In the mid-1950s, a story took place that shook the entire country. During that period in the life of our country, when the dominant ideology asserted that there is no God, thousands of people turned to faith. And it was Divine Providence that pushed them to this, namely, the story that happened to one girl on the eve of the New Year.
It happened in a simple Soviet family in the city of Kuibyshev, now Samara. Mother and daughter were going to celebrate the New Year. Daughter Zoya invited her friends to a dancing party. It was Christmas fast, and the believing mother asked Zoya not to throw parties, but her daughter insisted on her own. In the evening, my mother went to church.
The guests have gathered, but Zoin's groom named Nikolai has not yet arrived. They did not wait for him, the dancing began. Girls and young people joined in pairs, and Zoya was left alone. Out of vexation, she took the image of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker and said: "I will take this Nicholas and go dancing with him," not listening to her friends, who advised her not to blaspheme. “If there is a God, He will punish me,” she snapped.
The dancing began, we went through two circles, and suddenly an unimaginable noise rose up in the room, a blinding light flashed.
The fun turned to horror. Everyone ran out of the room in fear. Zoya alone remained standing with the icon of the saint, holding it to her chest - petrified, cold as marble. No efforts of the arriving doctors could bring her to her senses. When pricked, the needles broke and bent, as if meeting a stone obstacle. They wanted to take the girl to the hospital for observation, but could not budge her: her legs seemed to be chained to the floor. But her heart was beating - Zoya lived. From that time on, she could neither drink nor eat.
When the mother returned and saw what had happened, she fainted and was taken to the hospital, from where she returned a few days later: faith in the mercy of God, fervent prayers for mercy on her daughter restored her strength. She came to her senses and tearfully prayed for forgiveness and help.
The first days the house was surrounded by many people: believers, doctors, clergymen, just curious came and came from afar. But soon the premises were closed to visitors by order of the authorities. Two militiamen were on duty in it for 8 hours. Some of the attendants, still very young (28-32 years old), turned gray with horror when at midnight Zoya screamed terribly. At night her mother prayed beside her.
"Mum! Pray! - shouted Zoya. - Pray! We perish in sins! Pray! " The patriarch was notified of everything that had happened and they asked him to pray for mercy on Zoe. The patriarch replied: "He who punished will also have mercy."
Of the visitors, the following persons were admitted to Zoya:
1. A famous professor of medicine who came from Moscow. He confirmed that Zoe's heartbeat did not stop, despite the external fossilization.
2. At the request of the mother, priests were invited to take from Zoya's petrified hands the icon of St. Nicholas. But they couldn't do it either.
3. On the feast of the Nativity of Christ, Hieromonk Seraphim (probably from the Glinsk Hermitage) arrived, served a water-blessing prayer service and consecrated the whole room. After that, he managed to take the icon from Zoya's hands and, having given the image of the saint the due honor, returned it to its original place. He said: “Now we must wait for the sign on the Great Day (that is, on Easter)! If it does not follow, the end of the world is not far off."
4. Metropolitan Nicholas of Krutitsky and Kolomna also visited Zoya, who also served a prayer service and said that a new sign should be expected on the Great Day (that is, on Easter), repeating the words of the pious hieromonk.
5. Before the feast of the Annunciation (that year it was on the Saturday of the third week of Great Lent) a handsome old man came and asked to be admitted to Zoya. But the police officers on duty refused him.
He came the next day, but again, from other attendants, he was refused.
The third time, on the very day of the Annunciation, the attendants let him through. The guards heard him gently say to Zoya: "Well, are you tired of standing?"
Some time passed, and when the police officers on duty wanted to release the elder, he was not there. All are convinced that it was Saint Nicholas himself.
So Zoya stood for 4 months (128 days), until Easter itself, which was April 23 that year (May 6 in the new style).
On the night of Christ's Bright Resurrection, Zoya began to cry out especially loudly: "Pray!"
The night guards became terrified, and they began to ask her: "Why are you shouting so terribly?" And the answer came: “Scary, the earth is burning! Pray! The whole world is perishing in sins, pray!"
From that time on, she suddenly revived, softness, vitality appeared in the muscles. She was put to bed, but she continued to cry out and ask everyone to pray for a world that perishes in sins, for a land that burns in iniquity.
- How did you live? they asked her. - Who fed you?
“Pigeons, pigeons fed me,” was the answer, which clearly proclaims mercy and forgiveness from the Lord. The Lord forgave her sins through the intercession of the holy saint of God, the merciful Nicholas the Wonderworker and for the sake of her great suffering and standing for 128 days.
Everything that happened so amazed those living in the city of Kuibyshev and its environs that many people, seeing miracles, hearing cries and requests to pray for people dying in sins, turned to faith. They hurried to church with repentance. The unbaptized were baptized. Those who did not wear the cross began to wear it. The conversion was so great that the churches lacked crosses for those who ask.
With fear and tears, the people prayed for the forgiveness of sins, repeating Zoe's words: “Scary. The earth burns, we perish in sins. Pray! People die in lawlessness."
On the third day of Easter, Zoe departed to the Lord, having passed a difficult path - 128 days of standing before the face of the Lord in atonement for her sin. The Holy Spirit preserved the life of the soul, resurrecting it from mortal sins, so that in the future eternal day of the Resurrection of all the living and the dead, it might be resurrected in the body for eternal life. After all, the very name Zoya means "life".
The Soviet press could not keep silent about this incident: answering letters to the editor, a certain scientist confirmed that, indeed, the event with Zoya was not an invention, but it was only a case of tetanus, not yet known to science.
But there are many incomprehensible things here. Firstly, with tetanus, there is no such stone rigidity, and doctors can always give an injection to the patient. Secondly, with tetanus, you can carry the patient from place to place, and you can put him down, but Zoya stood and stood as long as even a healthy person could not stand, and they could not move her at all. So it is not necessary to speak unequivocally about the form of tetanus unknown to science. Therefore, some believe that God himself was at work here.