Nikephoros of Mamonovo

Holy Blessed Nikephoros of Mamonovo, also called Nikephoros of Meshchovsk, was a fool for Christ from the Meshchovsk region, who died in peace on 10 January 1934.

Childhood and calling

Nikephoros Terentyevich Malanichev was born around 1859 in the village of Mamonovo, forty kilometres from Meshchovsk, the eldest of four brothers. Since his mother was often ill and there were no sisters, many duties fell to him. But from childhood he had a spiritual longing: he prayed much, fasted, loved to go to holy places and monasteries, avoided idle talk and spoke gladly about God with devout people, especially pilgrims. His father watched over him, afraid he might leave home altogether. Once, on a summer night, he set off at dawn, and his father overtook him on horseback and brought him back. Later, at his father's insistence, he married and had a son and a daughter, but did not change his way of life: he had no heart for farming, behaved strangely, spoke unintelligibly and often went on pilgrimage. He brought gifts home, which soothed his family's discontent.

Friendship with Father George

Shortly before the revolution he met at the Saint George Monastery in Meshchovsk the abbot, the hieromonk George (Lavrov), who found in him a friend, understood his wisdom and grace and called him "one of the ancients". They often spoke in an allegorical manner. In difficult cases the abbot asked his advice and sometimes came to Mamonovo. The blessed one showed foresight. A little before Father George's first arrest, early one morning he spread costly carpets in the abbot's rooms, scattered vestments and put on some of them from the sacristy. Father George asked what he had done, and he laughed. In 1918 the abbot was arrested, and the monastery was laid waste by the Bolsheviks.

Persecution and last years

At the end of the 1920s, when the peasants of the surrounding villages refused to join the collective farm, someone pointed to Nikephoros as the one who advised them against it. He was arrested and, in prison, refused meat, so that fasting food was given him. At the interrogation he said that he prayed to God and did not speak about collective farms, for all authority is from God. He was released.

He went to Moscow, where the Chicherin family took him in, who had rooms in the apartment of Professor P. A. Minakov. He liked to pray at night, with many prostrations, and slept in the morning. In Moscow he found Father George again, who was at the Danilov Monastery, visited him at times and lived in his house in Zagorsk. Father George called him "friend in sorrow" and asked his spiritual children to care for him. Once Nikephoros uttered enigmatic words about tall grass and swaying birches; later the spiritual children understood that he had foretold the elder's second arrest, the search and exile, for many birches grew in the cemetery where he was buried. At table he would sometimes begin a long story about the merchants' wives of Meshchovsk, and then say a word that only one of those present understood, which answered his thought. He told his daughter not to store treasure in a chest, pointing to heaven.

Around 1932 he decided to return to his native village: "I am going to die where my dove was", he said, thinking of Father George. He died on 10 January 1934: coming home from the Liturgy, he sat at the table, bowed, and died quietly. He was buried in the cemetery of the town of Meshchovsk. After his death his granddaughter saw him in a dream, saying that he had a bright room in place of their house.

His memory is kept on 27 December, the day of his birth, and on 10 January, the day of his death. At his grave, beside the church of the Transfiguration in the town cemetery, a litia for the departed is served.