Saint Alexandra of Diveevo (in the world Agafia Simeonovna Melgunova, née Stepanova; late 1720s or early 1730s – late 18th century) was an Orthodox ascetic and the founder of a monastic community in Diveevo, venerated as the originator of the Seraphim-Diveevo Monastery. She has been canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church.[1]
Origins and Family
Agafia came from the old Ryazan noble family of the Stepanovs, known since the mid-16th century. The family owned lands near Ryazan (then Pereyaslavl-Ryazansky) in the Okologorodny stan on the Pavlovka River. Her father and brothers — Anisim, Antony, and Prokofy — served in dragoon regiments; her father died early, and her mother, Praskovya Andreyevna, raised her daughter in the spirit of Orthodox piety.[1]
According to the custom of the time, Agafia was married at a young age to Yakov Ievich Melgunov, the son of neighboring landowners, an ensign of the Murom Infantry Regiment who was 6–7 years her senior. In the spring of 1747 her husband went off on campaign: as part of General V. A. Repnin's 30,000-strong corps, he marched across the whole of Germany to the Rhine. After his return, the Melgunovs spent summers on their estates and winters in Ryazan, in a house in the posad near the Kremlin, in the parish of the Church of the Prophet Elijah. Her husband died around 1755–1756 with the rank of second lieutenant, leaving Agafia with a small daughter.[1]
Monastic Life and the Vision
Possessing landed estates, more than a hundred peasant souls, and capital, Agafia chose not a second marriage but the monastic path. Around 1753 she followed the example of the wife of her husband's paternal uncle, who had taken monastic vows at the Ryazan Epiphany Monastery: she traveled with her daughter to Kyiv and entered the Kyiv Florovsky Monastery, a convent known since the 16th century that had flourished especially from 1712. The monastery's chief shrine was the miracle-working Rudnya icon of the Mother of God; women from the most distinguished families — the Dolgorukys, Apraksins, and Shakhovskoys — took the tonsure there.[1]
Although under the law of the time women could not be tonsured as nuns before the age of 40–50, Agafia was secretly tonsured at less than 30 years old with the name Alexandra, which testified to the recognition of her high spiritual disposition. According to the priests Vasily Derteyev and Vasily Sadovsky, as well as Nikolay Alexandrovich Motovilov, Mother Alexandra was granted a vision of the Most Holy Mother of God during a night prayer vigil.[1]
Founding of the Community in Diveevo
The vision showed her the place for founding a new convent. Mother Alexandra moved to the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate and settled in the selo (a larger village) of Diveevo in the Ardatov Uyezd, where she began a women's monastic community. This community later became the Holy Trinity Seraphim-Diveevo Monastery — today one of the chief Orthodox shrines of Russia, venerated as the fourth earthly Lot of the Most Holy Mother of God.[1]
The memorial day of Saint Alexandra of Diveevo is observed by the Russian Orthodox Church on June 13 (June 26 in the new style).