“Our family always invokes Saint John of Shanghai’s name in their prayers, and he guides us through everything. Saint John helped me come to this monastery, as I had dreamed of visiting it. What a blessing it is that you have a church dedicated to Saint John of Shanghai!” These are the words of Vera Vyacheslavovna Sokolik, a guest at St Elisabeth Convent and the great-great-great-granddaughter of Count Mikhail Nikolaevich Muravyov. This year, through the saint’s prayers, she visited the land where, 160 years ago, her distinguished forebear worked hard for his country and for the Orthodox Church.
On her father’s side, she is a Shumilova; on her mother’s, a Muravyova. This is Vera’s first time in Belarus. She was born in Harbin in 1955. She speaks Russian beautifully, is deeply devout, and lovely to talk with. For us, her story has been a gift from Saint John himself, opening up another chapter in the story of the Russian people — one that includes a family touched by this widely beloved saint.
“My mother, Elizaveta Lvovna Muravyova, was from Saint Petersburg, but she was born in Helsinki, Finland,” our guest begins. “My grandfather, Lev Petrovich Muravyov, held the rank of captain first class and served in the navy under Tsar Nicholas II. He had a ship, and they were at anchor in Finland when my mother was born in 1917, right in the middle of the Revolution. Sadly, my grandparents had to part. Lev Petrovich was warned he would be executed, and if he stayed with his family, they would be killed too. It was a terrible choice — he didn't want to leave his wife and two children, but they had to flee: grandmother took the two girls one way, and my grandfather went the other.”
Lev Petrovich and Elena Alexandrovna Muravyov, 1905
Elena Alexandrovna Muravyova, with her two children — the younger of whom was not yet six months old — travelled via Saint Petersburg, where she had formerly lived, to join her mother in Vladivostok. There, for a while, things seemed to calm down: the girls were growing, and the family was comfortable, but this peaceful time did not last.
“My mother wasn't yet fifteen when Soviet officers turned up at the house,” Vera goes on. “They warned my grandmother, ‘We know you’re Muravyov’s wife. If you’re still here tomorrow morning, you’ll be gone for good.’ It was in 1933. Some Chinese men who rented a room from my grandmother in Vladivostok helped the four of them — my grandmother, my mother, and her two aunts — to get away.”
They walked all the way to China. On the way, the women and children were attacked and robbed more than once, but the Lord kept them safe. The same Chinese men met them at the border and helped them reach Harbin.
Back then, Harbin was a proper Russian city, with Orthodox churches, a monastery, and Russian schools and colleges. They stayed with a friend they knew from Vladivostok, who happened to be the sister of Protodeacon Mikhail Ivanovich Shumilov.
“Protodeacon Mikhail Shumilov, my grandfather on my father’s side, served at the church of the Convent of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God under Abbess Rufina. Back in Russia, from 1926 to 1929, he had been the protodeacon at St Nicholas Church at Pogranichnaya Station. There were nine children in the family. When they started going after the clergy, Father Mikhail was arrested and sentenced to be shot. But his guard in the prison turned out to be an old friend from the seminary. “Mishka, what on earth are you doing in here?!” he said.
“You know yourself,” Grandad answered.
“Well, I’m on duty tonight, so I’m letting you go. Run!” And just like that, he let Grandad out,” Vera goes on. “But the shock of his arrest was all too much for my grandmother. She fell ill and died quite suddenly. She was about thirty-seven.”
The Shumilov and Muravyov families, 1920s. Vyacheslav Shumilov is in the first photo, on the right in the middle row, in a white shirt. Elizaveta Muravyova is the youngest in the second photo
“Grandad took the children and moved to Harbin. He served in the monastery and did what work he could, trying to find homes for the children with different families. My father, Vyacheslav Shumilov, ended up with people where the man of the house was very cruel. Dad kept running back to Grandad, saying, ‘They’re hitting me there!’ And Grandad would have to say, ‘I can’t take you away right now – you must go back; at least they give you food and a roof over your head.’”
Abbess Rufina (Kokoreva) with Sister Ariadna and Protodeacon Mikhail Ivanovich Shumilov laboured in God’s service in Harbin, at the Convent of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God
So, in Harbin, Elena Alexandrovna Muravyova met Mikhail Ivanovich Shumilov. She was preparing the meal, and Father Mikhail and the children came to their house every day. He grew very fond of her youngest daughter, Elizaveta, and would say, “Choose a husband — I have plenty: Valentin, Vyacheslav, Valerian, Volodya.” Mikhail Ivanovich died early, at fifty-two. Not long after, his son Vyacheslav asked Elizaveta Muravyova to marry him. They were wed in 1941 and were together for fifty-nine years. Russians who had come through a very hard life, yet full of hope and faith in God...
