On September 24, it has been five years of the beatification of Saint Pious Mother Agafia of Cușelăuca Monastery “Assumption of the Virgin Marry” situated in Cotiujenii Mari village of Șoldănești district. This was the second beatification by the Orthodox Church of Moldova on September 24, 2016, after Metropolitan Bishop Gavriil Bănulescu-Bodoni was canonized on September 3, 2016.

Holy Mother Agafia and Saint Hierarch Gavriil Bănulescu-Bodoni, who between 1813 and 1821 headed the Diocese of Chisinau and Hotin, are by now the only ones who were beatified by the Orthodox Church of Moldova. Pious Macarie of Saharna Monastery enjoys local reverence.

According to a description of her life, Blessed Agafia of Cușelăuca, a wonderworking monastic saint of Moldova, spent most of her years in the monastery, in a state of pain and bodily infirmity. She continued to be sweet, kind and patient to all who met her, and healed many who came to her with their own pains and disabilities.

Agafia Maranciuc was born in the year 1819, in the village of Păsățel that is situated between the Bug and the Nistru, very close to the city of Odessa. Her parents, Ioan and Eudochia, were highly observant Orthodox Christians who strove to live a life of humility and service to God. They would on occasion visit holy sites nearby. On one occasion, when Agafia was only a little girl, her parents decided to take a pilgrimage to the Kiev Caves Lavra. Little Agafia begged her parents, with tears in her eyes, to be allowed to go with them. However, this was in a day and age when most pilgrimages were made on foot, and small children were at particular danger on the roads. Out of concern for her, Ioan and Eudochia decided to leave Agafia in the care of some family friends when they left for the Kiev Caves Lavra.

Agafia was not content with this. Aflame with the desire to visit the holy relics of the Russian saints in the Lavra, a few days after her parents left, she escaped her guardians’ care on her own and tried to catch up with her parents. However, as the little girl travelled by night and tried to make her way in the darkness, she fell into a deep abandoned well, mangling both of her legs. For three years, nothing was heard of her. Her guardians and parents were distraught when they learned of her disappearance, and they mourned for her, thinking she was dead. But little Agafia survived at the bottom of that well for those three years, miraculously sustained by the grace of God. Some testimonies assert that she was visited by the angels, and fed by manna from heaven during her imprisonment in the well.

She was eventually found by a local shepherd named Dimitriu Baciu. Being unable to walk, her parents placed Agafia in a cart and wheeled her back to their home. In her childhood years, she suffered a great deal of pain and illness on account of this injury. Yet she did not become bitter because of it. Even though she was quiet, she continued to be kind and considerate to everyone, and she also was given by God the gift of healing others through her prayers. Word of this went out, and many came from the surrounding countryside to visit her, and she healed their afflictions and gave them helpful advice.

Agafia retired to Cușelăuca Monastery. Being completely bedridden, she still kept as much of the nuns’ rule as she was able in her infirmity, and did not vary it in the slightest using her disability as an excuse. She was given for her patience not only the gift of healing by God but also the gift of prophecy. She foresaw both the flourishing of her monastery, and later its persecution under the Soviets. In her final months, she kept counsel with the abbess and with her monastic sisters, and urged everyone to carry their crosses in a spirit of peace and penitence.

On June 9, 1873, Blessed Agafia received the Gifts for the last time in this earthly life. Some witnesses report that after she took the elements, her face began to glow with an otherworldly light..

Numerous church-goers from all corners of the country and from abroad came to Cușelăuca Monastery to take part in the beatification service in 2016. With the blessing of His Eminence Metropolitan Bishop Vladimir, the holy relics of Blessed Agafia were laid in a shrine on August 25, 2016.