to serve as a “brother of mercy” on a hospital train on the Kyiv-Lviv line.

Upon returning to the Lavra, Fr. Xenophon in the Far Caves refueled and lit lamps in front of the holy relics, dressed the holy relics, and ensured cleanliness and order.

“I really wanted to accept the schema,” he said, “but due to my youth (in my early 40s), I was denied my desire.” At the age of 56, he unexpectedly fell seriously ill, as they thought, hopelessly. It was decided to immediately tonsure the dying man into the schema. On April 8, 1931, when he was tonsured into the schema, he was given the name of the Hieromartyr Kuksha, whose relics are in the Near Caves of the Lavra. After tonsure Fr. Kuksha began to recover and soon recovered completely.

One day, its former inhabitant, the elderly Metropolitan Seraphim, arrived from Poltava to the Kiev Pechersk Lavra to visit his beloved monastery and say goodbye to it before his death. After staying in the monastery for several days, he got ready to leave. All the brethren, saying goodbye, began to approach the bishop for his blessing. The saint, exhausted from old age, blessed everyone while sitting in the temple. Following the others, Fr. Kuksha. When they kissed, the perspicacious Metropolitan Seraphim exclaimed: “Oh, elder, a place has been prepared for you in these caves long ago!”

On April 3, 1934, Father Kuksha was ordained to the rank of hierodeacon, and on May 3 of the same year - to the rank of hieromonk. After the Kiev Pechersk Lavra was closed, the priest served until 1938 in Kyiv, in the church on Voskresenskaya Slobodka.

At the shrine with the relics of St. Kuksha

In 1938, as a “clergyman,” he was sentenced to 5 years in camps in the city of Vilma, Molotov (Perm) region, and after serving this term - to 3 years of exile.

So, at the age of 63, Kuksha’s father found himself doing grueling logging work. A 14-hour working day, with poor nutrition, was very difficult, especially in severe frosts. Together with Fr. Kuksha kept many priests and monks in the camp.

One day Fr. Kuksha received a parcel from the Bishop of Kyiv, His Grace Anthony, into which the bishop, along with crackers, managed to put one hundred particles of dried spare Holy Gifts, which the inspectors considered to be crackers.

“But could I alone consume the Holy Gifts, when many priests, monks and nuns, imprisoned for many years, were deprived of this consolation? - the father later said. - ...We made stoles from towels, drawing crosses on them with a pencil. After reading the prayers, they blessed it and put it on themselves, hiding it under their outer clothing. The priests took refuge in the bushes. The monks and nuns ran up to us one by one, we quickly covered them with stole-towels, forgiving and absolving their sins. So one morning, on the way to work, a hundred people took communion at once. How they rejoiced and thanked God for His great mercy!”

One day the priest went to the hospital and was close to death. He recalled later: “It was on Easter. I was so weak and hungry, the wind swayed. And the sun is shining, the birds are singing, the snow has already begun to melt. I walk through the zone along the barbed wire, I’m unbearably hungry, and behind the wire the cooks carry trays of pies on their heads from the kitchen to the dining room for the guards. Crows fly above them. I prayed: “Raven, raven, you fed the prophet Elijah in the desert, bring me a piece of pie too.” Suddenly I heard above my head: “Karrr!”, and a pie fell at my feet; it was the raven who stole it from the cook’s baking sheet. I picked up the pie from the snow, thanked God with tears and satisfied my hunger.”

In the spring of 1943, at the end of his prison term, on the feast of the Holy Great Martyr George the Victorious, Fr. Kuksha was released, and he went into exile in the Solikamsk region, to a village near the city of Kungur, often performed divine services, people began to flock to him.

He was constantly persecuted and persecuted. In 1951, Father Kuksha was transferred from Kyiv to the Pochaev Holy Dormition Lavra, where the elder began to carry out obedience to the icon of the Miraculous Mother of God of Pochaev, when monks and pilgrims kissed it.

In addition, Fr. Kuksha confessed to the parishioners. Pilgrims tried to be sure to get to confession with the priest; hundreds stood in line. He received many in his cell, spending whole days almost without rest, despite his advanced age and senile illnesses.

And, according to Athonite custom, all his life he wore only boots. From long and many exploits he had deep venous ulcers on his legs. One day, when Fr. Kuksha stood at the miraculous icon of the Mother of God, a vein burst in his leg, and his boot filled with blood. They took him away and put him to bed. Abbot Joseph, famous for his healings, came (in the schema Amphilochius, later canonized as a monk), examined the leg and said: “Get ready, father, to go home” (that is, to die), and left. All the monks and laity fervently prayed with tears to the Mother of God for the granting of health to the dear and beloved elder. A week later, Abbot Joseph again came to Fr. Kukshe, examined the almost healed wound on his leg and exclaimed in amazement: “The spiritual children begged!”

Venerable schema-abbot Amphilochius of Pochaev

One woman said that she once saw a splendid husband serving with him in the altar of the Cave Church during the Divine Liturgy by Father Kuksha. And when she reported this to Fr. Kuksha, he said that it was the Monk Job of Pochaev, who always served with him. Father strictly ordered not to reveal this secret to anyone until his death.

In the period from March to April 1957, the church authorities appointed Fr. Kuksha remained in seclusion “to improve the ascetic life and carry out the highest feat of schemata,” and at the end of April 1957, the elder was transferred to the small Khreshchatytsky Monastery of St. John the Theologian of the Chernivtsi diocese during Holy Week of Great Lent. Despite his senile weakness, he often repeated: “Here I am at home, here I am on Mount Athos! Down below the gardens are blooming like olive trees on Mount Athos. Athos is here!

In the early 1960s, theomachists again began to close churches, monasteries, and theological schools. Father Kuksha was assigned to the Odessa Holy Dormition Monastery, where he arrived on July 19, 1960, and where he spent the last 4 years of his ascetic life.

The elder tried to take communion every day; he especially loved the early liturgy, saying that the early liturgy was for ascetics, and the late liturgy for fasters.

The elder did not allow anyone to approach the Holy Chalice with money, so as not to “become like Judas.” He also forbade priests to stand at the altar with money in their pockets and perform the Divine Liturgy. Going to the temple every day, the elder wore his Athonite hair shirt made of prickly white horsehair under his clothes.

The elder's cell in the monastery building adjoined directly to St. Nicholas Church. A novice cell attendant was also placed with him, but the elder, despite the infirmities of his advanced age, did not use outside help and said: “We are our own novices until our death.”