“My parents were very devout,” remembers Vera Vyacheslavovna. “They were always at church, always serving. My father used to help with the services, and he was the bell-ringer at the Alexeevsky Church and at the women’s monastery in Harbin.
“He received a good education. After leaving school, he went on to an institute in Harbin and qualified as a mechanical engineer. Moreover, he could speak several languages — Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.”
“My mother was taught at home, first in Vladivostok and then in Harbin, where tutors would come to the house. She had some wonderful teachers and grew up to be a very well-read and refined woman, as she’d been reading serious books from when she was small. And she loved God very much.
My great-aunt Cleopatra, my grandmother’s sister, was deeply faithful. I remember my grandmother as being deeply faithful too, but it was Aunt Cleopatra who took my mother to church and kept her on the right path. Thanks to her, Mum came to love Christ very much and went to services with reverence.
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich and Elizaveta Lvovna Shumilov, 1941
Our own connection to the church came through our parents. There were four of us children, and my eldest brother, Lev, served at the altar. I was born in Harbin in 1955. They didn’t send me to school, though I was desperate to learn.
Around that time, a lot of Russians were being forced to return, and the ones who went had a terrible time of it. My uncle Vladimir was killed; my father’s older and middle brothers were sent to a concentration camp, where my uncle Valentin lost his legs. My aunt’s husband was thrown in prison. My cousins live in Russia today, and we still keep in touch with some of them. They are believers too, they go to church, and their children and grandchildren are baptised Orthodox.
My parents refused to go back, so we had both the Chinese authorities and Soviet officers coming to the house. They even held a gun to my father, saying, “You have to leave.” My father lost his job and couldn't work as an engineer anymore. We lost our papers, our passports, and were no longer seen as Russians. We were, as my mother used to say, ‘stricken from the law’ — nobodies, like refugees. Father picked up odd jobs here and there, and my parents worked to arrange our departure from China.
We were among the last to leave Harbin — in 1961. I was six then. Queen Elizabeth gave all the refugees permission to go, so in 1961 our family went to Hong Kong, where we waited for a ship. My parents were set on going to San Francisco because Saint John of Shanghai was there. They knew him; my father often travelled to Shanghai to see his sister and brother and would serve at the altar during the services. But there was no way to get to America just then, so we set sail from China, bound for Brazil…”
Guest of the monastery, Vera Sokolik
“In Brazil, we lived in São Paulo for four years,” Vera Vyacheslavovna Sokolik continues. “There was a church nearby where we went for the evening service. For the Divine Liturgy, we went to another church a little further away. And my father kept going to the cathedral because he sang and served there.”
We hardly ever went to the cathedral. I remember one big service with the bishops there — the glorification of Saint John of Kronstadt (1 November 1964). It was a grand celebration. The main event took place at the Synodal Cathedral of the Sign of the Mother of God in New York, but services took place in many other places, including Brazil.
We expected to leave Brazil soon, so they didn't put me in school there either. My mother taught me everything at home: reading, writing, arithmetic, and the Law of God. My brother, seven years older than me, and my sister, three years older, were sent to school — they studied. There were Russian schools in China and in Brazil. But my sister went to a Brazilian school, learning in Portuguese, while my brother went to a Russian boarding school where the children could study and stay over.
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich and Elizaveta Lvovna Shumilov with their children
When we got to San Francisco, there were four of us children: my eldest brother Lev, who was seventeen; my sister Nadezhda, thirteen; myself, ten; and my little brother Sergei, who had just turned three. The first thing we did when we reached America was go to the cathedral — the Cathedral of the Joy of All Who Sorrow — to see Bishop John. The Bishop gave my father his blessing to serve as his subdeacon. My father was also a reader and a bell-ringer, and he sang in the choir. He used to take us up to the belfry when we were little, and we listened as he rang.
Cathedral of the Icon of the Mother of God “Joy of All Who Sorrow” in San Francisco
Dad went into the altar with my elder brother Lev, who helped him. My mother wanted little Sergei to be allowed in too, but the Bishop said, “He will serve — soon, but it’s too early.” He was kind to everyone — truly so! The Bishop was always lovely with children, sometimes he’d just tap their heads with his staff and say: “Be obedient, be good,” or “Don’t do that!” The one thing he disliked was when people came into the altar wearing ties. “Everyone must take their ties off in here! They’re not needed.” And among us it was the custom — young people and adults — to wear ties all the time. Bishop John put a stop to that.
