| Michael Prokurat, Alexander Golitzin, Michael D. Peterson Скачать epub pdf DOUKHOBORS AND OLD BELIEVER SECTS DOUKHOBORS AND OLD BELIEVER SECTS. The priestless Old Believers (q.v.) gave rise to many sects in imperial Russia over the intervening centuries since their beginnings in the third quarter of the seventeenth century. In general these priestless sects (bezpopovtsy) were like the ancient Montanists and Messalians. They had a negative worldview and believed their rites brought them into direct contact with the Holy Spirit (q.v.), so that Christ could be reincarnated in various persons generation after generation. Beginning in chronological order, the Khlysts were a 17th c. dualistic Old Believer Russian sect, whose founder claimed to be God; and in succeeding generations one male disciple was Christ while a female disciple was the Mother of God. In 1740 more than 400 people were prosecuted in Moscow for this heresy, which later flourished underground so that there were 60,000 adherents by 1900. In doctrine they denied the Holy Trinity (q.v.): God inhabited the man Jesus who died, as he would inhabit other members of the Khlysts. When God is incarnate in the Khlyst, the spirit directs everything, making all books (including the Bible) and authority (q.v.) meaningless. Members were outwardly pious Orthodox parishioners (e.g., Rasputin) since liturgy (q.v.) was a symbol of their own mysteries, while privately their communities were each led by a “Christ” and “Mother of God”, and their ritual was frenzied dance after which ecstatic prophesies were made. Their belief was dualistic, since they believed that the body is the prison of the spirit, marriage is condemned, and children are “incarnations of sin.” In this way they are similar to previous gnostic (q.v.) groups. One branch of the Khlysts from the late 18th c., the Skopts, practiced castration in order to prevent all sexual relations, naming it a “baptism of fire.” Their leader was Conrad Selivanov, who was exiled under Tsarina Catherine II, but was personally known to both Tsars Paul and Alexander I and flourished under them. Tsar Nicholas I persecuted the group, and they were forced underground, and there continued in great numbers. |
| The New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. Faces and Fates The New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. Faces and Fates. On February, 7, the Russian Orthodox Church celebrates the Synaxis of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church (starting in 2000, this feast has traditionally been celebrated on the Sunday after February, 7). Today, there are more than 1700 names in the Synaxis. Here are just a few of them. New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia Hieromartyr Peter Skipetrov, Archpriest, Protomartyr of Petrograd Commemoration date – February, 1 (January, 19 by the old calendar) The first priest to die at the hands of the militantly atheist government in Petrograd. He stood up for women who were abused by the Red Army soldiers on the doorstep of the Diocese administration office and was shot in the head. Father Peter was survived by a wife and seven children. He was fifty-five at the time of his death. Hieromartyr Vladimir (Bogoyavlensky ), Metropolitan of Kiev and Galicia Commemoration date February, 7 (January, 25 by the old calendar) The first Hierarch of the Russian Church to die in the revolutionary unrest. Killed by armed bandits lead by a sailor Commissar near the Kievo-Pecherskaya Lavra. At the time of death, he was seventy. Hieromartyr Peter (Zverev), Archbishop of Voronezh Commemoration February, 7 (January, 25 by the old calendar) His being highly respected by the workers of Voronezh was a cause of irritation to the Soviet government. Banished to labour camps in Solovki for ten years. Died in exile of typhoid at the age of fifty in 1929. Holy Passion-Bearers Tsar Nicholas, Tsarina Alexandra, and their children Alexis, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasi a Commemoration date July, 17 (July, 4 by the old calendar) The last Emperor of Russia and his family were executed by firing squad in the basement of the Ipatiev house in Ekaterinburg by order of the Ural Regional Soviet of the Workers’, Peasants’ and Soldiers’ deputies. At the time of death, Emperor Nicholai was fifty years old, Empress Alexandra was forty-six, Grand Duchess Olga twenty-two, Grand Duchess Tatiana twenty-one, Grand Duchess Maria nineteen, Grand Duchess Anastasia seventeen, Crown Prince Alexei thirteen. Members of their retinue, court physician Evgenii Botkin, cook Ivan Kharitonov, footman Alexei Trupp, and maid Anna Demidov were executed alongside them. Venerable Martyr Grand Duchess Elizabeth (Romanoff) and Nun Barbara (Yakovlev) |