Despite the authorities’ ban on visiting the holy elder, people here were not deprived of his spiritual guidance. Father Kuksha was very loved by His Holiness Patriarch Alexy I of Moscow and All Rus'. While still in the St. John the Theological Monastery, the elder used to sit down to drink tea, take a portrait of His Holiness Alexy I, kiss it and say: “We are drinking tea with His Holiness.” His words were fulfilled when he began to live in the Odessa monastery, where Patriarch Alexy I came every year in the summer, who always invited the gracious elder “for a cup of tea”, loved to talk with him, asked how it was in Jerusalem and Athos in the good old days ...

In the last year of Father’s life, Patriarch Alexy I blessed him to come to the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra for the feast of the discovery of the holy relics of St. Sergius of Radonezh. At the end of the festive liturgy, when the priest left the Holy Trinity Church, he was surrounded on all sides, asking for blessings. He blessed people on all sides for a long time and humbly asked to let him go. But the people did not let the old man go. Only after a long time, with the help of other monks, he with difficulty reached the cell.

In October 1964, the elder fell and broke his hip. After lying on the cold damp ground, he caught a cold and contracted pneumonia. He never took medicine, calling the Holy Church his doctor. Even suffering from a dying illness, he also refused all medical help, communing the Holy Mysteries of Christ every day.

The blessed ascetic foresaw his death and reposed in the Lord on December 11 (24), 1964. The elder’s spiritual daughter, schema-nun A., recalled: “Father sometimes said: “90 years - Kuksha is gone. They’ll bury them as quickly as possible, they’ll take spatulas and bury them.” And indeed, his words came true exactly. He rested at two o'clock in the morning, and at two o'clock in the afternoon of the same day a cross was already towering over the grave mound. He died when he was about 90 years old.”

The authorities, fearing a large crowd of people, prevented the priest from being buried in the monastery, but demanded that the burial take place in his homeland. But the abbot of the monastery wisely replied: “The monk’s homeland is the monastery.” The authorities gave only two hours for the burial.

For the entire Orthodox world, Elder Kuksha of Odessa belongs to those Russian righteous men who, in recent centuries, like Seraphim of Sarov, the Optina, Ploshchansky and Glinsky elders, by serving God, shone the world with the light of love, patience and compassion.

The elder never condemned those who sinned or shunned them, but on the contrary, he always accepted them with compassion. He said: “I myself am a sinner and I love sinners. There is no person on earth who has not sinned. There is only one Lord without sin, and we are all sinners.”

Elder Kuksha had from God the gift of spiritual reasoning and discernment of thoughts.

He was a great seer. Even the most intimate feelings were revealed to him, which people could hardly understand themselves, but he understood and explained who they were from and where they came from. It also happened that they would stand at the door, and he would already call everyone by name, although he was seeing them for the first time in his life.

The monk advised to bless all new things and products with holy water, and to sprinkle the cell (room) before going to bed. In the morning, leaving his cells, he always sprinkled himself with holy water.

He said to his spiritual daughter, nun V.: “When they take you somewhere, don’t grieve, but in spirit always stand at the Holy Sepulcher, like Kuksha: I was in prison and in exile, but in spirit I always stand at the Holy Sepulcher!”

“I went to see him on some business,” recalled Mother A., ​​“and he said that in front of the St. Nicholas Church there was a plump man sitting in a hat, so hungry, and that I should give him some food. I went out with food, and indeed, in front of St. Nicholas Church there was an obese man in a hat. I approached and said that Father Kuksha had given him food. He was surprised by this, cried and said that he really hadn’t eaten anything for three days and was so exhausted that he couldn’t get up from the bench. It turns out that this man’s things and money were stolen at the station. He was ashamed to ask, and he was in great despondency.

I remember the elder saying to me: “God bless you for untying me.” For a long time I could not understand these words. And only much later did I understand their meaning. When they laid the priest in the coffin, I tied a bandage around his head so that his mouth would be closed, but they buried him so quickly that only before leaving the church did I remember that I needed to take off the bandage. I turned to the abbot of the monastery, he blessed me, and I untied her. This is how the words of the saint came true.

Father said: “They won’t let you in, but you go through the fence and at Kuksha.” And indeed, after the funeral the cemetery was closed, the gate was locked. I remembered the elder’s prediction and blessing, and came to his grave, climbing over the fence.”

The monk always remained in prayerful communion with the saints. One day they asked him: “Aren’t you bored alone, father?” He answered cheerfully: “And I’m not alone, there are four of us: Cosmas, Konstantin, Xenophon and Kuksha.” He named all his heavenly patrons.

God's gift of healing and healing of mental and physical ailments acted in the monk both during his life and after his death. He healed many with his prayer, including from cancer and mental illness.

Over time, the living memory of Elder Kuksha does not disappear, and love for the spiritual father and shepherd does not decrease. One can always feel his spiritual closeness to everyone remaining in this mortal world, his inexhaustible prayerful help.

Schema-Archimandrite Kuksha Novy was canonized by the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - a resolution of October 4, 1994. The saint's memory is celebrated on September 16, the day of the discovery of his relics, and December 11, on the day of his death, in the Cathedral of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.

The canonization celebrations took place in the Holy Dormition Odessa Monastery on October 22, 1994. Since that time, the holy relics of St. Kuksha of Odessa have been kept in the Holy Dormition Church of the monastery. Orthodox people who come with faith to the holy relics of the saint receive healing and spiritual consolation.

Reverend Father Kuksha, pray to God for us!

Petr Maslyuzhenko

Exactly 20 years ago, on September 29, 1994, Metropolitan Agafangel of Odessa and Izmail discovered the relics of Elder Kuksha of Odessa, known throughout the Orthodox world.

Schema-abbot Kuksha was born in 1874 in the village of Garbuzinka, Kherson province (now Nikolaev region) into the pious peasant family of Kirill and Kharitina Velichko. They had four children: Theodore, Cosmas (future father of Kuksha), John and Maria.

The saint's mother wanted to be a nun in her youth, but her parents blessed her for marriage. She prayed to God that one of her children would be worthy of asceticism in the monastic rite.

From a young age, Kosma loved silence and solitude and had great compassion for people. He had a cousin who was possessed by an evil spirit. Kosma went with him to an old man who was casting out demons. The elder healed the young man, and Kosma said: “Just because you brought him to me, the enemy will take revenge on you - you will be persecuted all your life.”

At the age of 20, Cosmas first went as a pilgrim to the Holy City of Jerusalem along with his fellow villagers, and on the way back he visited the Holy Mount Athos. Here the soul of the young man was kindled with the desire to serve God in angelic form. But first he returned home for his parents' blessing.

