russia-insider--2020-10-08--The Importance of Russian Culture and the Russian Church: A Personal Testimony

`` As I worked , I found that all study of Russian culture lead inevitably to the Russian church .
Therefore I decided to begin my book ( Land of the Firebird ) with the coming of the Orthodox faith to Russia , because this faith and the church , was the rock on which the great and beautiful Russian culture was founded . ''
This article from our archives was first published on RI in May 2019 Suzanne Massie is a 40 year phenomenon in the field of US-Russia relations .
A brilliant and passionate writer , she is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about Russia .
She became a close friend of Ronald and Nancy Reagan in the course of advising them about Russian culture and psychology .
Her life story , and how it became intertwined with Russia reads like an adventure novel .
See RI ’ s profile here .
A resident of Maine , she keeps an apartment in St. Petersburg .
Raised Episcopalian she converted to Russian Orthodoxy .
She is an outspoken critic of how dishonest the media are about Russia and is brilliant in explaining to Americans why Russian culture @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ever .
Archive of Massie 's articles on RI .
This brilliant speech was given in New York in 1981 .
In it Massie recounts the remarkable story of how she became connected to Russia , how Russian culture and Christianity are inseparable from each other , what she learned about suffering from her Russian friends and caring for her hemophiliac son , and how the Russian Orthodox faith taught her to accept what life sends us .
Given 8 years before the collapse of Communism , it is as relevant today as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you today to testify to the importance of Russian culture and the Russian church in one life – my own .
People whom I meet -- whether they are Russians or Americans -- always seem to ask me the same question .
How is it , they ask , that I an American , have become so interested in Russia and Russian culture when it is not my native background ?
Always there is not only curiosity , in this question , but even incredulity .
Each time I answer the question in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ say , there are some facts and reasons I can give you , but essentially there remains something mysterious , unexplained and wonderful , in the true sense of that word .
It is finally , simply a question of love .
Love is always a mystery .
No one can define it exactly , but when it happens it is the most real and important thing in one 's existence .
In the beginning there was nothing in my life that would have lead anyone to believe that I would devote my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ life to date to searching out and learning about Russian culture .
I am Swiss by background , descended on both sides of my family from sturdy Bernese farmers we trace back to the 13th century .
A remarkable set of coincidences is responsible for leading me to you , and I once heard a Bishop of the Orthodox Church say that God comes to us in coincidences .
Even before I was born , the coincidences began .
My Swiss grandfather was , at the turn of the century , the representative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Grandfather traveled to Russia once a year for many years .
He made friends and they were forever urging him to send one of his children to visit .
He always refused , until one year when my mother was 15 , she fell ill .
The doctor said that a change of climate was indicated and that Russia would be perfect .
So she was sent off on a train to Moscow to visit a Russian family , friends of my grandfather 's , for the summer ; a normal enough occurrence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Russia was a natural thing .
But it happened to be the summer of 1914 .
War began .
There was no question of sending a young girl back in those times and everyone thought the troubles would be over soon .
But this was not to be the case , and my mother lived with this family through the Revolution and finally escaped with them through the south , and Sevastopol .
For over two years her family heard not a word from her .
She vanished ; they did not know @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Suddenly , at age 21 , she reappeared in Athens in 1921 .
This dramatic family story was the background of my childhood existence .
Although I can only dimly remember it , I know now that my mother filled my childhood with Russian tales -- I recently came across an old book with a tale of Baba Yaga that was given to me on my fifth birthday .
I cut my teeth on a small enamel Easter egg which Mother often wore on a chain around her neck , given to her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Theater .
Sometimes , when I was a child , I would be taken to meet Russian friends of my mother .
They would look at me and say , `` You have a Russian soul , '' but of course I did not know what they meant .
Many years went by and I did not pursue or learn anything more about Russia , although my mother taught me to love the ballet and I studied dance for ten years .
It was not until much later , when I was a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ confronted with a far more disturbing mystery .
When our first child , a son , was born , my husband and I rejoiced , but joy soon turned to fear and sorrow when , at the age of five months , as a result of a routine blood examination , we learned that our beautiful child had hemophilia .
It was a stroke of lightning .
There was no hemophilia in our family .
We searched carefully through those Swiss archives back over a hundred years .
Nothing .
Mystery .
We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the cases called `` spontaneous '' for which even today there is no medical explanation .
It was a catastrophe that seemed to shatter all our hopes and dreams .
Yet , unknown to me in those dark moments within this sorrow was contained the seed of our future creativity .
But then , bewildered and grieved , I struggled against my fate .
I attacked it with all the rationality and work ethic which was my background and with which I had been raised .
I thought that if I worked harder @ @ @ @ @ @ @ my own will alone , I could conquer .
But no matter what I did , or how hard I struggled , my son suffered .
I could not control my fate .
No matter how much I tried to guard him , bleeding would strike .
I spent hours and nights in hospitals .
He often suffered terrible pain .
I was told that he would never walk ( this did not in the end prove to be true , but for many years , it was ) .
Yet of all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in those dark hours of my beginning , the hardest was a sense of great isolation .
I had not realized so immediately until then that contemporary American society demands that we remain forever beautiful , healthy and young .
Grief and suffering are something to be hidden from view so that they do not intrude and disturb the relentlessly happy picture that we have imposed on our American society .
Although I was the same person , it seemed as if a wall of glass had descended between me and the rest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bewildering and frightening experience .
I felt totally alone and cut off from all the people I knew .
When Bobby was two years old , he had a completely unexpected , and to this day unexplained , cerebral hemorrhage .
He did recover , but in my night of despair , I decided that I had to do something very hard to save my sanity .
And it was Russia to which I turned .
Why ?
To this day I do not know , nor do I remember the name of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the local high school there were adult education classes for eight dollars a semester in the Russian language .
I went .
And the teacher looked at me and said , “ You have a Russian soul.
” We became friends .
Through her , and other Russian neighbors living in nearby Nyack , I began to learn to look at my experience in a different way .
These friends taught me to look into my soul , to hope that perhaps my suffering contained if not the probability , then at least @ @ @ @ @ @ @ -- that I had been given a great challenge rather that a curse and punishment .
They invited me to Easter services where I found joy and hope .
They accepted Bobby when others were afraid to risk having him in their homes .
From my son 's illness I finally learned to accept that there was nothing I could do to predict or control my destiny , that all was in God ’ s hands .
From my Russian friends I was given a human support and comfort that I think , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the new perceptions of the world brought by our son 's illness that we embarked on the book which became - Nicholas and Alexandra .
I worked very closely with my husband and the book became a family project into which we both poured all our energies .
In the course of helping with research and editing , I was , was for the first time , able to pour my interest and love for the old Russia my mother had taught me to love as a child .
It was at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that we decided to go to visit the Soviet Union to see the city of St. Petersburg where so much of the drama which had so interested us had happened .
I have always thought it symbolically appropriate that the only way we were able to finance this trip was to borrow on our life insurance .
For there , my story took another strange and intense turn .
Quite inexplicably , from the first moment I arrived in St. Petersburg I felt that I had always known it .
I knew no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would find me .
I waited .
And again , quite accidentally in the palace of Pavlovsk , I met a poet .
With him I went through the looking glass that separates foreigners from Russians .
After that first trip I went every six months for five years and met many Russians of varied backgrounds and experiences .
The strange thing was that my eleven years of living with hemophilia had somehow prepared me to meet them .
I had learned to live with fear , with constant anxiety and helplessness , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would bring .
Although our experiences had been different , somehow they recognized me and I recognized them .
It was like finding a family that I had never known existed .
It was they who took me by the hand , and with great love and respect showed me every detail of their beloved `` Piter , '' pointing out architectural details of buildings that were shabby and in disrepair , who spoke with love of their splendid churches destroyed and desecrated , who quoted their writers and poets of the past @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told me sadly , “ We used to have such beautiful holidays , but now we are forgetting how to celebrate them.
” ( I add in parenthesis that it was to try to help answer this question for them that I wrote the chapter in Land of the Firebird that is titled , “ Ice Slides and Easter Eggs.
” ) The remarkable thing about all this was that it came from a young generation which had had no contact with the past .
And from the first moment in the Soviet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ touched me deeply , was suffering mirrored in eyes that I shall never forget .
I knew that there was something miraculous in all these meetings and that they could not last long .
So while it was possible , I walked into every door that opened and was never afraid .
One thing that is quite amazing , in a society which rewards informers , is not that there are so many – but that there are so few .
Out of these trips grew my first book , The Living Mirror @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and of course inevitably , the time came when I was no longer granted a visa .
No reasons were given .
There were none , simply , I suppose , I knew too many people .
Once again I struggled against fate , but to no avail .
It had been my hope to write a book on the magnificent restoration of Pavlovsk Palace ; a work that had been accomplished with great love and devotion to the beauties of the past .
But I was not permitted to return .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ circumstances , just at the time that I sorrowfully concluded that my work was conclusively barred , another door opened .
I was asked to prepare a lecture for the Metropolitan Museum that would evoke the glories of the culture of old Russia .
It was the work I did for this , that my book , Land of the Firebird , began to grow .
As I worked , I found that all study of Russian culture lead inevitably to the Russian church .
Therefore I decided to begin my book with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Russia , because this faith and the church , was the rock on which the great and beautiful Russian culture was founded .
