I Wish To share with you some of my recollections of the Saint — and his incredible memory. It must have been 1952. There was a meeting of the Synod of Bishops in an old building on West Seventy-seventh Street in New York. Vladika John and I met, and wished to become acquainted. In the course of conversation, Vladika asked if I had a little sister who had died in infancy. "Yes," I replied. "How is it you remember?" I knew, of course, that little Natalia was a year older than I: born in 1905 on March 10, and baptized April 10, she died of meningitis a month later, on May 10, 1905. Vladika even remembered where she was buried: in the sepulchre, next to the cathedral of the Peter and Paul fortress in Saint Petersburg, There, my father and his parents, and others of our relatives, are also buried. The church was built in the shape of a cross. Little Natusia was buried under a window in the north apse. And Vladika knew even this…
On another occasion we met at the entrance to the Synod on Ninety-third Street in New York; Vladika was coming out as I was going in. Vladika told me that it was the anniversary of my brother Oleg's repose. I myself had forgotten about it. Such a memory Vladika had.
Her Highness Princess Vera Konstantinovna