Arriving in Russia, Kosma visited the Kyiv wonderworker Jonah, known for his foresight. Blessing the young man, the elder touched his head with the cross and unexpectedly said: “I bless you to enter the monastery! You will live on Athos!”

Kirill Velichko did not immediately agree to let his son go to the monastery. And the priest’s mother, having received her husband’s permission, with great joy blessed her child with the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, with which the saint did not part throughout his life, and which was placed in his coffin after his death.

So in 1896, Kosma arrived on Athos and entered the Russian St. Panteleimon Monastery as a novice.

A year later, the abbot blessed him and his mother to visit Jerusalem again. Here two miraculous events happened to Cosma, which served as signs of his future.

There is a Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem. There is a custom for all pilgrims, especially barren women, to immerse themselves in this source, and according to legend, the first one to be immersed in the water will have a child.

Kosmas and his mother also went to immerse themselves in the Pool of Siloam. It so happened that in the twilight of the vaults someone pushed him down the steps, and he unexpectedly fell first into the water, right in his clothes. The women cried out with regret that the young man was the first to plunge into the water. But this was a sign from above that Father Kuksha would have many spiritual children. He always said: “I have a thousand spiritual children.”

The second sign happened in Bethlehem. Having bowed to the birthplace of Christ the Infant of God, the pilgrims began to ask the guard to allow them to take holy oil from the lamps, but he turned out to be cruel and intractable. Suddenly one lamp miraculously overturned on Kosma, dousing his entire suit. People surrounded the young man and collected holy oil from him with their hands. Thus the Lord showed that through Father Kuksha many people would receive Divine grace.

A year after arriving from Jerusalem to Athos, he received the blessing to once again visit the Holy City and carry out obedience at the Holy Sepulcher.

Upon returning to Athos, on March 28, 1902, the novice Kosma was tonsured into the ryasophore with the name Constantine, and on March 23, 1905, into monasticism and named Xenophon. His spiritual father was the ascetic elder Melchizedek, who labored as a hermit and was a monk of high spiritual life.

In 1912–1913, due to unrest on Mount Athos, the Greek authorities demanded that many Russian monks, including the future saint, leave Athos. “God wants you to live in Russia; you also need to save people there,” said his spiritual father.

So the Athonite monk Xenophon turned out to be a resident of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. Here on May 3, 1934 he was ordained a hieromonk.

Father really wanted to accept the great schema, but due to his youth his desire was denied. Once, while reveling the relics in the Far Caves, the monk prayed to the holy schema-monk Silouan to accept the schema. And at the age of 56, Father Xenophon unexpectedly fell seriously ill - as they thought, hopelessly. The dying man was tonsured into the great schema and given his name in honor of the holy martyr Kuksha of Pechersk. Soon after his tonsure, Father Kuksha began to get better, and then completely recovered.

These were years of severe persecution of the Orthodox Church. When the Lavra was affected by a wave of self-sacred schisms, Father Kuksha was an example for others in filial fidelity to the canons of the Mother Church.

One day, its former monk, Metropolitan Seraphim, arrived from Poltava to the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, wishing to visit his beloved monastery and say goodbye to it before his death. When Father Kuksha approached him for a blessing, the Metropolitan exclaimed: “Oh, elder, a place has been prepared for you in these caves long ago!”

In 1938, the priest began a difficult ten-year feat of confession. He, as a “clergyman,” was sentenced to five years in camps in the city of Vilva, Molotov region, and after serving this term, to five years in exile. So, at the age of 63, Father Kuksha was sent to grueling logging work. They worked 14 hours a day, receiving very meager and bad food.

At that time, Bishop Anthony lived in Kyiv, who knew Father Kuksha well and appreciated him for his virtues. One day, Vladyka, under the guise of crackers, was able to transfer 100 particles of dry Gifts to the camp to the monk, so that the priest would receive communion with them. But could he alone consume the Holy Gifts, when many priests, monks and nuns, imprisoned for many years, were deprived of this consolation?

Under great secrecy, they were all notified, and on the appointed day, prisoner-priests in stoles made from towels, on the way to work, unnoticed by the convoy, quickly absolved the monks and nuns from their sins and indicated where the pieces of the Holy Gifts were hidden. So one morning 100 people received communion in the camp. For many, this was the last Communion in their long-suffering life...

Another wonderful event happened to the priest in the camp. On Easter, Father Kuksha, weak and hungry, walked along the barbed wire, behind which the cooks carried baking sheets with pies for protection. Crows flew above them. The monk prayed: “Raven, raven, you fed the prophet Elijah in the desert, bring me a piece of pie too!” And suddenly I heard overhead “car-rr!” - and a meat pie fell at his feet. It was the raven who stole it from the cook's baking sheet. Father picked up the pie from the snow, thanked God with tears and satisfied his hunger.

In 1948, after the end of his imprisonment and exile, Father Kuksha returned to the Kiev Pechersk Lavra and was received with great joy by the brethren. Tempered in the crucible of suffering, the priest began to carry out the feat of eldership here, caring for many believers. For this, the KGB members ordered the spiritual authorities to transfer the elder from Kyiv somewhere far away, to a remote place.

In 1953, Father Kuksha was transferred to the Holy Dormition Pochaev Lavra. Here he was appointed to serve as a priest at the miraculous Pochaev Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, and for three years he served the early liturgy in the Cave Church and confessed to people.

One day, when he was standing at the miraculous icon of the Mother of God, a vein burst in his leg. The boot was full of blood. Hegumen Joseph, famous for his miraculous healings (in the schema of Amphilochius, now canonized), came to examine his sore leg. The diagnosis was disappointing: “Get ready, father, to go home,” that is, to die.

All the monks and laity fervently prayed with tears to the Mother of God for the granting of health to the dear and beloved elder. A week later, Abbot Joseph again came to Father Kuksha and, seeing the almost healed wound, exclaimed in amazement: “The spiritual children begged!”

The priest’s spiritual daughter said that once, during the celebration of the Divine Liturgy by Father Kuksha, she saw a splendid husband co-serving with him in the altar of the cave temple. When she reported this to Father Kuksha, he said that it was the Monk Job of Pochaev, who always serves with him, and strictly ordered not to reveal this secret to anyone until his death.