Dad served as a subdeacon for forty years and kept the altar servers in line — some said he was strict, but he was simply bringing order.
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Shumilov, Subdeacon
By the blessing of Saint John of Shanghai, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Shumilov served as subdeacon for forty years.
We knew that Bishop John was a saint, because my mother was always saying it: “He’s a saint.” She would tell us to stand still and listen to his sermons, and she’d nudge us forward towards the front. And Bishop John’s services were joyful and… long. He would talk for a long time, and a lot of it went over my head. Some people understood the Bishop perfectly, but perhaps I simply had not yet learnt to concentrate. That was all it was.
A service with Saint John was always a special occasion. He served every day — if not in the cathedral, then in the little church at the St Tikhon of Zadonsk shelter (a church the Bishop founded in Shanghai in 1935, later moved to the USA). So on a Sunday, you never had to ask, “Is the Bishop serving today?” He was always there.
My husband even served Saint John as a boy, back when the services were still in the old wooden cathedral. His family had come to the US before us, and he went to the Russian school attached to the old cathedral. The Bishop would come in for the exams and look like he was dozing off. The pupils thought they might get away with a bit of cheating if they didn't know an answer. But then he'd suddenly say, “Wait, wait! Answer!” — he wasn't asleep at all, just sitting there quietly with his eyes closed, praying. I heard he never missed a single exam.
A Russian bell-ringer
We went to the services and took Communion from Bishop John. He would come to our home with the “Kursk Korennaya” icon and served a moleben for us more than once. When the saint was serving, he seemed to shine and almost walk on air. I was only small, but I felt it was something extraordinary.
– And what would happen at home before Saint John arrived? Today the Bishop is coming, and…
“My mother would get everything ready, tidy up the house… It might have seemed to me that everyone did this, but my mother was always prepared. She always had everything to hand: food, pies. So anyone could just drop by. After the Sunday service, widows, people on their own, and my friends from the Russian school would often come round.
My mother was always ready to help the Church. On feast days, ten people might turn up for tea, then more would follow, and sometimes even a whole crowd. She always invited widows and those who were alone, and then they became friends. Our house was a very open one. The Bishop would come over, and nuns would visit on feast days — they’d sing a troparion and say a little prayer. The Bishop usually came with Deacon Nikolai Porshnikov.
Vera Vyacheslavovna Sokolik
At that time, Saint John’s cell-attendant was a young man called Pavlik Lukyanov*, whom I knew well; we used to go to services together. We might go to the all-night vigil at the monastery and then to the Divine Liturgy at the cathedral.
The first time the Bishop came to us, he consecrated our flat in San Francisco. As it happened, it was my parents’ silver wedding — their 25th anniversary. The Bishop came for the celebration. The heart of his visit was the prayer — a short moleben in front of the icons.
My parents had brought icons over from China. Some of them looked brand new; they had been almost completely black, but then they started to shine. My mother even wrote articles in the paper about the renewed ones. We had icons in every single room.
The Bishop never stayed for long. He’d arrive, say a prayer, have a bite to eat, and that would be it — an hour at most. He would chat over the meal and tell stories, but I’ve no idea what they were about. At that age, I was always running around, helping Mum.
Memories…
In San Francisco, I went to an American school and also enrolled in the Russian school. At first, the small Russian school was at Abbess Ariadna’s, and children of different ages sat in one classroom. Later on, my mother managed to get me into the cathedral school. There, at the cathedral, I studied at the Cyril and Methodius Russian School with my sister.
– You say there were Russian nuns in San Francisco. Who were these sisters? How did the monastery come to be there?
“The Russian monastery in San Francisco had moved from China. The abbess there was Ariadne. You see, back in China, there had been Russian monasteries in Shanghai and Harbin. My grandfather Mikhail Ivanovich Shumilov was a protodeacon in Harbin, and in Shanghai, my husband’s grandfather, Fedot Stepanovich Zadorozhny, was the protodeacon. After Abbess Rufina reposed**, her successor Abbess Ariadne and the sisters moved to San Francisco at the end of 1948 and settled there. A lot of nuns came over too***, all already of mature age. They had a large church and a smaller one, and even a skete in Canada. When we came to America, my parents already knew them from Harbin and Shanghai. So when we got to San Francisco, the first thing we did was go to see Bishop John and visit the women’s monastery.”
