Varvara of Vyritsa

Mother Varvara of Vyritsa (in the world Natalia Feodorovna Tretyakova) was a schemanun of the Russian Church, the spiritual daughter of Venerable Seraphim of Vyritsa. She was born on 25 October 1907 and fell asleep on 14 October 1999, in Saint Petersburg. Our source does not say that she has been canonized.

She was born in the village of Pozhegdin, now in the Komi Republic, in a peasant family, that of Feodor Mikhailovich Tretyakov. She was the fourth girl in the family. The newborn was baptized with the name Natalia. At twelve she became a novice of the monastery of the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God. After the closing of the monastery (in the 1930s) she returned to her village and married. In the marriage she had two children, but they died young. Soon the whole family moved to the settlement of Vyritsa in the Leningrad region, to the husband's relatives. At Vyritsa, Natalia became a parishioner of the Kazan church and learned that the elder Seraphim lived in the settlement, the same elder who had once led her out of a monastery surrounded by NKVD officers. Natalia became the spiritual daughter of Seraphim. She received monastic tonsure with the name Varvara and then the schema. The clairvoyant elder of Vyritsa, the schemamonk Seraphim, used to say that Russia is the keeper of the holy Orthodox faith. His spiritual daughter, Mother Varvara, became a true keeper of this holy faith. Pilgrims who came to Vyritsa went first to the grave of the elder Seraphim and then to Varvara.

Before her death Varvara was seriously ill and could not walk. She lay in the hospital of Saint Xenia of Petersburg. She died on 14 October 1999 in Saint Petersburg. The elder and woman of prayer was buried on the grounds of the Kazan church in the settlement of Vyritsa.