This is how the life of the elder proceeded in the Pochaev monastery, but the enemy of the human race began to persecute him here too, and in order to protect the priest from attacks from haters, Bishop Evmeniy of Chernovtsy in 1957 transferred him to the St. John the Theological Monastery in the village of Khreshchatyk, Chernivtsi diocese. The years of life here were quiet and calm for Kuksha’s father. But in 1960, nuns from the disbanded Chernivtsi convent were moved here.

After these events, Father Kuksha moved to the Odessa Holy Dormition Patriarchal Monastery, which became the last haven in his wanderings. Here the elder’s main obedience was confession. He received communion every day and was very fond of the early liturgy. He said: “The early liturgy is for ascetics, the late one is for fasters.”

Many people remember how, during lunch, Father Kuksha picked up a small framed portrait of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy I standing on the table, kissed it and said: “We are drinking tea with His Holiness.” His words turned out to be prophetic.

When he came to Odessa to his dacha, Patriarch Alexy I always invited Father Kuksha to his place for a cup of tea, loved to talk with him, and was interested in what it was like on Mount Athos and in Jerusalem in the old days.

Saint Kuksha became the successor during the monastic tonsure of His Beatitude Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine Vladimir (Sabodan).

The priest said to his spiritual children: “The Mother of God wants to take me to her, but pray - and Kuksha will live 111 years! Otherwise, it’s 90 years and Kuksha is gone, they’ll take the spatulas and bury them.”

In the fall of 1964, he fell ill: in a fit of anger, cell attendant Nikolai kicked Father Kuksha out of his cell at 1 am in October. In the darkness, the elder fell into a hole, injuring his leg, and lay there until the morning, until the brethren discovered him. The elder fell ill with bilateral pneumonia. Despite the efforts of his loved ones, he never recovered from his illness.

The blessed ascetic foresaw the circumstances and time of his death. A few moments before his death, the elder said: “Time has passed” and very calmly departed to the Lord.

The authorities, fearing a large crowd of people, ordered not to accept telegrams from Odessa notifying about the death of Kuksha’s father, and demanded that the burial be carried out in his homeland. But the governor of the monastery, admonished by God, wisely replied: “The monk’s homeland is a monastery.”

After the blessed death of the elder, evidence of his holiness was the miracles performed at the grave of the saint, and on September 29, 1994, the ruling bishop, Metropolitan Agafangel of Odessa and Izmail, found the relics of the elder, and on October 22 of the same year he was glorified as a saint.

Even during his lifetime, Saint Kuksha bequeathed everyone to come to his grave with their sorrows, promising to intercede for everyone before God.

Today, the relics of the Monk Kuksha rest in the Odessa Holy Dormition Monastery, according to the behest of the saint, exuding gracious help to all who turn to him with faith.

Miracles of St. Kuksha

We bring to your attention a selection of ten short stories confirming the gracious help through prayers to the Monk Kuksha. The elder performed the first 5 miracles during his earthly life, the others through prayers to him after his blessed departure to the Lord.

Story 1. “If you make a vow to God to change your life and go to church, then your daughter will be healthy.”

One of the first miracles revealed by the Monk Kuksha occurred while still in prison. The Lord revealed to the elder that one of the guards at the house had a daughter who fell ill. “Child, take a vacation, go home, they will let you go. Your daughter is sick at home,” the saint admonished him. He didn’t believe that they could let him go: “They won’t let him go in the summer,” he said. The guard left, and the elder prayed for him and his sick daughter. Less than an hour later, he returned, saying that an urgent telegram had arrived, informing him that his daughter was very ill, and the authorities were letting him go home. “Pray, father, for her,” he asked, “after all, I have only one, her name is Anna.” The elder replied: “If you make a vow to God to change your life and go to church, then your daughter will be healthy.” He cried like a child and made a vow. Through the prayers of the monk, the girl received healing.

Story 2. 102-year-old disciple of the Monk Kuksha

In March 2014, at the St. John the Baptist Monastery in the city of Kungur, 102-year-old monk Nikon was tonsured into the great schema with the name of St. Kuksha of Odessa. During the Great Patriotic War, he served as a mortarman and was seriously wounded in the arm by a shrapnel, which was never removed. Over time, the fragment began to cause unbearable pain, and then Nikon went to his spiritual father. The Monk Kuksha suddenly sent him to cut down a dry linden tree for firewood. Exhausted from pain, Nikon went to cut down a tree for obedience. And after the first blows with an ax, the fragment suddenly jumped out of his hand, and the monk received healing.

Story 3. “The cell is full of demons, and everyone is running in a crowd through the door!!!”

One young novice, not understanding why the priest sprinkles his cell with holy water every evening, once asked him: “Father, why do you need to sprinkle it? What does it give? Three days have passed. Father Kuksha went to the novice’s cell and, before his eyes, began to sprinkle it with holy water. Subsequently, the monk said: “And suddenly I saw this, I saw this! The cell is full of demons, and everyone is running in a crowd through the door, but they don’t have time, they fall out one after the other...” Having sprinkled the cell, the elder asked: “Well, have you seen what it gives?”

Story 4. The power of alms

The elder attached great importance to almsgiving. His spiritual daughter asked someone for a book with an akathist and wanted to copy it for herself. In the temple, she placed the little book near the candle box, where her friend monk Thaddeus sold candles, and she herself went to be anointed with oil. When she returned, she discovered that the book was missing. The woman began to grieve, because the book was someone else’s, and with her misfortune she turned to Father Kuksha. “Don’t grieve, ask the Lord to accept this as alms. But the enemy doesn’t like alms, he will return everything, he will return everything,” was the priest’s answer. The next day in the evening the book lay in the same place where it had been placed. Father Thaddeus said: “So, people brought it and said that they found this book on the tram. They didn’t know what to do, they thought and thought and decided to take him to a monastery. They came to the monastery and laid her in the very place where she was.”

Story 5. Hint for the scientist

Once a famous scientist came to the monk, who had some unsolvable problem in his scientific work. In a conversation with him, Father Kuksha, with his simple words, led him to think about the correct solution to the issue. The scientist, leaving his cell, told in joyful amazement how the unlearned elder helped him discover the secret of his scientific research.

Story 6. “Be patient and pray, your husband will be a Christian!”

His spiritual daughter Elena often visited the elder. She was a scientific chemist, and her husband was a mining engineer, a major specialist in rocks. She was very sad that her husband was not baptized and even wanted to separate from him, but the elder told her: “Be patient and pray, your husband will be a Christian!” After the death of the elder, she went to the Pskov-Pechersk monastery and persuaded her husband to take her there. In the Pechersky Monastery there are caves created by God where deceased monks are buried. Elena invited her husband to look at the coffins, which, according to custom, are not buried here, but placed one on top of the other in caves in which the grace of God is clearly felt. When Elena’s husband saw the vaults of the caves, he, as a mining engineer, was amazed that the loose sandstone had not crumbled for centuries, held together like stone, and collapses did not occur. Such an obvious miracle made a strong impression on him. The grace of God touched his heart. He wished to be baptized immediately, and then married his wife and, like a child, was devoted to God and his spiritual father.

