Rating: 10|Votes: 23

The Interrogation Before Death Lasted 16 Days and Nights

Memories of Nun-Martyr Augusta (Zaschuk; 1871-1938)

Olga Rozhneva

The interrogation of the aging nun lasted 16 days and nights. During the course of this time they did not allow her to sleep—or even to sit. When she fell from exhaustion, they brought her back to consciousness by pouring ice water all over her. In spite of the torture,

Rating: 5.8|Votes: 6

On the Sakkos and the Mitre

Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev)

The sakkos first appeared in Russia no later than the fourteenth century as a liturgical vestment of Moscow’s metropolitans. The sakkos of Metropolitan Peter (1308-1326) is preserved to this day. It was sewn in 1322 from light-blue satin material on which crosses in circles are woven with gold.

Rating: 2.8|Votes: 4

The Church from Byzantium to the Ottomans

If the Eastern Orthodox Churches had not split from the Roman Catholic Church in 1054, the Ottoman Turks would have found it much more difficult to conquer Constantinople.

Rating: 2|Votes: 1

The Goal of History is the Birth of the Christ

Fr. Ted Bobosh

“The entire month of December had taken on the character of a forefeast for Christmas. In this context, the theme of the original preparatory Sunday, the ‘Sunday of the Holy Fathers’ […], commemorating the ancestors of Christ ‘according to the flesh’ […], especially the patriarch Abraham, to whom the promise was first given (Gen. 12:3, 22:18), is fundamental to the whole period.

Rating: 9|Votes: 19

Faithful British servant murdered by the Bolsheviks alongside 'last tsar of Russia' has his name cleared

As Johnson lay dying, the wounded Michael went to his aid, begging the execution squad: 'Let me say goodbye to my friend.' Moments later, he too was dead.