The fourth and the last domain of the Virgin Mary is to be found at the Diveevo Convent of the Holy Trinity and of St. Seraphim (The Svyto- Troitsky Seraphimo-Diveevsky monastery). The relics of the Great Russian saint Seraphim Sarovsky are situated here. He is one of the few saints who attained the very highest level of spiritual perfection by the ascetic acts of living as a hermit spending hours in meditation on a column, taking vows of silence seclusion. The Virgin Mary appeared to the venerable Seraphim twelve times.
In 1778 Prokhor Moshin (who took the name of Seraphim in monastic life) became a novice in the then highly reputed Sarovsky Monastery which was 15km away from the village of Diveevo. It was here that he performed his spiritually ascetic acts and after finishing his period of seclusion in 1825 he took in all those in need of spiritual aid.
In 1903, on the basis of a large amount of evidence supporting the healing of the sick through the intercession of father Seraphim, the Holy Synod took the decision to canonize the venerable Seraphim. Tsar Nickolay II, the empress accomponied by numerous enyourage took part in the celebrations, devoted to canonizing of the venerable Seraphim, which were held in Sarov and Seraphimo-Diveevsky monastery. Nickolay was thought to be given a letter written by Seraphim, which greatly upset the tsar.
The Diveevo Convent of the Holy Trinity and of St. Seraphim was founded by a rich aristocrat Agatha Semenovna Melgunova(who took the name of Alexandra when she became a nun). At the request from the Virgin Mary, she ordered the area surrounding Diveevo to be cleared for the construction of a women’s religious community and 1767 began building a stone church in honour of the icon of the Mother of God at Kazan. As Sister Alexandra drew closer to the end of her life, she asked the elders of Sarov not to leave her fellow sisters without spiritual guidance. It was father Pakhomy who took it upon himself to look after the community of nuns and after his death the job was taken on by father Seraphim.
Under the guidance of father Seraphim a mill was built in 1827 and a separate community for those who had taken vows of celibacy was set up near the mill. The legend says that the Virgin Mary appeared to father Seraphim and in this way the religious community was blessed by her presence. By order of father Seraphim the nuns dug a trench along the path which the Virgin Mary had trodden. Seraphim explained its significance in the following way: it was the Queen of Heaven herself who measured out this trench. Whoever crosses this trench while praying and has read the 150 prayers to Virgin Mary that person will get all of Afon, Jerusalem and Kiev”. From that time on, the village of Diveevo has been considered as the fourth domain of the Virgin Mary on earth. In 1848 the Trinity cathedral was laid, but its building and blessing was put off till 1875. The blessing day coincided with the celebration devoted to God's mother's icon "Umilenie" ("Tender Emotion"). In 1861 the religious community in Diveevo was named a Third Degree Convent. Up until 1917, it numbered about 1000 nuns. Near the convent, an icon-painting workshop and print works were set up: painting and handicrafts workshops also appeared.
In 1927 the community was closed down, and the cathedrals were destroyed. It was only in the spring of 1900 that the main monastic church (the Trinity Church) was reconsecrated. It was the start of the community’s renaissance. In summer 1991 the miraculous relics of the venerable Seraphim Sarovsky, which had been found in the Kazansky Cathedral in St. Petersburg, were transferred to the convent.
Thousands of pilgrims from all over the world visit Diveevo to do homage to its holy ground and the relics of the great church elder, Seraphim Sarovsky. The church of the Birth of the Holy Mother of God is where the relics of the venerable nuns of Diveevo, Alexandra, Marpha and Elena lie. They have been canonized.
In the Nizhniy Novgorod region 9 monasteries were blessed by the venerable Seraphim. At the many of them are small and secluded monasteries of Diveevo Convent including Serafimo-Ponetaevsky (65 km from Diveevo), Kutuzovosky Bogoroditsky in Ardatov region, and one more situated on the spring of the venerable Serafim Sarovsky in the village of Khitry and others.
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