Story 7. “Suddenly I saw the Monk Kuksha, who, approaching, put his hand on my forehead...”

A student of the Odessa Theological Seminary, Alexander fell ill with severe pneumonia. The temperature rose to 39.9 degrees. Both the seminary medical assistant and those living in the room with him were worried about him. On the night of December 12, 1994, when Alexander fell into oblivion, they called an ambulance. The patient, being unconscious, called out loudly the name of the Monk Kuksha. Suddenly he fell silent and seemed lifeless for a while. Frightened by this, his friends began to shake him, calling him by name. Suddenly Alexander came to his senses and got out of bed. To everyone's surprise, he looked completely healthy. We took the temperature - the thermometer showed 36.6°. Then he was asked about such a sudden change in condition. Alexander said that when it was extremely difficult for him and there was a feeling that life was leaving him, he saw the Monk Kuksha, who, approaching, put his hand on his forehead. Suddenly he felt a strong surge of blessed power, which passed three times from head to toe. Then he felt that someone was shaking him and calling his name. When he woke up, he felt healed. Doctors who arrived soon found him healthy.

Story 8. The woman did not know that during his lifetime Saint Kuksha also suffered from a leg disease

One woman, seriously suffering from a leg disease - thrombophlebitis, came from Moscow to the Holy Dormition Odessa Monastery to pray to the Monk Kuksha. Her legs ached seriously, her veins were swollen, and she, completely exhausted, fell to the shrine with the holy relics and whispered: “Reverend Father Kuksho, help!” And only in Moscow, getting off the train onto the platform and running towards her son, did she realize that she was healed: the tumor had disappeared, the veins had become normal, the pain had gone away. At that time, this woman did not yet know the life of the Monk Kuksha, who during his lifetime also suffered from a leg disease.

In the spring of 1996, a singer of the St. Nicholas Church in the city of Pushkino, Moscow Region, learned the story of this healing. A few days after hearing what she heard, a neighbor came to her in terrible grief: her husband had gangrene in his legs, amputation was inevitable. The singer told her about the Monk Kuksha and his special mercy to those suffering from leg disease. A prayer service to the monk was immediately served in the church. In the meantime, the patient was transported to Moscow for surgery. Everything was ready for amputation, but doctors noticed that blood circulation began to be restored. “A miracle saved you,” this is what the doctors told the patient, who, of course, knew nothing about the prayer service served or about the ambulance and miracle worker Reverend Kuksha.

Story 9. Miracle of healing of a sick child

A few days after the glorification of the Monk Kuksha, one servant of God shared her joy. Her child was sick; he had a very high fever for several days, and the parents no longer knew how to help him. This woman was at the glorification of the saint and received pieces of vestments and a coffin. At home she was met with reproaches that the child was sick and the mother was not there. She immediately went to her son and, after praying, placed pieces of the vestment and coffin on his head. The child fell asleep and woke up the next day completely healthy.

Story 10. Resurrection of a dead girl

Through the prayerful intercession of the Monk Kuksha, the Lord raised the baby from the dead. In Odessa, in one Orthodox family, on the night of January 7-8, 1996, two-year-old Ksenia suddenly fell ill. The temperature rose sharply above 39 degrees and continued to rise. The girl began to rush about in the heat. Ksenia’s grandmother, a doctor by profession, seeing her extremely serious condition, asked her daughter, the girl’s mother, to call an ambulance. While she was talking on the phone, Ksenia suddenly became quiet. The grandmother began to examine her granddaughter: her heart was not beating - life had abandoned the girl. “There’s no need for an ambulance, it’s too late...” she told her daughter. In despair, the child’s mother knelt in front of the icons and began to tearfully pray: “Lord, take my soul, and leave her soul!” After a long prayer, she remembered that in the fall of 1994, at the Holy Dormition Monastery in Odessa, she was given pieces of the vestments and coffin of the Monk Kuksha. Calling on the name of the saint, the mother took these particles and applied them to the forehead of the deceased girl. Suddenly Ksenia took a deep breath - life returned to her. When the girl finally came to her senses, she pointed to the icon of the monk and asked her mother: “Give me Kuksha...”. The arriving doctor, after examining the girl, said that he did not find any reason to call an ambulance. The family calls this day Ksenia’s second birthday.

Prayer and troparion

Prayer

O venerable and God-bearing Father Kuksho, praise to the monastery of the Dormition of the Mother of God, unfading color of the God-saved city of Odessa, meek shepherd of Christ and great prayer book for us, we earnestly resort to you and with a contrite heart we ask: do not remove your cover from our monastery, in it by feat You fought good. Be a good helper to all who live piously and work well in it. O our good shepherd and God-wise mentor, Rev. Father Kuksho, look mercifully at the people ahead, tenderly praying and asking you for help and intercession.

Remember all those who have faith and love for you, who prayerfully call on your name and who come to venerate the relics of your saints, and mercifully fulfill all their good requests, overshadowing them with your patristic blessing. Deliver, holy father, from every slander of the enemy our holy Church, this city, monastery and land, and do not leave us weak, burdened with sins and sorrows through your intercession.

Illuminate, O most blessed one, our mind with the light of God’s face, strengthen our life with the grace of the Lord, so that, having been established in the Law of Christ, we may flow unlaxly along the path of the holy commandments. Bless us with your blessing and grant us all those who are in sorrow, those possessed by mental and physical illnesses, and grant healing, consolation and deliverance. Over all of these, ask us from above for the spirit of meekness and humility, the spirit of patience and repentance, for those who have departed from the Orthodox faith and are blinded by destructive heresies and schisms, for enlightenment in the darkness of unbelief with the wandering light of the true knowledge of God, for discord and discord, quenching, implore the Lord God and the Most Holy Theotokos grant us a quiet and sinless life.

Remember us, unworthy, at the throne of the Almighty, ask for a peaceful Christian death and grant us, with your help, eternal salvation and inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, and let us glorify the great generosity and ineffable mercies of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, in the Trinity of the worshiped God, and your paternal intercession in forever and ever. Amen.

