Michael Zhizhilenko was just like other middle class romantic youths, bent on enjoying the world. He was training to be a doctor. Falling madly in love with a fellow student he married her. They graduated and joined Russian govt. service.
Meanwhile his wife had complications with her pregnancy. Specialist declared that the fetus must be aborted otherwise both mother and child would die during childbirth. Being a devout Christian she didn’t consent to kill her child. Michael couldn’t change her mind. So they both bowed to the will of heavenly Father. The inevitable happened and on dying moment she told Michael that she will wait for him in heaven.
The world around Michael Zhizhilenko crashed to hell of nothingness. He lost interest in living and had suicidal blues. He realized that all the joys of this world are harbinger of suffering. He thought of monastic life as a way of escape from this empty world. But the monastic life of Russian Orthodox Church didn’t appeal to him, though he was close to the church. He thought of Athos monasteries of Greece but didn’t succeed in getting there. Then he tried to get killed when assigned to war-front hospitals but failed. God had planned more fruitful cross for him.
Meanwhile communists captured power in Russia. They began their reign of terror. Whole Russia was turned into a vast prison camp. He was deputed to Moscow’s infamous Taganka prison as chief doctor. His return to heavenly Father i.e. fatherhood began, rejecting which we all fell from heaven.
The miserable tortured prisoners found him far more than a kind doctor, but a father, consoling, forgiving in the name of Christ, guiding to love and life. Many criminals were reformed. The dying always found him in their side at the moment of death. He gave all his pay to the needy prisoners, eating only the prison food and sleeping on bare boards of the prison. There he fell seriously sick infected by typhus and doctors almost gave him up. He promised to be a priest if he ever recovered. After extreme unction he began to recover rapidly.
Now the greater part of the Russian church was capitulating to relentless communist pressure. Patriarch Tikhon, the head of Russian Orthodox Church resisted as long as he lived. But he was murdered by poisoning and traitor bishop Sergius was made the head of the church by communist. The minority real Christ followers refused to acknowledge him. They were hounded out, imprisoned and killed. Such way, about one tenth of Russian Christians didn’t compromise and were killed directly or was worked to death in gulags.
Michael Zhizhilenko was imprisoned when he refused to recognize the communist controlled Russian church. He was transferred to various prisons and worked as doctor in their hospitals. His fatherly qualities improved and his reputation as father of prisoners became widespread. During his long trial he was interrogated with torture. At last he was convicted and shot by the communist.
Love God always creates abiding spiritual children and paradises by love-uniting them. Fatherhood and motherhood is the same thing. But we, some children of an old pride-degenerate paradise, refused to repent of the ascending pride there and worshipped pride-devil instead. Here also we see that older nations become pride-infected.
We rejected heavenly Father when we refused to become humble spiritual father or mother like Him in spiritual paradise. We opted to be carefree irresponsible lords like devil. With him, through him we became rotten and created rotten children of destruction. We made pride promoted war in paradise and fell from there (Rev.12,7-12 and Indian Puran).
All the heaven-fallen humanity is so self-destroying rotten and their fruits too. They are running to hate-disintegration soul-suicide as pride-hate destroys internal love-bond of our soul-parts. So Father has sent Christ and from him come his martyrs like Michael Zhizhilenko to guide us to be humble repentant spiritual father and mother again by becoming so to us. Then only we shall be love-integrated and create love-integrated spiritual real progeny. That is salvation of abiding fruitfulness.