During the course of working on my book , I was , in effect , removed from the world for the better part of three years .
I spent those days in a small room reading books .
In such an isolated atmosphere , ideas and perceptions appeared to me .
I found myself wondering what was Russia like 60 years after the Mongol invasions ?
-- those invasions which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can be called the atom bomb of their day .
After the cataclysm , Russia was a depressed , corrupted , destroyed land .
The promising civilization of Kiev , the great palaces , the churches , the books , the great men , all were gone , the population dispersed and terrified .
Yet , despite everything , wrote the historian George Fedotov , `` The Christianity of Kiev remained a living memory in the hearts of the people.
” Monks traveled the land , comforting and gathering the survivors .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the darkness .
In those days the church was Russia , and Russia was the church .
I believe that in a very real way , this is still true today .
The church has always represented the finest aspirations of the Russian people and provided them with inspiration and strength in the darkest hours of their history .
There have been no darker days than those of the past 60 years .
The Russian people have absorbed the brunt of the greatest shock of modern times -- Communism -- an idea @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the words of idealism , but in fact concealed only tyranny and death .
All Russians , wherever they are , have suffered from this cataclysm in physical and moral ways which are beyond the understanding of any Westerner .
They have been dispersed all over the world , forced into new paths , new lives , while those who remained behind have been terrorized , tortured , silenced .
By absorbing this terrible historical shock of the 20th century , I believe that Russia may well have saved us in the West @ @ @ @ @ @ @ century once saved European civilization from the Mongols .
The price paid by them was very high .
The destruction of the nation and the spirit is today perhaps even more profound .
Yet sixty years is but a moment in historical terms and the final story is far from told .
It is not an accident that the Soviet government has always considered religion and the Orthodox faith its greatest enemy ... that they have tried in every way to destroy allegiance to the church among the people , to lead them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , to terrify them , besot them with alcohol , isolate them from the world and envelop them in lies .
But the fact that they have tried for sixty years with all the might at their command to destroy faith and have failed , is a tribute to the indomitable human spirit which yearns for the nourishment of its Creator and can not and will not allow the divine flame to be extinguished .
It is also a tribute to the extraordinary strength and endurance of the Russian people .
I sometimes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ such a shock to the soul and survived it all .
And survive they have : beleaguered , weakened , dispirited , but alive ... and searching for the spirit .
Among the most moving church services I have ever attended are those in the Soviet Union where I have seen strong men singing the service with tears pouring unashamedly down their faces .
I know a poet in the Soviet Union who is of deep Orthodox Faith .
As a child every day he was beaten for his beliefs , and yet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that from his early years he knew that if he read the newspapers he would never learn to be a poet , so he studied and took his language from the Church alone .
I heard this phrase from a young man who was searching for faith , “ We have learned that man can not live without beauty , without spirituality , and without religion.
” To me , this is the essential message of our part of the twentieth century .
The mystery , the miracle , is that this message @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Russia .
Solzhenitsyn once wrote that when culture is taken away from a people , it is like committing a lobotomy on them .
Milos Kundera , in his brilliant Book of Laughter and Forgetting , treats this same terrible phenomenon in Czechoslovakia .
Yet we have seen the power of belief in Poland , where despite everything , religion has conquered , and without violence .
I believe that as it once did long ago , only the Orthodox Church can lead Russia out of her darkness .
Only the Church can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , identity , strength .
Today the Soviet Union is the spiritual battleground of the world and on the outcome of this battle the fate of the entire world may depend .
You are the shepherds .
Your brothers in the Soviet Union are searching in the darkness for their lost faith and culture .
Many are like sad and ignorant children , but there are heroes among them : men and women who are not only prepared , but who , every day , even as we are here , are suffering @ @ @ @ @ @ @ human spirit .
The West is in great part deaf and even blind to this reality .
We who know and love Russia must unceasingly remind them of this suffering .
For although the West is often blind , nevertheless it senses that something is lacking in our society , that we are lonely , alienated , hungering for spiritual nourishment .
Russia can help to provide us with that nourishment that we so much need .
Dostoevsky once wrote that the West was the body and Russia the spirit and that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
You in the Orthodox faith are , for Russia , the living link between the past and the future , and for us in America , an essential connection between East and West .
As a Westerner , step by step , I have been led closer to you .
Thanks to my contact with Russian culture and the Russian church , my life has been enriched so greatly that I can not imagine it without you .
Thanks to you , I have learned to think differently , to accept my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its variety .
I have learned to trust mystery .
From my contact with Russia I have begun to learn how to take a long view , something difficult for us in the West - and greater patience .
A poet in the Soviet Union wrote me , `` Perhaps we are all nothing but witnesses in a gigantic trial whose outcome is as yet unknown , but whose outlines we can somehow perceive , as behind a driving rain we can sometimes glimpse the silhouettes of angels . ''
I do not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ my love for the Russian land , but I do know that I feel that I have a mission to share my feeling as widely as I can and this I have been trying to do , in lectures and in books .
You are witnesses to the great Russian culture and faith .
And , when you are serving in your various ways with your various talents , you may one day see someone who is looking and listening with great attention ... a stranger , as I once was , who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which you alone can give .
Then I hope that you will remember me and reach to that stranger , for one never knows what may happen by this contact .
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"As I worked, I found that all study of Russian culture lead inevitably to the Russian church. Therefore I decided to begin my book ( Land of the Firebird ) with the coming of the Orthodox faith to Russia, because this faith and the church, was the rock on which the great and beautiful Russian culture was founded."
This article from our archives was first published on RI in May 2019
Suzanne Massie is a 40 year phenomenon in the field of US-Russia relations. A brilliant and passionate writer, she is author of some of the greatest classics about Russia. She became a close friend of Ronald and Nancy Reagan in the course of advising them about Russian culture and psychology. Her life story, and how it became intertwined with Russia reads like an adventure novel. See RI’s profile here. A resident of Maine, she keeps an apartment in St. Petersburg. Raised Episcopalian she converted to Russian Orthodoxy. She is an outspoken critic of how dishonest the media are about Russia and is brilliant in explaining to Americans why Russian culture is one of the most exciting phenomenona ever. Archive of Massie's articles on RI.
This brilliant speech was given in New York in 1981. In it Massie recounts the remarkable story of how she became connected to Russia, how Russian culture and Christianity are inseparable from each other, what she learned about suffering from her Russian friends and caring for her hemophiliac son, and how the Russian Orthodox faith taught her to accept what life sends us. Given 8 years before the collapse of Communism, it is as relevant today as it was then.
Commencement Address
June 7, 1981
Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary
Jordanville, New York
I come to you today to testify to the importance of Russian culture and the Russian church in one life – my own. People whom I meet -- whether they are Russians or Americans -- always seem to ask me the same question. How is it, they ask, that I an American, have become so interested in Russia and Russian culture when it is not my native background? Always there is not only curiosity, in this question, but even incredulity. Each time I answer the question in the same way. Yes, I say, there are some facts and reasons I can give you, but essentially there remains something mysterious, unexplained and wonderful, in the true sense of that word. It is finally, simply a question of love. Love is always a mystery. No one can define it exactly, but when it happens it is the most real and important thing in one's existence.
In the beginning there was nothing in my life that would have lead anyone to believe that I would devote my career and the major part of my life to date to searching out and learning about Russian culture. I am Swiss by background, descended on both sides of my family from sturdy Bernese farmers we trace back to the 13th century.
A remarkable set of coincidences is responsible for leading me to you, and I once heard a Bishop of the Orthodox Church say that God comes to us in coincidences.
Even before I was born, the coincidences began.
My Swiss grandfather was, at the turn of the century, the representative of watch making industries of Neufchatel. Grandfather traveled to Russia once a year for many years. He made friends and they were forever urging him to send one of his children to visit. He always refused, until one year when my mother was 15, she fell ill. The doctor said that a change of climate was indicated and that Russia would be perfect. So she was sent off on a train to Moscow to visit a Russian family, friends of my grandfather's, for the summer; a normal enough occurrence in those days when travel and visiting Russia was a natural thing. But it happened to be the summer of 1914. War began. There was no question of sending a young girl back in those times and everyone thought the troubles would be over soon. But this was not to be the case, and my mother lived with this family through the Revolution and finally escaped with them through the south, and Sevastopol.
For over two years her family heard not a word from her. She vanished; they did not know whether she was alive or dead. Suddenly, at age 21, she reappeared in Athens in 1921. This dramatic family story was the background of my childhood existence. Although I can only dimly remember it, I know now that my mother filled my childhood with Russian tales -- I recently came across an old book with a tale of Baba Yaga that was given to me on my fifth birthday. I cut my teeth on a small enamel Easter egg which Mother often wore on a chain around her neck, given to her by a famous ballerina of the Bolshoi Theater. Sometimes, when I was a child, I would be taken to meet Russian friends of my mother. They would look at me and say, "You have a Russian soul," but of course I did not know what they meant.
Many years went by and I did not pursue or learn anything more about Russia, although my mother taught me to love the ballet and I studied dance for ten years. It was not until much later, when I was a young married woman, that I was confronted with a far more disturbing mystery. When our first child, a son, was born, my husband and I rejoiced, but joy soon turned to fear and sorrow when, at the age of five months, as a result of a routine blood examination, we learned that our beautiful child had hemophilia. It was a stroke of lightning. There was no hemophilia in our family. We searched carefully through those Swiss archives back over a hundred years. Nothing. Mystery. We were one of those 40 percent of the cases called "spontaneous" for which even today there is no medical explanation.