Troparion, tone 4:

From your youth you left the world of wisdom and the evil one, having been enlightened by divine grace from above, reverend, with much patience in your temporary life you accomplished the feat, thereby exuding miracles of grace to all who come with faith to the race of your relics, our blessed Father Kuksho.

Kontakion, tone 8:

The skilled ascetic of piety, the new confessor of the faith of the fathers, the Venerable Kuksha, we will surely please everyone, as a true shepherd, a gracious elder, a mentor of monks, a comforter of the faint-hearted, a healer of the sick, and at the end of his life showing the lordship of his life. And today we come to his memory and cry out joyfully: for having boldness towards God, deliver us from manifold circumstances, so that we call to you: Rejoice, affirmation of Orthodox people.

The material was prepared by the works of the brethren of the Odessa Holy Dormition Monastery, the spiritual children of the priest, the Odessa historian Alexander Yatsiy, the Perm journalist Vyacheslav Degtyarnikov and Anna Shepida

Higumen Kuksha was born in 1874 in the village of Garbuzinka, Kherson province (now Nikolaev region) into the pious peasant family of Kirill and Kharitina Velichko. They had four children: Theodore, Cosmas (future father of Kuksha), John and Maria.

The saint's mother wanted to be a nun in her youth, but her parents blessed her for marriage. She prayed to God that one of her children would be worthy of asceticism in the monastic rite.

From a young age, Kosma loved silence and solitude and had great compassion for people. He had a cousin who was possessed by an evil spirit. Kosma went with him to an old man who was casting out demons. The elder healed the young man, and Kosma said: “Just because you brought him to me, the enemy will take revenge on you - you will be persecuted all your life.”

At the age of 20, Cosmas first went as a pilgrim to the Holy City of Jerusalem along with his fellow villagers, and on the way back he visited the Holy Mount Athos. Here the soul of the young man was kindled with the desire to serve God in angelic form. But first he returned home for his parents' blessing.

Arriving in Russia, Kosma visited the Kyiv wonderworker Jonah, known for his foresight. Blessing the young man, the elder touched his head with the cross and unexpectedly said: “I bless you to enter the monastery! You will live on Athos!”

Kirill Velichko did not immediately agree to let his son go to the monastery. And the priest’s mother, having received her husband’s permission, with great joy blessed her child with the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, with which the saint did not part throughout his life, and which was placed in his coffin after his death.

So in 1896, Kosma arrived on Athos and entered the Russian St. Panteleimon Monastery as a novice.

A year later, the abbot blessed him and his mother to visit Jerusalem again. Here two miraculous events happened to Cosma, which served as signs of his future.

There is a Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem. There is a custom for all pilgrims, especially barren women, to immerse themselves in this source, and according to legend, the first one to be immersed in the water will have a child.

Kosmas and his mother also went to immerse themselves in the Pool of Siloam. It so happened that in the twilight of the vaults someone pushed him down the steps, and he unexpectedly fell first into the water, right in his clothes. The women cried out with regret that the young man was the first to plunge into the water. But this was a sign from above that Father Kuksha would have many spiritual children. He always said: “I have a thousand spiritual children.”

The second sign happened in Bethlehem. Having bowed to the birthplace of Christ the Infant of God, the pilgrims began to ask the guard to allow them to take holy oil from the lamps, but he turned out to be cruel and intractable. Suddenly one lamp miraculously overturned on Kosma, dousing his entire suit. People surrounded the young man and collected holy oil from him with their hands. Thus the Lord showed that through Father Kuksha many people would receive Divine grace.

A year after arriving from Jerusalem to Athos, he received the blessing to once again visit the Holy City and carry out obedience at the Holy Sepulcher.

Upon returning to Athos, on March 28, 1902, the novice Kosma was tonsured into the ryasophore with the name Constantine, and on March 23, 1905, into monasticism and named Xenophon. His spiritual father was the ascetic elder Melchizedek, who labored as a hermit and was a monk of high spiritual life.

In 1912-1913, due to unrest on Mount Athos, the Greek authorities demanded that many Russian monks, including the future saint, leave Athos. “God wants you to live in Russia; you also need to save people there,” said his spiritual father.

So the Athonite monk Xenophon turned out to be a resident of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. Here on May 3, 1934 he was ordained a hieromonk.

Father really wanted to accept the great schema, but due to his youth his desire was denied. Once, while reveling the relics in the Far Caves, the monk prayed to the holy schema-monk Silouan to accept the schema. And at the age of 56, Father Xenophon unexpectedly fell seriously ill - as they thought, hopelessly. The dying man was tonsured into the great schema and given his name in honor of the holy martyr Kuksha of Pechersk. Soon after his tonsure, Father Kuksha began to get better, and then completely recovered.

These were years of severe persecution of the Orthodox Church. When the Lavra was affected by a wave of self-sacred schisms, Father Kuksha was an example for others in filial fidelity to the canons of the Mother Church.

One day, its former monk, Metropolitan Seraphim, arrived from Poltava to the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, wishing to visit his beloved monastery and say goodbye to it before his death. When Father Kuksha approached him for a blessing, the Metropolitan exclaimed: “Oh, elder, a place has been prepared for you in these caves long ago!”

In 1938, the priest began a difficult ten-year feat of confession. He, as a “clergyman,” was sentenced to five years in camps in the city of Vilva, Molotov region, and after serving this term, to five years in exile. So, at the age of 63, Father Kuksha was sent to grueling logging work. They worked 14 hours a day, receiving very meager and bad food.

At that time, Bishop Anthony lived in Kyiv, who knew Father Kuksha well and appreciated him for his virtues. One day, Vladyka, under the guise of crackers, was able to transfer 100 particles of dry Gifts to the camp to the monk, so that the priest would receive communion with them. But could he alone consume the Holy Gifts, when many priests, monks and nuns, imprisoned for many years, were deprived of this consolation?

Under great secrecy, they were all notified, and on the appointed day, prisoner-priests in stoles made from towels, on the way to work, unnoticed by the convoy, quickly absolved the monks and nuns from their sins and indicated where the pieces of the Holy Gifts were hidden. So one morning 100 people received communion in the camp. For many, this was the last Communion in their long-suffering life...

Another wonderful event happened to the priest in the camp. On Easter, Father Kuksha, weak and hungry, walked along the barbed wire, behind which the cooks carried baking sheets with pies for protection. Crows flew above them. The monk prayed: “Raven, raven, you fed the prophet Elijah in the desert, bring me a piece of pie too!” And suddenly I heard overhead “car-rr!” - and a meat pie fell at his feet. It was the raven who stole it from the cook's baking sheet. Father picked up the pie from the snow, thanked God with tears and satisfied his hunger.

