Without a doctor or medicine, death seemed inevitable

In 1944, Solzhenitsyn's fellow prisoner in an archipelago camp, called Solodgine in the First Circle, came down with a pellagrous diarrhea due to malnourishment. Without a doctor or any medicine, death seemed inevitable.

He said, "My comrades and I didn’t know of anyone who had recovered from it. I was moved into the room for the dying. I had calculated how much time I had left to live, but neither my soul nor my mind accepted the final verdict. In my heart I was convinced that God would let me live.

I had learned to pray as a child. But at the time of which I speak, I had no idea what meditation was. I managed to practice it throughout my fight against the illness. On the fortieth day, I woke up with a feeling of "being" that I had never experienced before. God performed a miracle on behalf of the sinner that I am. He had touched me—now I am a soldier of the Church and have become a son of his Mother."

Recueil Marial (Collection of Marian Stories) 1977