It was a catastrophe that seemed to shatter all our hopes and dreams. Yet, unknown to me in those dark moments within this sorrow was contained the seed of our future creativity. But then, bewildered and grieved, I struggled against my fate. I attacked it with all the rationality and work ethic which was my background and with which I had been raised. I thought that if I worked harder, learned more, somehow, by my own will alone, I could conquer. But no matter what I did, or how hard I struggled, my son suffered. I could not control my fate. No matter how much I tried to guard him, bleeding would strike. I spent hours and nights in hospitals. He often suffered terrible pain. I was told that he would never walk (this did not in the end prove to be true, but for many years, it was).
Yet of all the difficult things I had to face in those dark hours of my beginning, the hardest was a sense of great isolation. I had not realized so immediately until then that contemporary American society demands that we remain forever beautiful, healthy and young. Grief and suffering are something to be hidden from view so that they do not intrude and disturb the relentlessly happy picture that we have imposed on our American society. Although I was the same person, it seemed as if a wall of glass had descended between me and the rest of the world. It was a bewildering and frightening experience. I felt totally alone and cut off from all the people I knew. When Bobby was two years old, he had a completely unexpected, and to this day unexplained, cerebral hemorrhage. He did recover, but in my night of despair, I decided that I had to do something very hard to save my sanity.
And it was Russia to which I turned. Why? To this day I do not know, nor do I remember the name of the neighbor who told me that at the local high school there were adult education classes for eight dollars a semester in the Russian language. I went. And the teacher looked at me and said, “You have a Russian soul.” We became friends. Through her, and other Russian neighbors living in nearby Nyack, I began to learn to look at my experience in a different way. These friends taught me to look into my soul, to hope that perhaps my suffering contained if not the probability, then at least the possibility of new knowledge and creativity -- that I had been given a great challenge rather that a curse and punishment. They invited me to Easter services where I found joy and hope. They accepted Bobby when others were afraid to risk having him in their homes. From my son's illness I finally learned to accept that there was nothing I could do to predict or control my destiny, that all was in God’s hands. From my Russian friends I was given a human support and comfort that I think, saved me.
It was because of the new perceptions of the world brought by our son's illness that we embarked on the book which became - Nicholas and Alexandra. I worked very closely with my husband and the book became a family project into which we both poured all our energies. In the course of helping with research and editing, I was, was for the first time, able to pour my interest and love for the old Russia my mother had taught me to love as a child. It was at the end of the writing of the book that we decided to go to visit the Soviet Union to see the city of St. Petersburg where so much of the drama which had so interested us had happened. I have always thought it symbolically appropriate that the only way we were able to finance this trip was to borrow on our life insurance.
For there, my story took another strange and intense turn. Quite inexplicably, from the first moment I arrived in St. Petersburg I felt that I had always known it. I knew no one, but I felt that someone would find me. I waited. And again, quite accidentally in the palace of Pavlovsk, I met a poet. With him I went through the looking glass that separates foreigners from Russians. After that first trip I went every six months for five years and met many Russians of varied backgrounds and experiences. The strange thing was that my eleven years of living with hemophilia had somehow prepared me to meet them. I had learned to live with fear, with constant anxiety and helplessness, with never knowing what the next day would bring. Although our experiences had been different, somehow they recognized me and I recognized them. It was like finding a family that I had never known existed.
It was they who took me by the hand, and with great love and respect showed me every detail of their beloved "Piter," pointing out architectural details of buildings that were shabby and in disrepair, who spoke with love of their splendid churches destroyed and desecrated, who quoted their writers and poets of the past from memory. It was they who told me sadly, “We used to have such beautiful holidays, but now we are forgetting how to celebrate them.” (I add in parenthesis that it was to try to help answer this question for them that I wrote the chapter in Land of the Firebird that is titled, “Ice Slides and Easter Eggs.”) The remarkable thing about all this was that it came from a young generation which had had no contact with the past. And from the first moment in the Soviet Union what I saw, and what touched me deeply, was suffering mirrored in eyes that I shall never forget.
I knew that there was something miraculous in all these meetings and that they could not last long. So while it was possible, I walked into every door that opened and was never afraid. One thing that is quite amazing, in a society which rewards informers, is not that there are so many – but that there are so few. Out of these trips grew my first book, The Living Mirror: Five Young Poets from Leningrad, and of course inevitably, the time came when I was no longer granted a visa. No reasons were given. There were none, simply, I suppose, I knew too many people. Once again I struggled against fate, but to no avail. It had been my hope to write a book on the magnificent restoration of Pavlovsk Palace; a work that had been accomplished with great love and devotion to the beauties of the past. But I was not permitted to return.
And again, through a strange set of circumstances, just at the time that I sorrowfully concluded that my work was conclusively barred, another door opened. I was asked to prepare a lecture for the Metropolitan Museum that would evoke the glories of the culture of old Russia. It was the work I did for this, that my book, Land of the Firebird, began to grow. As I worked, I found that all study of Russian culture lead inevitably to the Russian church. Therefore I decided to begin my book with the coming of the Orthodox faith to Russia, because this faith and the church, was the rock on which the great and beautiful Russian culture was founded.
During the course of working on my book, I was, in effect, removed from the world for the better part of three years. I spent those days in a small room reading books. In such an isolated atmosphere, ideas and perceptions appeared to me. I found myself wondering what was Russia like 60 years after the Mongol invasions? -- those invasions which were of such destructive intensity that they can be called the atom bomb of their day. After the cataclysm, Russia was a depressed, corrupted, destroyed land. The promising civilization of Kiev, the great palaces, the churches, the books, the great men, all were gone, the population dispersed and terrified. Yet, despite everything, wrote the historian George Fedotov, "The Christianity of Kiev remained a living memory in the hearts of the people.” Monks traveled the land, comforting and gathering the survivors. It was the church that led Russia out of the darkness. In those days the church was Russia, and Russia was the church. I believe that in a very real way, this is still true today. The church has always represented the finest aspirations of the Russian people and provided them with inspiration and strength in the darkest hours of their history. There have been no darker days than those of the past 60 years.
The Russian people have absorbed the brunt of the greatest shock of modern times -- Communism -- an idea which came clothed in the robes and the words of idealism, but in fact concealed only tyranny and death. All Russians, wherever they are, have suffered from this cataclysm in physical and moral ways which are beyond the understanding of any Westerner. They have been dispersed all over the world, forced into new paths, new lives, while those who remained behind have been terrorized, tortured, silenced. By absorbing this terrible historical shock of the 20th century, I believe that Russia may well have saved us in the West, as the Russians in the 13th century once saved European civilization from the Mongols. The price paid by them was very high. The destruction of the nation and the spirit is today perhaps even more profound. Yet sixty years is but a moment in historical terms and the final story is far from told.
It is not an accident that the Soviet government has always considered religion and the Orthodox faith its greatest enemy ... that they have tried in every way to destroy allegiance to the church among the people, to lead them astray by false promises of material benefits, to terrify them, besot them with alcohol, isolate them from the world and envelop them in lies. But the fact that they have tried for sixty years with all the might at their command to destroy faith and have failed, is a tribute to the indomitable human spirit which yearns for the nourishment of its Creator and cannot and will not allow the divine flame to be extinguished.
It is also a tribute to the extraordinary strength and endurance of the Russian people. I sometimes think that only Russians could have absorbed such a shock to the soul and survived it all. And survive they have: beleaguered, weakened, dispirited, but alive ... and searching for the spirit. Among the most moving church services I have ever attended are those in the Soviet Union where I have seen strong men singing the service with tears pouring unashamedly down their faces. I know a poet in the Soviet Union who is of deep Orthodox Faith. As a child every day he was beaten for his beliefs, and yet he maintained such integrity that he said that from his early years he knew that if he read the newspapers he would never learn to be a poet, so he studied and took his language from the Church alone.
I heard this phrase from a young man who was searching for faith, “We have learned that man cannot live without beauty, without spirituality, and without religion.” To me, this is the essential message of our part of the twentieth century. The mystery, the miracle, is that this message is coming in its purest form from Russia. Solzhenitsyn once wrote that when culture is taken away from a people, it is like committing a lobotomy on them. Milos Kundera, in his brilliant Book of Laughter and Forgetting, treats this same terrible phenomenon in Czechoslovakia. Yet we have seen the power of belief in Poland, where despite everything, religion has conquered, and without violence. I believe that as it once did long ago, only the Orthodox Church can lead Russia out of her darkness. Only the Church can restore to her the roots of culture, identity, strength.
Today the Soviet Union is the spiritual battleground of the world and on the outcome of this battle the fate of the entire world may depend. You are the shepherds. Your brothers in the Soviet Union are searching in the darkness for their lost faith and culture. Many are like sad and ignorant children, but there are heroes among them: men and women who are not only prepared, but who, every day, even as we are here, are suffering and dying for the principles of the human spirit. The West is in great part deaf and even blind to this reality. We who know and love Russia must unceasingly remind them of this suffering. For although the West is often blind, nevertheless it senses that something is lacking in our society, that we are lonely, alienated, hungering for spiritual nourishment.