| Tsar Nicholas was, of course, born Orthodox, grew up in a strongly Orthodox atmosphere and had a nearly thousand-year-old heritage of Orthodoxy behind him. But this heritage blossomed in him so splendidly primarily because of his innate qualities: great piety, modesty, tenderness of soul, generosity, trustiness, love of all of God " s creatures. And this was the heritage, both ancestral and personal, which he passed on to his children and which they, too, embodied so well. Tsarina Alexandra is seen on a hospital visit to injured servicemen. The Empress Alexandra, though born Lutheran, grew up in a family that was also very religious. For this reason, and due to the sincerity and honesty with which she lived her faith, for a long time she could not agree to convert to another religion, even despite her great love for the Tsar. It was only after acquiring a deep understanding of Orthodoxy as the one true Faith that she was able to convert. However, when the Empress embraced Orthodoxy, she did so completely, with all the sincerity and honesty of her soul, so that she truly lived as an Orthodox Christian. It was this sincerity and honesty of faith which she passed on to her children and which was part of the fabric of their daily lives. In this 1914 picture, four years before their execution, Nicholas " s heir Alexei is seen with sisters Olga, left, and Tatiana, right. The Romanov children were beautiful—not only in their outward appearance, which was striking, but primarily in their inner qualities. From their father they inherited the traits of kindness, modesty, simplicity, and unshakeable sense of duty and an all-consuming love for their homeland. From their mother they inherited deep faith, straightforwardness, self-discipline and strength of spirit. The Empress herself abhorred idleness and taught her children to be fruitfully engaged at all times. When World War I began, the Empress and her four daughters participated wholeheartedly in the war effort: they were literally tireless in visiting military hospitals and bringing cheer and comfort to the wounded soldiers, while the Empress and the two older daughters even qualified as Sisters of Mercy and performed the often anguishing tasks of surgical nurses. " The higher a person " s position in society, " " the Tsar-Martyr used to say, " the more he should help others without ever reminding them of his position. " Being himself a prime example of gentleness and attentiveness to the needs of others, the Tsar-Martyr brought up his children to be the same. |
| Michael Prokurat, Alexander Golitzin, Michael D. Peterson Скачать epub pdf FREEMASONRY FREEMASONRY. 1) In eighteenth-century Russia: Origin of the Freemasons seems to go back to a twelfth-century English religious brotherhood formed to guard trade secrets. It has a varied history in different countries, sometimes professing an undoctrinal Christianity (England, Germany) and at other times being openly hostile to religion and the Church (France, Italy, Latin countries). In the 18th c. English Freemasonry embraced Deism, and from here (and other Western countries) it came to Russia during the reign of Tsarina Elizabeth, burgeoning under Catherine II. Members-the educated gentry in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and some provincial towns-numbered approximately twenty-five hundred. At this time in Europe Voltairianism was a spiritual and moral disease among those converted to Western values due to its complete lack of spiritual concentration and the moral bankruptcy that accompanied it. Two trends in Freemasonry addressed deficiencies in this Enlightenment culture. One was mystical, focusing on meditation and self-perfection. The other was ethical/social, reaching out to the world in education and publishing. The latter was centered on the University of Moscow and Nicholas Novikov, 1744–1818, Catherine’s most active publicist. The Moscow Rosicrucian group became the most influential of the Russian centers, adding mystical and ascetical elements to disciplines of the lower forms of Freemasonry. The “occult sources” of Romanticism were derived from the higher levels of Freemasonry, and it shared with Romanticism a feeling of world harmony and anthropocentric self-awareness. Both trends, the mystical and ethical/social, are aspects of human nature that the Age of Reason could not adequately express. As far as Russia was concerned, the newly educated converts to the Western European spirit became true Western bureaucrats, understanding their existence in terms of their utility to the state, where they were placed on Peter I’s “Table of Ranks” (a fourteen-step government table of civil servants). This psychologically prepared and confirmed for them the many stepped ascent of the Masonic Orders. With the revolutionary character of the Enlightenment showing itself on the continent, Catherine the Great-clearly to safeguard the government and the wealthy-put an abrupt end to ideas and people that represented its ideals, among them the Masons. Nonetheless, a few scholars have seen the inspiration for and continuation of the movement in the later Slavophiles (q.v.). |
