Natalia Malakhova
Bell ringing is not merely a part of church services, but a special language through which the inhabitants of Ancient Rus communicated.
Abbess Olympiada (Baranova)
How we loved Mother, how we all wanted to do something nice for her, to at least make her smile.
Abbess Olympiada shared her story about her spiritual mother and her experience of the continuity of the traditions of Russian female monasticism.
Svetlana Rybakova
Praying in front of the icon of the Mother of God, “Quick to Hear”—the one that the Russian hermit had donated to the Netherlands—Fr. Dionysius made a vow: if the Lord would rescue him and give him the opportunity to organize a parish or build a church someday, he would have it dedicated to the Icon of the Mother of God, “Quick to Hear”.
Mikhail Arsentiev
The main life, service and labor are concentrated here—in the heart of a city of many millions, where the monastery has become for many not just a church, but a house of prayer, a family and the last refuge.
The northernmost Orthodox church in America was built in 1992 and consecrated in honor of Saint Herman of Alaska. Last summer, the husband and wife film team, Mikhail and Ekaterina P, spoke with its rector, Father Andrew, about Orthodox traditions and the special nature of serving the Church in Alaska.
Abbess Elizabeth (Smelik)
The procession is chiefly dedicated to the estate owners: Empress Consort Maria Alexandrovna, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich and his wife, the holy Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, but many people also walk in the procession with icons of the holy Royal Passion-Bearers Tsar Nicholas II and his family.
Alexandra Kalinovskaya
St. James prays for us in the hustle and bustle of the modern world.
Bishop Joseph (Korolev)
Our elders could combine unceasing prayer and work. True, it’s not total stillness—we won’t see it at the Optina Monastery. But there was the path of cenobitic monasticism, there was monastic life in the skete and there was eremitic life.
In early September, summer gently retreats from the Solovki archipelago—a place of prayer but also of breathtaking natural beauty.
Olga Rozhneva
And then Vitalka had a thought that he couldn’t shake, of getting a bus instead of a wagon. What kinds of buses he dreamt of, and there aren’t even any roads here!
Dmitry Kiryukhin
The Sts. Peter and Paul Fortress, Kazan Cathedral, Nevsky Prospect, the Optina Monastery Metochion, and the St. Petersburg embankments…
Elena Lebedeva
The only monastery in Moscow dedicated to the Feast of the Miracle of St. Michael the Archangel at Chonae, and one of the most famous ecclesiastical monuments destroyed by the Bolsheviks, was located before the Revolution in the Kremlin, on Ivanovskaya Square. In earlier times, this grand Moscow monastery was even known as the “Great Lavra.”
The Shamordino Convent near Kaluga, founded in 1884 by St. Ambrose of Optina as a refuge for widows and orphans, survived decades of Soviet persecution to be restored in 1990 and now houses over a hundred nuns.
Located in a picturesque area, Kazimirovo Monastery is quite conducive to peace and prayer. And the walls of the monastery, painted by the nuns themselves, are memorable for their beauty.
We have a total of sixteen teams! Each has its own leader, capable of answering any question.
When they understand they are treated with sincere love and an open heart, they respond in kind.
Irina Suslova
Indeed modern Valaam is the “Northern Mount Athos” in terms of the diversity of forms of spiritual life.
Zhanna Bobkova
The second time, instead of visiting the Holy Land, Father Feodor was sent to serve in a village deep in the central Russian forests.
Elena Deshko
She got upset and decided it must be God’s will—it wasn’t her time to go to Diveyevo yet.