Russia can help to provide us with that nourishment that we so much need. Dostoevsky once wrote that the West was the body and Russia the spirit and that the body could not exist without the spirit. You in the Orthodox faith are, for Russia, the living link between the past and the future, and for us in America, an essential connection between East and West. As a Westerner, step by step, I have been led closer to you.
Thanks to my contact with Russian culture and the Russian church, my life has been enriched so greatly that I cannot imagine it without you. Thanks to you, I have learned to think differently, to accept my life as it unfolds in all of its variety. I have learned to trust mystery.
From my contact with Russia I have begun to learn how to take a long view, something difficult for us in the West - and greater patience.
A poet in the Soviet Union wrote me, "Perhaps we are all nothing but witnesses in a gigantic trial whose outcome is as yet unknown, but whose outlines we can somehow perceive, as behind a driving rain we can sometimes glimpse the silhouettes of angels."
I do not know the purpose of having been given my love for the Russian land, but I do know that I feel that I have a mission to share my feeling as widely as I can and this I have been trying to do, in lectures and in books.
You are witnesses to the great Russian culture and faith. And, when you are serving in your various ways with your various talents, you may one day see someone who is looking and listening with great attention ... a stranger, as I once was, who is searching and needs to find that which you alone can give. Then I hope that you will remember me and reach to that stranger, for one never knows what may happen by this contact.
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russia-insider--2020-10-09--Our Top 10 Favorite Russian Christian Paintings (A Very Subjective List)

Some famous masterpieces , and some , we promise , you 've never heard of .
This article from our archives was first published on RI in May 2019 So rich in all the arts , Russia produced a treasure of great painting , mostly in the 2nd half of the 19th century , but also , significantly , since the end of Communism .
On Sunday mornings we are pleased to bring you the excellent Great Russian Christian Art series from Russian Faith , a site about the extraordinary Christian renaissance in Russia , manifested through the rebirth of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has selected works with Christian themes , but all of these artists created magnificent secular works too , and they are popular and well-known to the Russian public .
These paintings give great insight into Russian history , culture , religion and psychology and are huge fun to view .
Enjoy .
As we work our way through an enormous cache of fascinating Russian Christian paintings , we ca n't help but fall in love with some of them .
As we learned about Russia 's traditional faith , Russian Orthodox Christianity , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ treasure of striking Christian paintings , mostly unknown in the West , starting from approximately the early 1800s , and continuing to this day .
So far we have cataloged over 150 images , and are discovering more all the time .
We will gradually be getting them all online .
See more of Repin 's work at the Art Renewal Center .
See more of Ivanov 's work at Google Arts & Culture See more of Nesterov 's work at the Art Renewal Center .
See more of Nesterov 's work at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ryzhenko 's works at Allart.biz See more of Glazunov 's works at Glazunov.ru See more of Glazunov 's works at Glazunov.ru 'Nikita Pustosvyat Disputing with Patriarch Joachim on Matters of Faith ' ( Vasily Perov - 1881 ) 'The Seige of the Trinity Sergius Lavra in Sergiev Posad ' ( Vasiliy Vereshagin - 1891 ) 'Hermogen in the events of Distemper ' ( Morgun V. - 2008 ) 'Saint Leonty preaches to the Pagans in Rostov ' ( Morgun E. - 2008 )

Some famous masterpieces, and some, we promise, you've never heard of.
This article from our archives was first published on RI in May 2019
So rich in all the arts, Russia produced a treasure of great painting, mostly in the 2nd half of the 19th century, but also, significantly, since the end of Communism. On Sunday mornings we are pleased to bring you the excellent Great Russian Christian Art series from Russian Faith, a site about the extraordinary Christian renaissance in Russia, manifested through the rebirth of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Russian Faith has selected works with Christian themes, but all of these artists created magnificent secular works too, and they are popular and well-known to the Russian public. These paintings give great insight into Russian history, culture, religion and psychology and are huge fun to view. Enjoy.
From Russian Faith:
As we work our way through an enormous cache of fascinating Russian Christian paintings, we can't help but fall in love with some of them.
About The Series:
As we learned about Russia's traditional faith, Russian Orthodox Christianity, we discovered an enormous, mostly forgotten treasure of striking Christian paintings, mostly unknown in the West, starting from approximately the early 1800s, and continuing to this day.
So far we have cataloged over 150 images, and are discovering more all the time. We will gradually be getting them all online.
'Religious Procession in Kursk' (Ilya Repin - 1883)
See more of Repin's work at the Art Renewal Center.
'The Appearance of Christ' (Alexander Ivanov - 1857)
See more of Ivanov's work at Google Arts & Culture
'Jesus and the Adulteress' (Vasily Polenov - 1888)
'The Vision of Young Bartholomew' (Mikhail Nesterov - 1890)
See more of Nesterov's work at the Art Renewal Center.
See more of Nesterov's work at the Art Renewal Center
See more of Ryzhenko's works at Allart.biz
See more of Glazunov's works at Glazunov.ru
'Attacking a Church on Easter Eve' (Ilya Glazunov - 1999)
See more of Glazunov's works at Glazunov.ru
'Religious Procession at Vodoosvyaschenie Village' (Ivan Trutnev - 1858)
'Nikita Pustosvyat Disputing with Patriarch Joachim on Matters of Faith' (Vasily Perov - 1881)
'The sinner' (Genrikh Semiradsky - 1873)
'Burning of christians' (Genrikh Semiradsky - 1876)
'The Seige of the Trinity Sergius Lavra in Sergiev Posad' (Vasiliy Vereshagin - 1891)
'A funeral for the fallen' (Vasiliy Vereshagin, 1877 - 1879)
'Prince Vladimir Chooses the Faith' (Filatov - 2007)


russia-insider--2020-10-09--The Republicans' Obsession With Free Markets Is Foolish, and Not at all Conservative

This article from our archives was first published on RI in December 2018 Market fundamentalism is not conservatism .
In some social & cultural contexts , market fundamentalism can be downright revolutionary .
The conservative movement 's obsession with free markets and economic concerns is both foolish and not what it purports to be , namely genuinely conservative .
If we examine the record and history of conservatism carefully , we will quickly discover that the ideology of laissez faire capitalism was always a means to an end .
Early conservatives defended free markets because the idea was that if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people would be free to make free decisions as free people , and thus traditional culture and traditional mores would not be disturbed .
However , the premises underlying this reasoning are false , and have always been false .
This absolutistic pro-market position presumes that markets ca n't be ideological all on their own , either because powerful market players are imposing an ideology upon the market , or the state of the law is directly or indirectly imposing a kind of ideology on the market .
The problem is , real @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , can be highly ideological , especially when the rich and the powerful use their wealth and power to keep ideological adversaries down and out .
Sure , market forces have a tendency to suppress ideology , but they ca n't root it out , especially when it is systemic , legally enforced , or being driven by the ethnic or ideological biases of the masses ( consumers ) or dominant market players .
A related flawed premise underlying this pro-market position is that society is stable .
This is an unsafe presumption @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not stable .
It is highly unstable , indeed accelerating toward collapse in all likelihood .
When societies are stable , keeping your hands off the market may indirectly be conserving a people and their traditions .
However , when societies are unmoored , keeping your hand off the market may be permitting society to continue its drift , it may be enabling corporate tyranny , widespread censorship , or an oligarchic assault on democracy .
When society itself is in revolt against tradition , keeping your hands off of the market may @ @ @ @ @ @ @ former values of that society .
How could that be conservative ?
This is all not to say that respect for market forces is n't important , or that we should n't be highly cynical about the goodness of power structures and their social engineering programs .
Both of these values are good values to possess .
However , we must not mistake market fundamentalism for “ conservatism ” .
Their relationship is far more tenuous then many normie-cons , neo-cons , and others pretending to represent righties and whities , would have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the supposed free market ( it is not really all that free if we consider government-imposed diversity quotas , widespread regulations , subsidies , bailouts , and cronyism ) here in the West has revealed itself to be extremely hostile to white people , to traditional Western values and ideals , to free speech and to essential liberties .
It is hard to see how letting the market tread upon Americans is fundamentally different than letting the government do so .
Censorship is as wrong when gigantic corporations do it as when governments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an assault on one 's freedom of conscience , a far graver threat to American democracy than racial discrimination , and a sharper deviation from traditional liberal ( Western ) ethics as well .
Those who fellate markets in times such as these are as much the enemy of the American people and American traditions as the Cultural Marxists themselves .
Standing on the sidelines while the left destroys the West is to effectively facilitate the left 's war on the white race .
Refusing to regulate the bigoted leftist oligarchs who run @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of us on the right for purely ideological reasons , is itself a form of virtue signaling .
It is throwing up one 's hands in surrender & refusing to fight back .
It is a face of nobility covering a heart of cowardice .
The free market is not conserving anything in America .
Indeed , in many cases it is clearly helping to rapidly transform America into something deeply undesirable and completely unrecognizable .
So then pray tell , how could free market fundamentalism be conservatism ?

This article from our archives was first published on RI in December 2018
Market fundamentalism is not conservatism. In some social & cultural contexts, market fundamentalism can be downright revolutionary. The conservative movement's obsession with free markets and economic concerns is both foolish and not what it purports to be, namely genuinely conservative.