Bishop John with the sisters of the Bogoroditse-Vladimirskaya community, Abbess Ariadne, the clergy and the young charges at the Shanghai shelter
“My parents loved that community dearly. The sisters did a lot of charity work and helped many people who were struggling. When we first got to America, Abbess Ariadne and the sisters would visit our family and bring us food for a while. They’d come over to pray — to say a moleben or an akathist — and then they would leave money in the icon corner. We didn’t notice at first, but then my mother found it. My parents had come from China with nothing, and the nuns were always helping us out. Or, I remember, Abbess Ariadne would give us money — ‘Buy the children some shoes or a coat for the feast,’ she'd tell us, or something else we needed.”
Abbess Ariadne (Michurina) (1900–1996)
“Sadly, that monastery in San Francisco no longer exists. A great loss. We loved our monastery, we really did, but perhaps not enough.”
– And how did you celebrate Easter in San Francisco?
“After the service, we broke the fast. There was always a meal at the cathedral, but lots of people went home to eat, and many, like my mother, would put on a proper festive spread. When we first came to America, we used to stay on at the cathedral after the Easter service, but in later years we’d have our meal at home, as we’d have everything ready ourselves. Guests would be coming and going all day — it was our custom, and I imagine it was the same in Russia: on Pascha the doors of the house are open, and anyone may drop in to break the fast, to have a chat, to pray. So after the Paschal service we had a short rest and then welcomed guests.
Some people say that Saint John was strict — I never saw that side of him. To me, he was kind, our Vladyka… And when he reposed, it felt as if we had a funeral every day — we went to every single memorial service. Afterwards, we often went to the bishop’s tomb and had the Divine Liturgy there.
When Saint John was gone, Bishop Anthony (Medvedev) became the ruling bishop — also a remarkable man of holy life. Every single year, he’d ring me on my name day to wish me well. A bishop has more than enough to do, yet he would always call, even just for a moment: “Happy Name Day!” What saintly people they were! All thanks be to God, of course.
Thanks be to God, the Lord was so good to my parents! Through them, we all became Orthodox, and God grant that we remain so to the end. We do our best, though not as much as my father and mother — they did far more. For us now, life is all rush and bother. My children also went to the Russian school at the cathedral, the one named after Cyril and Methodius, and they have a great reverence for Saint John of Shanghai. Now they are adults and, I hope, when needed, they turn to him for help.”
Children and grandchildren of Vyacheslav Mikhailovich and Elizaveta Lvovna Shumilov (centre, front row) at the Nativity of Christ
– In your opinion, does what Saint John of Shanghai, Abbess Ariadne and the sisters planted in people’s souls — everything your parents and the Russian Orthodox community lived by — still live on among the people at the cathedral in San Francisco today?
“Of course, there is fruit. But the older generation has already gone, and so has much of my own… Sadly, some are moving away from San Francisco and it’s getting harder to keep up church life; children grow up baptised, but they don’t go to church. You see this with the families from the old emigration. But there are still people who revere Saint John. It’s certainly not all lost. Especially now that many Americans have converted to Orthodoxy. They have a great love and reverence for Saint John.
And people who come over from Russia or Europe to San Francisco today, they honour the saint, too. I hardly knew Vladyka John when he was alive — I mean, there were people who knew him so much better, which I’m sad about, but I was only ten then. All the same, I think of him as my own patron saint, and I believe he helps me in everything. All my life, I’ve tried to get to the celebrations at the cathedral in San Francisco for his feast days — twice a year****. Last October, for the thirtieth anniversary of the finding of his relics, there was a wonderful celebration. I feel he’s a saint who is very close to me. All saints are good, of course, but the Lord gave him to me.
On the threshold of the temple
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Prepared by the team of obitel-minsk.ru
Photographs from the personal collection of Vera Vyacheslavovna Sokolik and from the internet
* Archbishop Peter (Lukyanov) of Chicago and Mid-America (d. 8 November 2024).
** Abbess Rufina (Kokoreva) began her monastic life at the Monastery of St John the Theologian in the Perm region, in the town of Cherdyn. In 1923, persecuted by the Soviet authorities, she and several sisters went to Harbin in China, where she founded a women’s monastery dedicated to the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God and set up a home for girls. In the 1920s, with the threat of Japanese occupation, many Russians moved from Harbin to Shanghai. In 1935, the Shanghai metochion of the Harbin Convent began its work. Abbess Rufina reposed in 1937, and the service for her was led by Bishop John of Shanghai.
*** The publication “Bread of Heaven”, Harbin, 1940, No. 1, p. 58, notes that there were 33 monastic sisters serving at the Russian monastery in Shanghai at that time.
**** The Repose of Saint John of Shanghai is commemorated on 2 July (he reposed in 1966), and on 12 October the Church celebrates the finding of his relics (which took place on 12 October 1993).
