Ukraine’s oldest schemanun, the 107-year-old Mother Joanna of the Convent of the Athonite Icon of the Mother of God in Chopovichi in the Zhytomyr Province, reposed in the Lord yesterday, January 24.
“Today, Schemanun Joanna departed into eternity at the age of 107. She survived two world wars and was exiled for 18 years for her love of Ukraine,” her grandson Archpriest Roman Baranovsky wrote on his Facebook page.
Mother Joanna was born as Maria Dmitrievna Moroz on March 25, 1911 in the village of Mali Kuchurov in the Chernivtsi Province. Her love for prayer and the Church appeared already in her childhood. Having survived two wars, the Holodomor, a tuberculosis epidemic, during which she saved many people, and Church persecutions, including a 16-year-exile to Serbia, she was able to start a family and raise children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. After that, she resolved to devote her life to God in monasticism.
She became a riassaphore nun at the age of 99 and later moved to the convent, receiving the full monastic tonsure and the rank of schemanun.
Matushka was known to always be in prayer, holding a cross and prayer rope in her hands, entreating God for all those who came to her, and praying for peace in Ukraine and in the whole world.
Mother Joanna was not only the oldest nun but the oldest woman in Ukraine.
May her memory be eternal!