If we examine the record and history of conservatism carefully, we will quickly discover that the ideology of laissez faire capitalism was always a means to an end. Early conservatives defended free markets because the idea was that if government did not meddle in markets, people would be free to make free decisions as free people, and thus traditional culture and traditional mores would not be disturbed.
However, the premises underlying this reasoning are false, and have always been false. This absolutistic pro-market position presumes that markets can't be ideological all on their own, either because powerful market players are imposing an ideology upon the market, or the state of the law is directly or indirectly imposing a kind of ideology on the market. The problem is, real markets, as opposed to theoretical markets, can be highly ideological, especially when the rich and the powerful use their wealth and power to keep ideological adversaries down and out. Sure, market forces have a tendency to suppress ideology, but they can't root it out, especially when it is systemic, legally enforced, or being driven by the ethnic or ideological biases of the masses (consumers) or dominant market players.
A related flawed premise underlying this pro-market position is that society is stable. This is an unsafe presumption in many contexts. Western society is not stable. It is highly unstable, indeed accelerating toward collapse in all likelihood. When societies are stable, keeping your hands off the market may indirectly be conserving a people and their traditions. However, when societies are unmoored, keeping your hand off the market may be permitting society to continue its drift, it may be enabling corporate tyranny, widespread censorship, or an oligarchic assault on democracy. When society itself is in revolt against tradition, keeping your hands off of the market may be inadvertently enabling its revolution against the former values of that society. How could that be conservative?
This is all not to say that respect for market forces isn't important, or that we shouldn't be highly cynical about the goodness of power structures and their social engineering programs. Both of these values are good values to possess. However, we must not mistake market fundamentalism for “conservatism”. Their relationship is far more tenuous then many normie-cons, neo-cons, and others pretending to represent righties and whities, would have you believe.
In recent years, the supposed free market (it is not really all that free if we consider government-imposed diversity quotas, widespread regulations, subsidies, bailouts, and cronyism) here in the West has revealed itself to be extremely hostile to white people, to traditional Western values and ideals, to free speech and to essential liberties. It is hard to see how letting the market tread upon Americans is fundamentally different than letting the government do so. Censorship is as wrong when gigantic corporations do it as when governments do it, and ideological discrimination is an assault on one's freedom of conscience, a far graver threat to American democracy than racial discrimination, and a sharper deviation from traditional liberal (Western) ethics as well.
Those who fellate markets in times such as these are as much the enemy of the American people and American traditions as the Cultural Marxists themselves. Standing on the sidelines while the left destroys the West is to effectively facilitate the left's war on the white race. Refusing to regulate the bigoted leftist oligarchs who run Big Tech while they systematically silence those of us on the right for purely ideological reasons, is itself a form of virtue signaling. It is throwing up one's hands in surrender & refusing to fight back. It is a face of nobility covering a heart of cowardice.
The free market is not conserving anything in America. Indeed, in many cases it is clearly helping to rapidly transform America into something deeply undesirable and completely unrecognizable. So then pray tell, how could free market fundamentalism be conservatism?


russia-insider--2020-10-10--1000 Years of Christianity in the Ukraine - Exploring the Kiev Caves Grand Monastery

A tale of the bygone years , the story from whence came the Russian lands , where in Kiev the first Grand Princes began to rule , and from what source Rus ’ has her origin — Reflections and rare stories about the Kiev Caves Lavra This article from our archives was first published on RI in May 2019 Congratulations to all with the feast of the Holy Fathers of the Kiev Caves !
Let ’ s take a walk back through history , to the cradle of the Russian Church , where it seems the fate of Holy Rus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ walls of that portion of the Mother of God , while great maelstroms of heresy and riots surround her .
Rather than attempting to add to the litany of excellent publications on the feast day , and retell the same glorious stories , let ’ s take a look and reflect on some stories and aspects of the Lavra that are rarely told in the English language .
Given the tragic invasion of our beloved Ukrainian Orthodox lands by the Constantinople Patriarchate , and the shameful and open support for Nazism among the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the repeating history in relation to current events .
After all , to understand where we are , and what is happening today , you must go back to the beginning… This story is over one thousand years old .
Kiev—The Mother of Rus ’ Cities—and her Lavra of the Dormition of the Mother of God was always at the center .
She ’ s seen it all , so much grief , so much faith , so much heresy , and so much holiness .
Hers is a tale of the bygone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Russian lands , where in Kiev the first Grand Princes began to rule , and from what source Rus ’ has her origin .
Those words should sound familiar to any student of Slavic history—they are a paraphrase of the Primary Chronicle , the most important of the ancient chronicles of Russian history .
They were written by St. Nestor of the Kiev Caves—the father of Russian history .
Ancient Russian chronicles reveal many things , mainly that Rus ’ people already considered themselves to be a single nation at a time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or “ France ” on the map , but instead , East and West Frankia .
From all this , we learn our first major lesson : Russia and the Rus ’ Church is far more ancient than many of those against her would like people to believe .
For example , there is much rhetoric from the Patriarchate of Constantinople of how the “ Slavic younger brothers ” need to obey the primacy of the “ Greek nation ” .
I must first say I have nothing but respect and admiration for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of traditional ( as opposed to post “ enlightenment ” or post-modern ) Western Civilization and European identity is in short , Greco-Roman culture and legacy together with Christian faith—and I always regarded Russia to be a part of that European “ western ” civilization ” , and actually , I would even argue Russia resembles far more the traditional values of pre-schism Europe than the modern West .
But the rhetoric from Istanbul seems post-modernist and unrelated in any way to old Hellenic culture .
Quite frankly , it seems bigoted and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that they—citizens of Istanbul , Turkey—have the right to the ancient legacy of Constantinople , but the Rus ’ Church does not have the right to the ancient legacy of Kiev .
And make no mistake about how ancient the Russian Church is… To put it in perspective , Mount Athos arose in the established form we recognize in the eighth century ; however the development of its great monasteries as we know them today seems to date mostly from between the ninth and fourteenth centuries .
The Great Lavra on Holy Athos @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 963 , and most of its frescos are from the sixteenth centuries… This makes them younger than the works of the Russian saint Andrei Rublev !
The Kiev Caves Lavra was founded in 1051—an important date , because this most ancient of Russian monasteries , technically speaking , existed when all of Europe still knew only one Church .
The Great Schism with the papists occurred only three years later .
This means that the Great Lavra of Athos and the Kiev Caves Lavra are practically contemporaries !
One of the most amazing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ founded in the thirteenth century , making it around two hundred years younger than the Kiev Caves Lavra ; however the Phanar would prefer you to believe that from the beginning Rus ’ was a desolate empty steppe , and the Rus ’ Church ( which literally fed the deprived Phanar ) was in a state of permanent infanthood in comparison with the Hellenic world .
And Western media would be happy to continue this portrayal of an ancient Phanar ( whose main functioning church is roughly a contemporary of Moscow ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and a young Rus ’ .
To put things in perspective : Today , the second Sunday of Great Lent , is also the feast day of the most glorious Holy Hierarch St. Gregory Palamas .
St. Gregory lived in the early fourteenth century , whereas St. Andrew of Kiev , co-founder of the Kiev Caves Lavra was born prior to the Great Schism in 983 , and reposed in 1073 .
This means that by the time Holy Hierarch Gregory Palamas lived , there were already great saints in Kiev .
This @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Constantinople or the Hellenic world—we all honor our glorious Holy Hierarch St. John Chrysostom , Archbishop of Constantinople and the early fathers .
No one questions that the Rus ’ people received Baptism from glorious Constantinople .
But the Phanar is playing with a double standard—pretending that the laws of the Roman Empire still apply to them , but the laws of Kievan Rus ’ should not apply in Rus ’ .
The Holy Hierarch Peter Mogila , Metropolitan of Kiev ( 1596-1646 ) has always been one of my favorite saints @ @ @ @ @ @ @ highly regarded ” by St. John of Shanghai , I am often sad at how rarely his story is told .
Simply put , this holy man saved Orthodoxy in the Ukraine , Rus ’ … and probably far beyond her borders .
While volumes could be written on his works , this one rare quote of his is very telling of the type of person he is : “ I often thought and mused about how crucial it is in schools to teach not only the external sciences , but even more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that schools instill piety , which must be rooted and sown in your young hearts , because without it , all wisdom is foolishness before God.
” He was born a nobleman into a princely family , he became a monk , archimandrite , and primate ; he was an academic doctor trained in the University of Paris , he was a philosopher , linguist , liturgist , reformer , publisher , printer , pedagogue and theologian , and one of most tragically underappreciated , yet greatest missionaries and holy hierarchs in Eastern @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t know his name , almost every Orthodox Christian was personally affected by his legacy .
Yes , of course , there were obviously methods of training clergy prior to Peter Mogjla , but in his Kiev Brotherhood-Mogila collegium , he was the first Orthodox hierarch to take the rigorous academic studies of the great European universities and bring them together with the ascetic spiritual arena of the monasteries .
His method created a means of simultaneously enlightening and teaching both the mind , and the heart , and at the same time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tyranny over the human psyche , and brining it down into the heart .
For the first time , contemporary academia coexisted alongside genuine Orthodox piety .
