Testimony of Nun Feodora (Orlova) about a Cancer Patient Cured by Elder Avvakum’s Prayers

The year 2019 marked the 120th anniversary of the birth of the Athonite elder Hieroschemamonk Avvakum (Vakarov). A few conferences were held to mark the anniversary, and a book was published for which a portrait of Fr Avvakum was required. I was working on his portrait and while I was deciding how to approach it, I familiarised myself with the Elder’s life and found that he had been a great monk and ascetic. I was particularly impressed that in actual fact he saved the Russian Monastery of St Panteleimon on Mount Athos, which could have been closed or ceased to exist.

When the portrait of Schemamonk Avvakum was finished, I mounted it in a frame and placed it in the studio among the many icons that we have there. I was surprised that several bishops who visited the studio noticed the portrait and asked, “Who is this elder?”

One day, a woman came in and said that her daughter was sick with cancer. I knew that there were saints who had died of cancer, for example, St Nektarios of Aegina, St Paisios of Athos, and St Anastasia of Kyiv. People pray to them nowadays to be healed of this grave illness. At that moment, I remembered that Fr Avvakum had suffered from cancer for many years and had eventually died from it, and I suggested that they pray to him.

The woman fell down on her knees [before the portrait of the Elder there in the studio] and began to pray to Fr Avvakum with tears, asking him to help her daughter. Sometime later, she came back, thanked me, and told me that her daughter was much better. Soon she was relieved from her illness.
This made a very strong impression on me as an iconographer and a person who has dedicated her whole life to serving God. Is this not a miracle that God has revealed to us through this very first portrait that this elder was truly a God-pleasing man? May God grant that everyone who, with faith, turns in his prayers to Fr Avvakum, will receive assistance from him.

Nun Feodora (Orlova),
Icon-painting Studio of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, 2019