In 1948, after the end of his imprisonment and exile, Father Kuksha returned to the Kiev Pechersk Lavra and was received with great joy by the brethren. Tempered in the crucible of suffering, the priest began to carry out the feat of eldership here, caring for many believers. For this, the KGB members ordered the spiritual authorities to transfer the elder from Kyiv somewhere far away, to a remote place.

In 1953, Father Kuksha was transferred to the Holy Dormition Pochaev Lavra. Here he was appointed to serve as a priest at the miraculous Pochaev Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, and for three years he served the early liturgy in the Cave Church and confessed to people.

One day, when he was standing at the miraculous icon of the Mother of God, a vein burst in his leg. The boot was full of blood. Hegumen Joseph, famous for his miraculous healings (in the schema of Amphilochius, now canonized), came to examine his sore leg. The diagnosis was disappointing: “Get ready, father, to go home,” that is, to die.

All the monks and laity fervently prayed with tears to the Mother of God for the granting of health to the dear and beloved elder. A week later, Abbot Joseph again came to Father Kuksha and, seeing the almost healed wound, exclaimed in amazement: “The spiritual children begged!”

The priest’s spiritual daughter said that once, during the celebration of the Divine Liturgy by Father Kuksha, she saw a splendid husband co-serving with him in the altar of the cave temple. When she reported this to Father Kuksha, he said that it was the Monk Job of Pochaev, who always serves with him, and strictly ordered not to reveal this secret to anyone until his death.

This is how the life of the elder proceeded in the Pochaev monastery, but the enemy of the human race began to persecute him here too, and in order to protect the priest from attacks from haters, Bishop Evmeniy of Chernovtsy in 1957 transferred him to the St. John the Theological Monastery in the village of Khreshchatyk, Chernivtsi diocese. The years of life here were quiet and calm for Kuksha’s father. But in 1960, nuns from the disbanded Chernivtsi convent were moved here.

After these events, Father Kuksha moved to the Odessa Holy Dormition Patriarchal Monastery, which became the last haven in his wanderings. Here the elder’s main obedience was confession. He received communion every day and was very fond of the early liturgy. He said: “The early liturgy is for ascetics, the late one is for fasters.”

Many people remember how, during lunch, Father Kuksha picked up a small framed portrait of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy I standing on the table, kissed it and said: “We are drinking tea with His Holiness.” His words turned out to be prophetic.

When he came to Odessa to his dacha, Patriarch Alexy I always invited Father Kuksha to his place for a cup of tea, loved to talk with him, and was interested in what it was like on Mount Athos and in Jerusalem in the old days.

Saint Kuksha became the successor during the monastic tonsure of His Beatitude Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine Vladimir (Sabodan).

The priest said to his spiritual children: “The Mother of God wants to take me to her, but pray - and Kuksha will live 111 years! Otherwise, it’s 90 years and Kuksha is gone, they’ll take the spatulas and bury them.”

In the fall of 1964, he fell ill: in a fit of anger, cell attendant Nikolai kicked Father Kuksha out of his cell at 1 am in October. In the darkness, the elder fell into a hole, injuring his leg, and lay there until the morning, until the brethren discovered him. The elder fell ill with bilateral pneumonia. Despite the efforts of his loved ones, he never recovered from his illness.

The blessed ascetic foresaw the circumstances and time of his death. A few moments before his death, the elder said: “Time has passed” and very calmly departed to the Lord.

Cancer with the relics of the Venerable
Confessor Kuksha of Odessa

The authorities, fearing a large crowd of people, ordered not to accept telegrams from Odessa notifying about the death of Kuksha’s father, and demanded that the burial be carried out in his homeland. But the governor of the monastery, admonished by God, wisely replied: “The monk’s homeland is a monastery.”

After the blessed death of the elder, evidence of his holiness was the miracles performed at the grave of the saint, and on September 29, 1994, the ruling bishop, Metropolitan Agafangel of Odessa and Izmail, found the relics of the elder, and on October 22 of the same year he was glorified as a saint.

Even during his lifetime, Saint Kuksha bequeathed everyone to come to his grave with their sorrows, promising to intercede for everyone before God.

Today, the relics of the Monk Kuksha rest in the Odessa Holy Dormition Monastery, according to the behest of the saint, exuding gracious help to all who turn to him with faith.

Miracles of St. Kuksha

We bring to your attention a selection of ten short stories confirming the gracious help through prayers to the Monk Kuksha. The elder performed the first 5 miracles during his earthly life, the others through prayers to him after his blessed departure to the Lord.

Story 1. “If you make a vow to God to change your life and go to church, then your daughter will be healthy.”

One of the first miracles revealed by the Monk Kuksha occurred while still in prison. The Lord revealed to the elder that one of the guards at the house had a daughter who fell ill. “Child, take a vacation, go home, they will let you go. Your daughter is sick at home,” the saint admonished him. He didn’t believe that they could let him go: “They won’t let him go in the summer,” he said. The guard left, and the elder prayed for him and his sick daughter. Less than an hour later, he returned, saying that an urgent telegram had arrived, informing him that his daughter was very ill, and the authorities were letting him go home. “Pray, father, for her,” he asked, “after all, I have only one, her name is Anna.” The elder replied: “If you make a vow to God to change your life and go to church, then your daughter will be healthy.” He cried like a child and made a vow. Through the prayers of the monk, the girl received healing.

Story 2. 102-year-old disciple of the Monk Kuksha

In March 2014, at the St. John the Baptist Monastery in the city of Kungur, 102-year-old monk Nikon was tonsured into the great schema with the name of St. Kuksha of Odessa. During the Great Patriotic War, he served as a mortarman and was seriously wounded in the arm by a shrapnel, which was never removed. Over time, the fragment began to cause unbearable pain, and then Nikon went to his spiritual father. The Monk Kuksha suddenly sent him to cut down a dry linden tree for firewood. Exhausted from pain, Nikon went to cut down a tree for obedience. And after the first blows with an ax, the fragment suddenly jumped out of his hand, and the monk received healing.

Story 3. “The cell is full of demons, and everyone is running in a crowd through the door!!!”

One young novice, not understanding why the priest sprinkles his cell with holy water every evening, once asked him: “Father, why do you need to sprinkle it? What does it give? Three days have passed. Father Kuksha went to the novice’s cell and, before his eyes, began to sprinkle it with holy water. Subsequently, the monk said: “And suddenly I saw this, I saw this! The cell is full of demons, and everyone is running in a crowd through the door, but they don’t have time, they fall out one after the other...” Having sprinkled the cell, the elder asked: “Well, have you seen what it gives?”