Before there was the university of Athens , or the Greek-Latin-Slavic Academy in Moscow , there was the Kiev school of Peter Mogila .
I consider him one of the four Evangelists of Eastern Slavic printing , together with his contemporaries St. Job of Pochaev , Ivan Fyodorov of Moscow , and Polish-Ukrainian nobleman Prince Konstanty Wasyl Ostrogski .
During the time of the Uniate heresy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ school for missionary work , eventually beginning the movement of mass literacy in Little Russia ( Ukraine ) .
What Sts .
Cyril and Methodius did for the Slavic alphabet , those four did for Slavic printing , enabling Orthodoxy to finally counter , not only spiritually , but also academically and scientifically , the heresies in the West , using the new technology of the printing press for the service of God , the Church , and the nation .
He was a man who , above all , truly understood the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He saw the Uniate-Jesuits running around Ukraine like Borgias , perverting the souls of the people , serving the corrupt interests of Rome .
As a pioneer of early mass media , he countered the propaganda with the truth , with love , and with the faith—without the need for knavish riots or insults , but instead demonstrating the moral superiority of Orthodoxy through charity .
A famous Syrian historian and Melkite Archdeacon Paul of Aleppo , passing through Kiev , saw first hand the fruits of Mogila ’ s work .
These @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Ukraine can read and write … and village priests consider it their duty to instruct orphans and not let them run in the streets as vagabonds.
” Peter Mogila impressed upon all his clergy the need to not be elitist Jesuits , withholding knowledge from the common folk , or to hide within the walls of the Lavra , but to get out and teach the people through real interaction .
This is once again what Ukraine and all Orthodoxy desperately needs now , more than ever .
Many are baptized , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ religious education is what Orthodoxy needs .
This contributes most acutely to the situation in Ukraine .
The idea that the schismatics under the newly-formed structure of the “ Orthodox Church of Ukraine ” represent Orthodoxy is ridiculous .
Illustrative is this simple video , in which schismatics who came to riot against the canonical Church were called upon to recite prayers , by faithful clergy and laity .
The schismatic partisans , whom the Phanar regards to be Orthodox , failed to recite even the Lord ’ s Prayer from memory , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ words to their “ Glory to the nation—death to the enemies ” chant .
In Peter Mogila ’ s time , there was the same issue .
Hierarchs had abandoned Orthodoxy to live like feudal warlords in the Catholic union , while the rivers of western Ukraine ran red with martyrs ’ blood , and Transcarpathia became another Golgotha .
Did he do nothing ?
No !
Peter Mogila and St. Job of Pochaev took a prayerful stance , and they went out to counter the darkness with the light of wisdom and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This is what we need now !
I can imagine the ultra-conservatives of their days could have even slandered them .
“ What is a monk doing trying to run a publishing house or playing with a printing press ?
!
” In many ways , to my great sadness , I imagine there are some that think the same way about modern Orthodox media , priests who make videos on YouTube , etc .
I myself have even been told there is no point “ wasting time ” writings articles on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it is not easy to ignore when your Orthodox land is being ravished by schism , when your people are dying ; and quite frankly , you can pray and write articles at the same time !
For this reason , in my view , modern Orthodox media projects can continue the legacy of Peter Mogila ; Jordanville Monastery ’ s printing house not only bears the name , but is literally the direct continuation of St. Job ’ s Pochaev Press .
We need nothing less than the restoration of the old @ @ @ @ @ @ @ monastics , and simple clergy who worked together teaching against schism in the days of Peter Mogila .
That self-sacrificing missionary spirit and desire to spread Orthodoxy through authentic fellowship and new technologies preserved the faith in those days ; and while there are also major risks , the internet provides us these opportunities again today .
May God help us all to use it wisely , through the prayers of those holy people .
While reading about the Kievan saints commemorated today , I also happened to come across the interesting life @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , among other things , predicted the assassination of Emperor Alexander II of Russia .
Emperor Alexander II was a tragic figure , and also slightly polarizing among monarchists given his more liberal views .
Nevertheless , almost all would agree that the tsar rightfully wanted to bring an end to slavery and feudalism through the emancipation of the surfs , which was at the time , an almost revolutionary idea in conservative circles , especially among the very conservative ancient nobility who in many ways felt threatened by the emergence of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so who killed the “ westernizing , liberal , revolutionary ” Emperor , who tried to establish a constitutional monarchy ?
The conservatives ?
A group of evil princes who didn ’ t want to lose the autocratic system ?
No…Alexander II was assassinated by liberal , western-leaning revolutionaries .
Indeed , the most liberal of all Russian tsars , trying to build a constitutional monarchy , was assassinated by the liberals , who wanted a constitutional monarchy .
I remember being told by a wise priest from the Russian Church Outside of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ why revolutionary ideology is a lie , that it was never about helping the people , but all about lust of power and the violent attempt to seize it .
Ironically…on this same feast day this year , the assassination of Emperor Paul I is also commemorated .
Another stunning example is Prime Minster Pyotr Stolypin , a statesmen and reformist who many believed , had he not also been assassinated , would have been capable of saving Russia from the revolution by implementing very carefully and responsibly the needed reforms .
His @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scope here , but oversimplified , he wanted to abolish the antiquated remnants of the feudalist agriculture system , and create one based on ownership by individual farmers of private property .
The style of single homestead , independent farms is known in Ukrainian and Southern Russian culture as khutors—as in the famous work of Gogol , “ Evenings on a Farm [ Khutor ] Near Dikanka ” .
The khutor is the opposite of the old Russian obschina , the collective farm .
Khutors are famously characteristic of Ukrainian culture .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kryzhitsky , 1884 The great Dostoyevsky also agreed with Stolypin on private ownership ( as opposed to Tolstoy who preferred the collective system ) .
Dostoyevsky said : `` If you want to transform humanity for the better , to turn near beasts into humans , give them land and you will reach your goal . ''
Nonetheless , even though he strived to improve the lives of both farmers and urban dwellers , he was yet again assassinated by the revolutionaries , and his grave lies before the Trapeza church in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church .
From this , we learn an important lesson—you can ’ t negotiate with extremism , be it revolutionary , fascist , Bolshevik .
Even if you give them what they want , they would happily kill you anyways .
To this same end , there is a lesson in the ecclesiastical life of Ukraine , and the world .
We can ’ t negotiate with heretics and schismatics .
Papist , Ecumenist , Old Believer , Old Calendarist , nationalist , whatever the heresy , it has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is the crucial mistake of the Phanar .
While it seems more likely they undertook these actions in Ukraine under the instruction of western powers controlling them , in the event they genuinely believe they can receive schismatics without repentance… this will and has failed miserably .
Already the schismatics have turned on each other , the Phanar , with Philaret directly contradicting Epiphany and Bartholomew .
There can never be compromise with heresy .
In conclusion , I can only wonder what the countless saints of Kiev must think of this current @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like Anthony of Kiev , and new ones like Raphael of Brooklyn who studied there .
I can ’ t help but wonder Ubi sunt ( Baruch 3:16 ) , in Slavonic : Гдѣ жє сyть ; which is to say : Where are they ?
Where are our princely saints Vladimir and Alexander , our knights Ilya of Murom and Dobrinya , our Hetmans Bogdan Zinovii Khmelnitsky and St. Peter Kalnyshevsky ?
It feels like all the earthly powers of the world support the schismatics .
I worry for my friends in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ walls , because I rejoice in her stones , and her dust would move me to tears .
Then something else moved me to tears .
My weakness and lack of faith .
“ Where is your faith ?
” I remember a friend telling me .
Once I expressed my fear to a Ukrainian girl that the schismatics would seize the Kiev Caves Lavra as they have been seizing churches from the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church throughout Ukraine .
She almost laughed at me .
She said to me “ The Lavra @ @ @ @ @ @ @ She won ’ t let that happen.
” I also remember another conversation I had with a Carpatho-Russian girl .
When she was in the Lavra , she spoke worriedly with a woman on the same subject .
The woman responded , “ Do you know where we are !
?
( inside the Kiev Caves are the uncorrupt bodies of countless saints ) .
The Lord will set everything right The two faithful Orthodox ladies agreed that surrounding them were all the saints of Kiev from over a thousand years .
With @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how could they be afraid ?
This is the kind of spiritual strength you receive when you walk the Lavra grounds… You can look upon saints from bygone years .
You see them all , from the very beginning of Kievan Rus'… and they all see you .
You are under their protection .
Those Orthodox Ukrainians do not fear whatever evil would dare attack the Lavra ... Of course , the Theotokos will save her Lavra , and not our worrying !
From this I also realized that truly Orthodox women have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , while we with all our polemics and theological knowledge sometimes forget that it was our mothers and grandmothers who gave us our Orthodox upbringing .
These thoughts reminded me once again not only of the greatest woman in the world…but the highest creature in creation—the Mother of God .
Yes ... of course ... our Guiding Directress was always there in the Kiev hills , was n't she ?
Yes , our Champion Leader !
She will defend her own—her Son will not allow His Mother ’ s portion to fall .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of hell… Referring to the entire unity of the Russian Church , both in Russia , Ukraine , Belarus , abroad , etc .
I am not discounting the Mother of God visiting Athos , I am merely referring to the physical [ brick and mortar ] buildings and communities we see today…what is continually functioning today .
