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| S.A. Nilus |
[S.A. Nilus is most known for discovering and publishing the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and for his miraculous finding of the lost writings of Nikolas Motovilov concerning St. Seraphim of Sarov - commonly called "A Wonderful Revelation to the World". This current text relates the final years of the life of this righteous man.]
In April, 1927, Sergius Alexandrovich Nilus was arrested again. The GPU report says that during the search he was very calm, said that he was happy to suffer for the faith and said to the other members of his household: “Don’t worry, everything is from God, He will one day pay back for these unpleasantnesses.” At the end of the search the GPU agent told Nilus that he was under arrest and asked him to prepare to follow him. Nilus asked for time to say goodbye, and after gathering all the members of his household together by the iconostasis “began a whole church service”. After prayers Nilus blessed all those present, and they kissed his hand. Before leaving the house Nilus ordered the servants to pour a bottle of holy water. Taking it with him, he left the house, chanting “Christ is risen”. All the members of the household took up the chant as they accompanied him onto the street. On May 6, 1927 he was released, and for another year they lived in Chernigov.
When Metropolitan Sergius’ notorious declaration submitting the Church to the God-hating atheists was published, he opposed it. Thus on January 29 / February 11, 1928 he wrote to L.A. Orlov: “As long as there is a church of God that is not of ‘the Church of the evildoers’, go to it whenever you can; but if not, pray at home… They will say: ‘But where will you receive communion? With whom? I reply: ‘The Lord will show you, or an Angel will give you communion, for in ‘the Church of the evildoers’ there is not and cannot be the Body and Blood of the Lord. Here in Chernigov, out of all the churches only the church of the Trinity has remained faithful to Orthodoxy; but if it, too, will commemorate the [sergianist] Exarch Michael, and, consequently, will have communion in prayer with him, acting with the blessing of Sergius and his Synod, then we shall break communion with it.”
In May, 1928 Sergius Alexandrovich was banished from Chernigov and forbidden to live in the Ukraine. At this stage the strain of the Niluses peripatetic life began to tell on his health. A friend arranged for the couple to move in with his father, the priest Fr. Basil Smirnov, in the home of the Orlovs in Krutets, Alexandrovsky uyezd, Vladimir region. They hoped that Sergius Alexandrovich would get better in the fresh country air. The Niluses arrived at the end of April, 1928. But he never recovered his health.
Maria Vasilievna Orlova-Smirnova – later Schema-Nun Mariam, the daughter of the martyred Priest Basil Smirnov - shared her impressions of the last days of Sergius Alexandrovich, who spent the last two years of his life in her house and died there:
"Inwardly, he was a colossus of the spirit, who stood so firmly 'on the rock of faith' that neither persecutions, nor slander were able to shake his faith and love for God. Having chosen his path, he went along it without looking back... Sergius Alexandrovich got up very early: at about four o'clock, and when he had finished his special morning rule, at about seven o'clock, Helen Alexandrovna got up and they read the morning prayers together... The words of Sergius Alexandrovich are both simple and deeply Orthodox: "Christ the Lord and His Orthodox Church - that is the one truth that makes us free, the one source of every earthly blessing, every true, unbreakable happiness that can be attained on earth and above the earth - in the depth of the endless ages, in the height of the fathomless heavens. For him who, by the mercy of God, attains this truth, who devotes himself unreservedly to its service, life becomes clear; and he sorrows for unsettled contemporary man, who mindlessly and unwittingly drives away from himself the grace of God, without which he is dust and ashes!"
Sergius Alexandrovich died on January 1/14, 1929. On that day, he forced himself, with great difficulty, to go to the church in the village of Krutets, where he was counted worthy to receive the Holy Mysteries. On returning home, he fainted (from a heart attack), after which it was only with difficulty that he recovered consciousness.
One hour before his death, he said that difficult times were coming for the Church and that now the doors had been opened for the coming of the Antichrist. Then, pointing at Fr. Basil Smirnov, he said: "Ah, Father, Father, I am sorry for you.”
The last thing he did was bless the little daughter of Maria Vasilievna Orlova. Then, at five in the afternoon, at the very moment when the bells were beginning to ring for the all-night vigil commemorating St. Seraphim of Sarov, he fainted again, and quietly died. It is obvious that the holy God-pleaser St. Seraphim took care of his great venerator and prayed the Lord that the righteous man should have a peaceful end.
"On the grave of Sergius Alexandrovich," concludes Maria Vasilievna, "my brother placed a cross which he himself had made. On the cross, under the name of the deceased, was written: 'Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints', and on the other side: 'It is good to keep the secret of a king, but honorable to proclaim the works of God.'"
At the end, or in the preface, of his books Sergius Alexandrovich always asked his readers for their prayers: "In conclusion, I again ask every Orthodox who has a liking for this book to remember the name of its sinful compiler, praying for the time being - for his health and salvation, and in time - for the repose of his soul in the heavenly dwellings of the One Tri-Personal God for the sake of the priceless merits of the One Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom be honor and worship and glory to the ages."
It has been written that S.A. Nilus "was a practicer of unceasing prayer, which for him was like breathing. For many years before his death, one could observe his left hand fingering a prayer rope which he kept concealed in his jacket pocket."