Story 4. The power of alms

The elder attached great importance to almsgiving. His spiritual daughter asked someone for a book with an akathist and wanted to copy it for herself. In the temple, she placed the little book near the candle box, where her friend monk Thaddeus sold candles, and she herself went to be anointed with oil. When she returned, she discovered that the book was missing. The woman began to grieve, because the book was someone else’s, and with her misfortune she turned to Father Kuksha. “Don’t grieve, ask the Lord to accept this as alms. But the enemy doesn’t like alms, he will return everything, he will return everything,” was the priest’s answer. The next day in the evening the book lay in the same place where it had been placed. Father Thaddeus said: “So, people brought it and said that they found this book on the tram. They didn’t know what to do, they thought and thought and decided to take him to a monastery. They came to the monastery and laid her in the very place where she was.”

Story 5. Hint for the scientist

Once a famous scientist came to the monk, who had some unsolvable problem in his scientific work. In a conversation with him, Father Kuksha, with his simple words, led him to think about the correct solution to the issue. The scientist, leaving his cell, told in joyful amazement how the unlearned elder helped him discover the secret of his scientific research.

Story 6. “Be patient and pray, your husband will be a Christian!”

His spiritual daughter Elena often visited the elder. She was a scientific chemist, and her husband was a mining engineer, a major specialist in rocks. She was very sad that her husband was not baptized and even wanted to separate from him, but the elder told her: “Be patient and pray, your husband will be a Christian!” After the death of the elder, she went to the Pskov-Pechersk monastery and persuaded her husband to take her there. In the Pechersky Monastery there are caves created by God where deceased monks are buried. Elena invited her husband to look at the coffins, which, according to custom, are not buried here, but placed one on top of the other in caves in which the grace of God is clearly felt. When Elena’s husband saw the vaults of the caves, he, as a mining engineer, was amazed that the loose sandstone had not crumbled for centuries, held together like stone, and collapses did not occur. Such an obvious miracle made a strong impression on him. The grace of God touched his heart. He wished to be baptized immediately, and then married his wife and, like a child, was devoted to God and his spiritual father.

Story 7. “Suddenly I saw the Monk Kuksha, who, approaching, put his hand on my forehead...”

A student of the Odessa Theological Seminary, Alexander fell ill with severe pneumonia. The temperature rose to 39.9 degrees. Both the seminary medical assistant and those living in the room with him were worried about him. On the night of December 12, 1994, when Alexander fell into oblivion, they called an ambulance. The patient, being unconscious, called out loudly the name of the Monk Kuksha. Suddenly he fell silent and seemed lifeless for a while. Frightened by this, his friends began to shake him, calling him by name. Suddenly Alexander came to his senses and got out of bed. To everyone's surprise, he looked completely healthy. We took the temperature - the thermometer showed 36.6°. Then he was asked about such a sudden change in condition. Alexander said that when it was extremely difficult for him and there was a feeling that life was leaving him, he saw the Monk Kuksha, who, approaching, put his hand on his forehead. Suddenly he felt a strong surge of blessed power, which passed three times from head to toe. Then he felt that someone was shaking him and calling his name. When he woke up, he felt healed. Doctors who arrived soon found him healthy.

Story 8. The woman did not know that during his lifetime Saint Kuksha also suffered from a leg disease

One woman, seriously suffering from a leg disease - thrombophlebitis, came from Moscow to the Holy Dormition Odessa Monastery to pray to the Monk Kuksha. Her legs ached seriously, her veins were swollen, and she, completely exhausted, fell to the shrine with the holy relics and whispered: “Reverend Father Kuksho, help!” And only in Moscow, getting off the train onto the platform and running towards her son, did she realize that she was healed: the tumor had disappeared, the veins had become normal, the pain had gone away. At that time, this woman did not yet know the life of the Monk Kuksha, who during his lifetime also suffered from a leg disease.

In the spring of 1996, a singer of the St. Nicholas Church in the city of Pushkino, Moscow Region, learned the story of this healing. A few days after hearing what she heard, a neighbor came to her in terrible grief: her husband had gangrene in his legs, amputation was inevitable. The singer told her about the Monk Kuksha and his special mercy to those suffering from leg disease. A prayer service to the monk was immediately served in the church. In the meantime, the patient was transported to Moscow for surgery. Everything was ready for amputation, but doctors noticed that blood circulation began to be restored. “A miracle saved you,” this is what the doctors told the patient, who, of course, knew nothing about the prayer service served or about the ambulance and miracle worker Reverend Kuksha.

Story 9. Miracle of healing of a sick child

A few days after the glorification of the Monk Kuksha, one servant of God shared her joy. Her child was sick; he had a very high fever for several days, and the parents no longer knew how to help him. This woman was at the glorification of the saint and received pieces of vestments and a coffin. At home she was met with reproaches that the child was sick and the mother was not there. She immediately went to her son and, after praying, placed pieces of the vestment and coffin on his head. The child fell asleep and woke up the next day completely healthy.

Story 10. Resurrection of a dead girl

Through the prayerful intercession of the Monk Kuksha, the Lord raised the baby from the dead. In Odessa, in one Orthodox family, on the night of January 7-8, 1996, two-year-old Ksenia suddenly fell ill. The temperature rose sharply above 39 degrees and continued to rise. The girl began to rush about in the heat. Ksenia’s grandmother, a doctor by profession, seeing her extremely serious condition, asked her daughter, the girl’s mother, to call an ambulance. While she was talking on the phone, Ksenia suddenly became quiet. The grandmother began to examine her granddaughter: her heart was not beating - life had abandoned the girl. “There’s no need for an ambulance, it’s too late...” she told her daughter. In despair, the child’s mother knelt in front of the icons and began to tearfully pray: “Lord, take my soul, and leave her soul!” After a long prayer, she remembered that in the fall of 1994, at the Holy Dormition Monastery in Odessa, she was given pieces of the vestments and coffin of the Monk Kuksha. Calling on the name of the saint, the mother took these particles and applied them to the forehead of the deceased girl. Suddenly Ksenia took a deep breath - life returned to her. When the girl finally came to her senses, she pointed to the icon of the monk and asked her mother: “Give me Kuksha...”. The arriving doctor, after examining the girl, said that he did not find any reason to call an ambulance. The family calls this day Ksenia’s second birthday.