Currently , Peter Mogila is glorified for local veneration as a saint in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church : http : //www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/996346.html In the sense of practical , internal , and administrative/educational reforms—not liberal Protestant theological @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more articles like this ?
Our fundraising goal has not yet been met , and we would be very grateful for your help .
It takes a full time staff to keep this website going , and our workers need to feed their families .
A recurring donation of even $ 15 or $ 25 per month would be a huge blessing .

A tale of the bygone years, the story from whence came the Russian lands, where in Kiev the first Grand Princes began to rule, and from what source Rus’ has her origin — Reflections and rare stories about the Kiev Caves Lavra
This article from our archives was first published on RI in May 2019
Congratulations to all with the feast of the Holy Fathers of the Kiev Caves! Let’s take a walk back through history, to the cradle of the Russian Church, where it seems the fate of Holy Rus’ once again rests gently within the walls of that portion of the Mother of God, while great maelstroms of heresy and riots surround her.
Saint Nestor the Chronicler of Kiev
Photo: korners.kiev.ua
Rather than attempting to add to the litany of excellent publications on the feast day, and retell the same glorious stories, let’s take a look and reflect on some stories and aspects of the Lavra that are rarely told in the English language.
Given the tragic invasion of our beloved Ukrainian Orthodox lands by the Constantinople Patriarchate, and the shameful and open support for Nazism among the godless pseudo-Orthodox schismatics, we will examine the repeating history in relation to current events. After all, to understand where we are, and what is happening today, you must go back to the beginning…
A Tale of Bygone Years
This story is over one thousand years old. Kiev—The Mother of Rus’ Cities—and her Lavra of the Dormition of the Mother of God was always at the center. She’s seen it all, so much grief, so much faith, so much heresy, and so much holiness. Hers is a tale of the bygone years, the story from whence came the Russian lands, where in Kiev the first Grand Princes began to rule, and from what source Rus’ has her origin.
Those words should sound familiar to any student of Slavic history—they are a paraphrase of the Primary Chronicle, the most important of the ancient chronicles of Russian history. They were written by St. Nestor of the Kiev Caves—the father of Russian history. Ancient Russian chronicles reveal many things, mainly that Rus’ people already considered themselves to be a single nation at a time when there was no “Germany” or “France” on the map, but instead, East and West Frankia.
From all this, we learn our first major lesson: Russia and the Rus’ Church is far more ancient than many of those against her would like people to believe.
For example, there is much rhetoric from the Patriarchate of Constantinople of how the “Slavic younger brothers” need to obey the primacy of the “Greek nation”.
I must first say I have nothing but respect and admiration for Hellenic culture and civilization. The basis of traditional (as opposed to post “enlightenment” or post-modern) Western Civilization and European identity is in short, Greco-Roman culture and legacy together with Christian faith—and I always regarded Russia to be a part of that European “western” civilization”, and actually, I would even argue Russia resembles far more the traditional values of pre-schism Europe than the modern West.
But the rhetoric from Istanbul seems post-modernist and unrelated in any way to old Hellenic culture. Quite frankly, it seems bigoted and racist. It seems the Phanar postulates that they—citizens of Istanbul, Turkey—have the right to the ancient legacy of Constantinople, but the Rus’ Church does not have the right to the ancient legacy of Kiev. And make no mistake about how ancient the Russian Church is…
Kiev Caves Lavra—a sister of Mt. Athos
To put it in perspective, Mount Athos arose in the established form we recognize in the eighth century; however the development of its great monasteries as we know them today seems to date mostly from between the ninth and fourteenth centuries. The Great Lavra on Holy Athos, for example, was founded in 963, and most of its frescos are from the sixteenth centuries… This makes them younger than the works of the Russian saint Andrei Rublev!
The Kiev Caves Lavra was founded in 1051—an important date, because this most ancient of Russian monasteries, technically speaking, existed when all of Europe still knew only one Church. The Great Schism with the papists occurred only three years later. This means that the Great Lavra of Athos and the Kiev Caves Lavra are practically contemporaries!
One of the most amazing monasteries on Athos, Simonopetra, was founded in the thirteenth century, making it around two hundred years younger than the Kiev Caves Lavra; however the Phanar would prefer you to believe that from the beginning Rus’ was a desolate empty steppe, and the Rus’ Church (which literally fed the deprived Phanar) was in a state of permanent infanthood in comparison with the Hellenic world.
Simonospetras Monastery is a contemporary of Pochaev Lavra, younger than Kiev. Photo: sott.net Simonospetras Monastery is a contemporary of Pochaev Lavra, younger than Kiev. Photo: sott.net
And Western media would be happy to continue this portrayal of an ancient Phanar (whose main functioning church is roughly a contemporary of Moscow’s Sretensky Monastery’s old catholicon) and a young Rus’.
To put things in perspective: Today, the second Sunday of Great Lent, is also the feast day of the most glorious Holy Hierarch St. Gregory Palamas. St. Gregory lived in the early fourteenth century, whereas St. Andrew of Kiev, co-founder of the Kiev Caves Lavra was born prior to the Great Schism in 983, and reposed in 1073. This means that by the time Holy Hierarch Gregory Palamas lived, there were already great saints in Kiev.
This by no means is intended as disrespect for Constantinople or the Hellenic world—we all honor our glorious Holy Hierarch St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople and the early fathers. No one questions that the Rus’ people received Baptism from glorious Constantinople. But the Phanar is playing with a double standard—pretending that the laws of the Roman Empire still apply to them, but the laws of Kievan Rus’ should not apply in Rus’.
St. Peter Mogila
Metropolitan Petro Mohyla Metropolitan Petro Mohyla
The Holy Hierarch Peter Mogila, Metropolitan of Kiev (1596-1646) has always been one of my favorite saints, and although his works were “highly regarded” by St. John of Shanghai , I am often sad at how rarely his story is told. Simply put, this holy man saved Orthodoxy in the Ukraine, Rus’… and probably far beyond her borders.
While volumes could be written on his works, this one rare quote of his is very telling of the type of person he is:
“I often thought and mused about how crucial it is in schools to teach not only the external sciences, but even more so, and above everything else, that schools instill piety, which must be rooted and sown in your young hearts, because without it, all wisdom is foolishness before God.”
He was born a nobleman into a princely family, he became a monk, archimandrite, and primate; he was an academic doctor trained in the University of Paris, he was a philosopher, linguist, liturgist, reformer , publisher, printer, pedagogue and theologian, and one of most tragically underappreciated, yet greatest missionaries and holy hierarchs in Eastern Europe.
Even if they don’t know his name, almost every Orthodox Christian was personally affected by his legacy.
Peter Mogila founded the first Orthodox seminary.
Yes, of course, there were obviously methods of training clergy prior to Peter Mogjla, but in his Kiev Brotherhood-Mogila collegium, he was the first Orthodox hierarch to take the rigorous academic studies of the great European universities and bring them together with the ascetic spiritual arena of the monasteries. His method created a means of simultaneously enlightening and teaching both the mind, and the heart, and at the same time, usurping the logical mind from its tyranny over the human psyche, and brining it down into the heart. For the first time, contemporary academia coexisted alongside genuine Orthodox piety.
Before there was the university of Athens, or the Greek-Latin-Slavic Academy in Moscow, there was the Kiev school of Peter Mogila.
I consider him one of the four Evangelists of Eastern Slavic printing, together with his contemporaries St. Job of Pochaev, Ivan Fyodorov of Moscow, and Polish-Ukrainian nobleman Prince Konstanty Wasyl Ostrogski.
Left to Right: St. Job of Pochaev, Petro Mohyla, Konstanty Wasyl Ostrogski, Ivan Fyodorov. Left to Right: St. Job of Pochaev, Petro Mohyla, Konstanty Wasyl Ostrogski, Ivan Fyodorov.
During the time of the Uniate heresy, Peter Mogila began to use his school for missionary work, eventually beginning the movement of mass literacy in Little Russia (Ukraine). What Sts. Cyril and Methodius did for the Slavic alphabet, those four did for Slavic printing, enabling Orthodoxy to finally counter, not only spiritually, but also academically and scientifically, the heresies in the West , using the new technology of the printing press for the service of God, the Church, and the nation.
The Trebnik of Metropolitan Petro Mohyla The Trebnik of Metropolitan Petro Mohyla
He was a man who, above all, truly understood the missionary spirit the Church desperately needed. He saw the Uniate-Jesuits running around Ukraine like Borgias, perverting the souls of the people, serving the corrupt interests of Rome. As a pioneer of early mass media, he countered the propaganda with the truth, with love, and with the faith—without the need for knavish riots or insults, but instead demonstrating the moral superiority of Orthodoxy through charity.
A famous Syrian historian and Melkite Archdeacon Paul of Aleppo, passing through Kiev, saw first hand the fruits of Mogila’s work. These were his words:
“Even villagers in Ukraine can read and write … and village priests consider it their duty to instruct orphans and not let them run in the streets as vagabonds.”
Peter Mogila impressed upon all his clergy the need to not be elitist Jesuits, withholding knowledge from the common folk, or to hide within the walls of the Lavra, but to get out and teach the people through real interaction.
This is once again what Ukraine and all Orthodoxy desperately needs now, more than ever. Many are baptized, but so few are religious, and religious education is what Orthodoxy needs. This contributes most acutely to the situation in Ukraine.
