Mother Maria Skobtsova

Who gets to be a StoryMaker? Is it the people who get everything right or who win every contest? Should it be the people who are the smartest or the nicest or the fastest or who always do the right thing? How do we think about our own stories? 

Well, if we know one thing about God, it is that he never works the way we think he should. He chooses liars, thieves, cheaters, and failures to tell his best stories. God works in everyone’s stories, even those who may not seem like StoryMakers. 

Today’s StoryMaker of the past, Mother Maria Skobtsova of Russia and France, did not live the life of a saint. In fact, if you look at her story, you might think her life was just a tragedy. 

Maria was born Elizabeth Pilenko in December 1891 in Riga, which is now the capital of Latvia. When she was fourteen, her father died and her mother moved the family to St. Petersburg. In her journal, Maria wrote she did not believe in God anymore. 

She married very young and threw herself into literary circles, writing poetry and essays. At one point, Maria was elected mayor of the seaside town of Anapa, but she was run out of Russia during the revolution.

She and her family fled to France with almost nothing. They were hungry, living in small apartments and struggling to find work. Then, in 1924, her daughter died of meningitis. Maria was devastated, but God was with her through it all. “The death of a loved one is a door that opens suddenly onto eternity,” wrote Mother Maria later. 

After the death of her daughter, Maria felt called to serve others who were poor and hungry, so she became a nun and opened a home in the seventh arrondissement of Paris, where others fleeing Russia could come and be treated as brothers and sisters. Over the next decade, she opened a second home for immigrants and eventually opened a hospital in the rural areas. By 1937, seventy-seven women lived in the home, and they served dinner to over 120 people each night. 

Maria wrote that she was drawn to this work of hospitality by the way Jesus loves the poor: “About every poor, hungry and imprisoned person the Savior says ‘I’: ‘I was hungry and thirsty, I was sick and in prison.’ To think that he put an equal sign between himself and anyone in need…. I always knew it, but now it has somehow penetrated to my sinews. It fills me with awe.” She knew that we all need help and saving, and that Jesus loves his children, no matter what.

But Maria was not a very good nun, at least when it came to following the rules. She regularly stayed out past curfew, meeting with people who were in despair or crisis. She preferred to find food for the hungry rather than show up on time for prayer. 

Then, in 1939, the Nazis came to Paris. Maria and her friend, Father Dimitri, began to issue baptismal certificates to Jewish neighbors to protect them from being sent to concentration camps. 

In July 1942, over 12,000 Jewish men, women, and children were arrested and sent to a sports stadium near Maria’s home. She spent five days, bringing food, water, and supplies to those detained, and rescued dozens of children by sneaking them out in trash cans. 

On February 8, 1943, Maria, her son Yuri, her friend Father Dimitri, and her coworker Feodor Pianov were arrested for breaking many laws to help their Jewish neighbors. Maria was sent to Ravensbruck, a concentration camp in Germany, where she encouraged others around her and painted icons and religious images on the walls. Maria died on Holy Saturday, 1945, just before the camp was liberated by the Russian army. 

Mother Maria’s life might appear to be a tragedy. She lost her father, three children, two husbands, and many friends. She lived in poverty, never won any awards or made any money. She went through periods where she wasn’t sure she believed God was with her or even real. She forgot to follow the rules. 

But through it all, God was with Mother Maria, writing her story to show that even in the midst of great sadness and troubles, God loves his children and never ever lets them go.