Schema-Igumen Ignaty (Melekhin) was truly clairvoyant, and his life was amazing. He was born in 1865. He fell seriously ill in his youth and made a vow that if he got better, he’d go to a monastery. Thus he ended up in the monastery.
He came to Harbin with the White Army units in 1922, being then a hieromonk. He entered the Kazan-Theotokos Monastery, served many years at the altar of God, pastored the flock, was elevated to the rank of igumen, and became one of the most revered pastors in the city.
In the forties, when he was already in his late seventies, he went blind, but that only sharpened his spiritual vision. He could no longer serve at the altar of God and celebrate the Liturgy, but he continued to hear Confessions and comfort the people. Having no physical vision, Fr. Ignaty saw with spiritual eyes not only the penitent himself, but also his soul. The remarks he made often had an amazing effect on a person, since Fr. Ignaty answered even thoughts that weren’t expressed to him.
Sometimes he served brief molebens and then read the Gospel from memory. Early in the morning, he could be seen in the monastery enclosure feeding pigeons sitting on his shoulders and arms.
In the fifties, Fr. Ignaty fell seriously ill and being near death, he was tonsured in the schema. After his tonsure, he recovered and continued helping people. He became known to Harbin residents and all Russians in China as an elder who had acquired the spiritual gifts of fervent faith, unceasing prayer, clairvoyance, healing of the sick, and consolation of the suffering.
Elder Ignatius of Harbin, at a time when millions of people were being martyred in Russia, prophesied: “What started in Russia will end in America.” There was no communism there. But in this “freest” country, where Christian churches are sold one after another to become nightclubs, where the power of the “new world order” rules the country under the guise of so-called political correctness, the persecution will be of a completely different form. Because of the rapid Americanization of the entire world, because the devil hates Orthodoxy most of all, this can’t but affect us.
