Matrona of Moscow

Blessed Matrona of Moscow, the blind ascetic and counselor of twentieth-century Russia.

Matrona Nikonova was born blind in a village of the Tula region in the 1880s. From childhood she showed unusual spiritual insight, and people came to her for prayer and counsel. Later she lost the use of her legs and lived in Moscow, moving from house to house through the years of persecution.

She received the many who sought her out, urging them to prayer, the sacraments and the sign of the Cross. She reposed in 1952 and was glorified by the Russian Church in 1999; her relics rest at the Pokrovsky Monastery in Moscow.

Feast day

On the New Calendar, Matrona of Moscow is commemorated on May 2. Churches on the Old (Julian) Calendar keep the feast on May 15 of the civil calendar.

Who celebrates a name day

People with these names keep their name day on this feast:

Matrona

Also commemorated on May 2

• 

  Athanasios of Alexandria

  Hierarch, Αθανάσιος ο Μέγας

  Archbishop of Alexandria, defender of the Nicene faith.

  Name days: Athanasios, Thanassis, Thanos, Nasis, Athanasius

• Hesperos and Zoe with their sons Kyriakos and Theodoulos

  Martyr, Έσπερος, Ζωή, Κυριάκος και Θεόδουλος

  Holy Martyrs Hesperos, Zoe and their children Kyriakos and Theodoulos, a Christian slave family martyred at Attalia.

  Name days: Hesperos, Esperos, Theodoulos, Theodulus, Zoe, Zoi, Zoey

• Boris the Baptizer of Bulgaria

  Apostle, Βόρις-Μιχαήλ ο Ισαπόστολος

  Saint Boris, in baptism Michael, Prince of Bulgaria and Equal-to-the-Apostles, who brought his people to Christ.

  Name days: Boris

• Basil the Blessed of Moscow

  Venerable, Βασίλειος ο διά Χριστόν Σαλός

  Blessed Basil, Fool-for-Christ of Moscow, who walked barefoot through the city and rebuked even the Tsar.

• Jordan the Wonderworker

  Venerable, Ιορδάνης ο Θαυματουργός

  Venerable Jordan the Wonderworker, an ascetic remembered in the Greek synaxarion.

  Name days: Iordanis, Jordan, Jordanis