Makaria Somova of Kashira

Venerable Makaria Somova (in the world Maria Nikolaevna, 1811-1894) was hegumena and abbess (1884-1888) of the Saint Great Martyr Nikita Convent in Kashira, a disciple of the Optina elders. She is venerated as venerable; her name was entered in 1987 in the Synaxis of the Saints of Tula. She is commemorated on 13 February and 22 September.

Youth and trials at Belev

She was born in 1811 into a noble family of the Odoev district, Tula province, the daughter of an artillery lieutenant, and received her education at home. In 1836, with the blessing of Venerable Leo and Macarius of Optina, she entered the Exaltation of the Cross convent at Belev. With her sister Martha (later the nun Macedonia) she began to go to the disclosure of thoughts to the rassophore Anfia (Kononova), a disciple of Venerable Leo. Martha, who did not understand the meaning of the elder's guidance, became the initiator of accusations of heresy against Leo and his disciples. The accusation was supported by the monastery priest Grigory Popov. Bishop Damascene of Tula and Belev was informed; Mother Anfia was accused of drawing the sisters to herself and teaching them a new doctrine, and Maria Somova was presented as a novice spreading "Freemasonry." On 3 February 1841 the Tula consistory ordered that Mother Anfia be stripped of her rassa and expelled, and with her Maria Somova was expelled. Venerable Leo and Macarius wrote to the abbess at Tikhvin that the sisters "had nowhere to lay their heads." Maria tried to enter the convent at Oryol but was not allowed even to spend the night. Elder Leo foretold to the disciples: "Your sorrow will be turned to joy. I believe that the Belev convent will be mine and that the abbess will be mine." Soon the sisters were called back: on 4 October 1841 Bishop Damascene, convinced of the injustice of the accusations, officially received Mother Anfia and the novice Maria Somova into the convent.

Nun and abbess at Kashira

On 14 November 1847 Maria was tonsured a rassophore with the name Makaria, and on 27 January 1852 she received monastic tonsure. All her life she followed the counsel of the Optina elders. In 1862 she was appointed head of the Saint Nikita community at Kashira, which she directed for twenty-⁠seven years; with her came her sister, the nun Euphrosyne, and her colleague Maria Bernatskaya (Mitrophania, † 1885), appointed treasurer. With the money of Tula benefactors repairs were made in the church of Saint Nikita, new iconostases were placed in the side chapels of Saint George and Saint Elijah, and in the spring of 1888 the church was plastered anew. In her time seven stone buildings and four wooden ones were built, and a stone wall; needlework developed, medalled at the Paris exhibition. In the Russo-⁠Turkish war of 1877-1878 the community made shirts, warm vests and stockings for the army, and put several nursing sisters at its disposal. Within the community's walls many poor and crippled found shelter.

On 18 April 1884 the Holy Synod turned the community into a monastery with common life, inaugurated on 8 July 1884, with six nuns tonsured into the mantle; Makaria was raised to hegumena. She obtained that "Alexandrovsky" be added to the monastery's name, in memory of Emperor Alexander II. She cared for the order of the services, which were held daily, for a choir led by the priest Alexei Zertsalov, and for a school for poor girls. She asked to retire already in 1886 and in 1888 was granted it, with the successor Tikhona Ladyzhenskaya, a disciple of Optina.

Repose and veneration

Shortly before her death she received the schema in secret. She passed to the Lord on 13 February 1894 and was buried in the place she had chosen, beside the graves of her colleagues Euphrosyne and Mitrophania.