The idea that the schismatics under the newly-formed structure of the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” represent Orthodoxy is ridiculous. Illustrative is this simple video, in which schismatics who came to riot against the canonical Church were called upon to recite prayers, by faithful clergy and laity. The schismatic partisans, whom the Phanar regards to be Orthodox, failed to recite even the Lord’s Prayer from memory, yet they seem to always remember the words to their “Glory to the nation—death to the enemies” chant.
In Peter Mogila’s time, there was the same issue. Hierarchs had abandoned Orthodoxy to live like feudal warlords in the Catholic union, while the rivers of western Ukraine ran red with martyrs’ blood, and Transcarpathia became another Golgotha. Did he do nothing? No!
Peter Mogila and St. Job of Pochaev took a prayerful stance, and they went out to counter the darkness with the light of wisdom and theology. They published great works!
Saint Job of Pochaev (in monastic garb) reviews the Ostrog Bible, the first Slavonic book printed on a press, together with Prince Ostrogski (in red), and Ivan Fyodorov of Moscow (in green). uk.m.wikipedia.org Saint Job of Pochaev (in monastic garb) reviews the Ostrog Bible, the first Slavonic book printed on a press, together with Prince Ostrogski (in red), and Ivan Fyodorov of Moscow (in green). uk.m.wikipedia.org
This is what we need now!
I can imagine the ultra-conservatives of their days could have even slandered them. “What is a monk doing trying to run a publishing house or playing with a printing press?!” In many ways, to my great sadness, I imagine there are some that think the same way about modern Orthodox media, priests who make videos on YouTube, etc. I myself have even been told there is no point “wasting time” writings articles on the schism…just pray and ignore it.
But it is not easy to ignore when your Orthodox land is being ravished by schism, when your people are dying; and quite frankly, you can pray and write articles at the same time!
For this reason, in my view, modern Orthodox media projects can continue the legacy of Peter Mogila; Jordanville Monastery’s printing house not only bears the name, but is literally the direct continuation of St. Job’s Pochaev Press.
We need nothing less than the restoration of the old Ruthenian Brotherhoods—those unions of lay people, monastics, and simple clergy who worked together teaching against schism in the days of Peter Mogila. That self-sacrificing missionary spirit and desire to spread Orthodoxy through authentic fellowship and new technologies preserved the faith in those days; and while there are also major risks, the internet provides us these opportunities again today. May God help us all to use it wisely, through the prayers of those holy people.
Abyssus abyssum invocat — you can’t compromise with heresy
While reading about the Kievan saints commemorated today, I also happened to come across the interesting life of St. Alexis of Goloseyevsky, who, among other things, predicted the assassination of Emperor Alexander II of Russia.
Emperor Alexander II was a tragic figure, and also slightly polarizing among monarchists given his more liberal views. Nevertheless, almost all would agree that the tsar rightfully wanted to bring an end to slavery and feudalism through the emancipation of the surfs, which was at the time, an almost revolutionary idea in conservative circles, especially among the very conservative ancient nobility who in many ways felt threatened by the emergence of the capitalist and liberal nouveau riche.
And so who killed the “westernizing, liberal, revolutionary” Emperor, who tried to establish a constitutional monarchy? The conservatives? A group of evil princes who didn’t want to lose the autocratic system? No…Alexander II was assassinated by liberal, western-leaning revolutionaries.
Indeed, the most liberal of all Russian tsars, trying to build a constitutional monarchy, was assassinated by the liberals, who wanted a constitutional monarchy.
I remember being told by a wise priest from the Russian Church Outside of Russia that this is the microcosm of why revolutionary ideology is a lie, that it was never about helping the people, but all about lust of power and the violent attempt to seize it. Ironically…on this same feast day this year, the assassination of Emperor Paul I is also commemorated.
Another stunning example is Prime Minster Pyotr Stolypin, a statesmen and reformist who many believed, had he not also been assassinated, would have been capable of saving Russia from the revolution by implementing very carefully and responsibly the needed reforms.
His reforms are impossible to explain in full scope here, but oversimplified, he wanted to abolish the antiquated remnants of the feudalist agriculture system, and create one based on ownership by individual farmers of private property.
The style of single homestead, independent farms is known in Ukrainian and Southern Russian culture as khutors—as in the famous work of Gogol, “Evenings on a Farm [Khutor] Near Dikanka”. The khutor is the opposite of the old Russian obschina, the collective farm.
Khutors are famously characteristic of Ukrainian culture. “A Khutor in Little Russia” Konstantin Kryzhitsky, 1884
The great Dostoyevsky also agreed with Stolypin on private ownership (as opposed to Tolstoy who preferred the collective system). Dostoyevsky said: "If you want to transform humanity for the better, to turn near beasts into humans, give them land and you will reach your goal."
Nonetheless, even though he strived to improve the lives of both farmers and urban dwellers, he was yet again assassinated by the revolutionaries, and his grave lies before the Trapeza church in the Kiev Caves Lavra, the current cathedral of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
The Imperial Family visits the grave of Pyotr Stolypin in Kiev Caves Lavra where it remains to this day. Photo: pravlife.org The Imperial Family visits the grave of Pyotr Stolypin in Kiev Caves Lavra where it remains to this day. Photo: pravlife.org
From this, we learn an important lesson—you can’t negotiate with extremism, be it revolutionary, fascist, Bolshevik. Even if you give them what they want, they would happily kill you anyways.
To this same end, there is a lesson in the ecclesiastical life of Ukraine, and the world.
We can’t negotiate with heretics and schismatics. Papist, Ecumenist, Old Believer, Old Calendarist, nationalist, whatever the heresy, it has no place in the Church.
This is the crucial mistake of the Phanar. While it seems more likely they undertook these actions in Ukraine under the instruction of western powers controlling them, in the event they genuinely believe they can receive schismatics without repentance… this will and has failed miserably.
Already the schismatics have turned on each other, the Phanar, with Philaret directly contradicting Epiphany and Bartholomew. There can never be compromise with heresy.
In conclusion, I can only wonder what the countless saints of Kiev must think of this current situation. I think of old saints like Anthony of Kiev, and new ones like Raphael of Brooklyn who studied there. I can’t help but wonder Ubi sunt (Baruch 3:16), in Slavonic: Гдѣ жє сyть; which is to say: Where are they? Where are our princely saints Vladimir and Alexander, our knights Ilya of Murom and Dobrinya, our Hetmans Bogdan Zinovii Khmelnitsky and St. Peter Kalnyshevsky?
It feels like all the earthly powers of the world support the schismatics.
I worry for my friends in the Lavra, and for its holy walls, because I rejoice in her stones, and her dust would move me to tears.
Then something else moved me to tears. My weakness and lack of faith. “Where is your faith?” I remember a friend telling me.
Once I expressed my fear to a Ukrainian girl that the schismatics would seize the Kiev Caves Lavra as they have been seizing churches from the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church throughout Ukraine. She almost laughed at me. She said to me “The Lavra belongs to the Mother of God! She won’t let that happen.”
I also remember another conversation I had with a Carpatho-Russian girl. When she was in the Lavra, she spoke worriedly with a woman on the same subject. The woman responded, “Do you know where we are!? (inside the Kiev Caves are the uncorrupt bodies of countless saints). The Lord will set everything right
The two faithful Orthodox ladies agreed that surrounding them were all the saints of Kiev from over a thousand years. With such spiritual defenders all around them, how could they be afraid?
This is the kind of spiritual strength you receive when you walk the Lavra grounds… You can look upon saints from bygone years.
You see them all, from the very beginning of Kievan Rus'… and they all see you.
You are under their protection.
Those Orthodox Ukrainians do not fear whatever evil would dare attack the Lavra... Of course, the Theotokos will save her Lavra, and not our worrying!
From this I also realized that truly Orthodox women have saved our faith in all our lands, while we with all our polemics and theological knowledge sometimes forget that it was our mothers and grandmothers who gave us our Orthodox upbringing.
These thoughts reminded me once again not only of the greatest woman in the world…but the highest creature in creation—the Mother of God. Yes...of course... our Guiding Directress was always there in the Kiev hills, wasn't she? Yes, our Champion Leader! She will defend her own—her Son will not allow His Mother’s portion to fall.
Even if they come with the armies of hell…
http://orthochristian.com/calendar/20190311.html
http://www.unz.com/akarlin/mammoths-and-patriots/
Referring to the entire unity of the Russian Church, both in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, abroad, etc.
I am not discounting the Mother of God visiting Athos, I am merely referring to the physical [brick and mortar] buildings and communities we see today…what is continually functioning today.
Currently, Peter Mogila is glorified for local veneration as a saint in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church: http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/996346.html
http://www.pravoslavie.ru/29140.html
In the sense of practical, internal, and administrative/educational reforms—not liberal Protestant theological reforms.
http://orthochristian.com/116252.html
http://orthochristian.com/116252.html
https://drevo-info.ru/articles/16563.html (in russian)
https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Zhitija_svjatykh/velikie-russkie-startsy/18 (in russian)
http://orthochristian.com/calendar/20190311.html
https://www.rbth.com/arts/2013/12/07/stolypin_reformist_ahead_of_his_tim...
Saint Ilya lies uncorrupt in the Kiev Caves.
Psalm 102
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