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In the 1840s, Optina Monastery faced a shortage of coachmen for the 70-kilometre route to Kaluga and struggled to accommodate all the visitors in its monastery hotels. Contemporaries referred to Optina as a “spiritual sanatorium.”
On the 8th of July, the Orthodox Church celebrates a very special feast — the day of Saint Peter and Fevronia. These two saints from the 13th century are considered the patron saints of family, love, and fidelity.
Alban the Protomartyr of Britain lived in ancient Verulamium, now Saint Albans, in the northwest of London. Though his origins and occupation remain a mystery, ancient frescoes and seals offer glimpses of the man.
The future saint was born on 28 February 1868 into a peasant family residing in Russian village and was baptised with the name Gerasim.
St.John helps us no matter where we are in San Francisco, in Detroit or in Minsk. Sister Anstasia tells us a story about a miracle from her life that Saint John of Shanghai did for another person in Detroit, Michigan.
For contemporary Christians, Saint Lazarus' life serves as a guide in gaining a Christian understanding of our own lives. His days on earth were an ascent to the Kingdom of Heaven.
The fate of the clergy and sisters of the Seraphim-Diveyevo Monastery is nothing short of astonishing. Their devotion to God and trust in Him amidst the most harrowing circumstances is both instructive and enlightening.
Tamara joined a convent, despite all persuasion and pleas from her relatives. Over her family's objections, Tamara joined a convent, tonsured as Juvenalia. Some sisters saw a white dove descend on her at her tonsure.
Saint John (Maximovitch) served as the Metropolitan of Tobolsk for a brief period of four years, from 1711 to 1715. Despite his short tenure, he emerged as one of the most venerated saints in Siberia.
According to the memoirs of Priest Sergius Durylin, who served with him, Father Alexei Mechev was, "an endless wellhead of goodness, and love and help to others in the most unexpected, infinitely diverse forms..."
Valeria, Kyriake, and Mary of Caesarea are early Christian saints venerated as martyrs. They lived in the 3rd century on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, in Caesarea of Palestine, during the persecutions under Emperor Diocletian.
He died without resistance at the hands of a ferocious crowd, erasing the sin of arrogance, conceit, and ill will that had consumed the Kievan Rus.
As a child, he became a martyr at the hands of ambitious noblemen vying for the Russian throne. But he lives in eternity, working miracles and interceding for our children
In the tumultuous pre-revolutionary years of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Lord bestowed upon us a marvellous shepherd and a miracle worker. The light of his love continues to guide faithful souls towards salvation even today.
We celebrate his feast on 14 June, by magnifying him as a healer of both the body and soul, who guides the evil-hearted to righteousness.
The beginning of his service to the church coincided with the tragic death of Tsar Alexander II at the hands of revolutionary assassins. To him, it was a symptom of a destructive social disorder: the decline of the faith, especially among the…
He was only 20 when he was drafted into the Russian army and went to war with Turkey during the reign of the Russian Tsar Peter the Great. He was taken prisoner in a battle with the Turks.
The service of pious rulers seems to be the most arduous and rocky path to achieving holiness. Pious Demetrios Donskoy managed to unite his homeland on a truly solid spiritual foundation.
The Venerable John of Korma, a Belarusian saint, built his entire life on the biblical teaching, "As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead."
He stood at the origin of cenobitic monasticism, the receiver of the monastic rule from an angel, and set an example in resisting temptations and enemy attacks.