| Exhibition dedicated to 200 years of relations between House of Romanov and Hohenzollern Dynasty opens in Germany The exhibition, “Kinship by Choice: the Romanovs and the Hohenzollerns – 200 Years Together” has opened at Hohenzollern Castle near Stuttgart. It includes over 130 exhibits. Among them are portraits and photographs of members of the House of Romanov and the House of Hohenzollern, personal items of imperial family members, pictures reflecting events which involved Russian and Prussian monarchs, early twentieth century photos depicting meetings of St. Nicholas II and Wilhelm II, and personal notes of the latter in which he tells about his attempts to rescue the Russian tsar and his family in the summer of 1918. The exhibition will run until January 29, 2017. It was opened as part of the evening of German-Russian friendship arranged by the St. Gregory the Theologian Charity Foundation. Additionally, a concert was performed at Hohenzollern Castle by both German and Russan singers, and a Litya was served at the castle’s Orthodox chapel near the grave of Grand Duchess Kira Kirillovna of Russia (1909-1967), grandmother of Prince Georg Friedrich of Prussia. The service was celebrated by Igumen Maxim (Schmidt), representative of the Southern Deanery of the Diocese of Berlin and Germany of the Moscow Patriarchate. Next year will mark the 200th wedding anniversary of Grand Duke Nicholas Pavlovich (the future Emperor Nicholas I) and the Prussian Princess Frederica Louise Charlotte Wilhelmina (1798-1860). The latter was received into Orthodoxy with the name Alexandra Feodorovna and became the Russian empress in 1825. It was the first “dynastic marriage” of a representative of the House of Romanov with a member of the Hohenzollern Dynasty which in many ways predetermined friendly and allied relations between Russia and Germany that were maintained for the most of the nineteenth century. Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna gave birth to four sons from whom all the following generations of the Romanov Dynasty were descended. All their descendants living today are also descendants of this Prussian princess. |
| Commemoration date July, 18 (July, 5 by the old calendar) Sister of Royal Martyr Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, widow of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich who had been killed by revolutionaries. After the death of her husband, Grand Duchess Elizabeth became a nurse and abbess of the Sts. Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy in Moscow that she founded herself. When the Bolsheviks arrested Grand Duchess Elizabeth, her cell attendant, Nun Barbara chose to come with her despite being offered to go free. Together with Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, his secretary Fedor Remez, Princes Ioann Konstantinovich, Konstantin Konstantinovich, and Igor Konstantinovich and Grand Duke Vladimir Palei, Venerable Martyr Elizabeth and Nun Barbara were thrown alive into a mine near Alapaevsk where they died in terrible agony. At the moment of death Grand Duchess Elizabeth was fifty-three, Nun Barbara was sixty-eight. Hieromartyr Benjamin (Kazanskii), Metropolitan of Petrograd and Gdov Commemoration date August, 13 (July, 31 by the old calendar) Arrested in 1922 for resisting the Bolshevik campaign of confiscation of ecclesiastical valuables. The real reason for his arrest was his rejection of the Living Church (Obnovlenchestvo). Executed by firing squad alongside Hieromonk Archimandrite Sergius (Shechein) (52), Martyr Ioann Kovsharov (Lawyer, 44), and Martyr Yurii Novitsky (Professor of St. Petersburg University, 40) in the environs of Petrograd, allegedly on the Rzhev firing range. Prior to execution, all Martyrs were shaved and dressed in rags, so their executioners would not recognize them as clerics. At the time of death, Metropolitan Benjamin was forty-five years old. Hieromartyr John Vostorgov, Archpriest Commemoration date September, 5 (August, 23 by the old calendar) Well-known Moscow priest, one of the leaders of the royalist movement. Arrested in 1918 on the charge of intent to sell the diocesan house. First held in the inner prison of the Cheka, afterwards in the Butyrka prison. Executed extrajudicially at the beginning of the Red Terror. Openly executed along with Bishop Efrem and the former President of the State Council Shcheglovitov, former Ministers of Internal Affairs Maklakov and Khvostov, and Senator Beletsky on September 5, 1918 in the Petrovsky Park (Moscow). Following the execution, all the bodies (around eighty people) were robbed. |
| God’s Sunflower: On St. John (Maximovitch) of Tobolsk St. John (Maximovitch), Metropolitan of Tobolsk, whose memory we celebrate today, is today best known by many only as the ancestor and patron saint of St. John (Maximovitch) the Wonderworker , Archbishop of Shanghai and San Francisco. Yet the life of the first St. John (Maximovitch) is at least as remarkable as that of the second, as demonstrated by the following sermon, originally given in the Cathedral of St. Nicholas and Ioasaph in Belgorod. Our Holy Church celebrates the memory of St. John, Metropolitan of Tobolsk, on June 23. He was the last Russian saint to be glorified by the Church in pre-revolutionary, tsarist times. To a certain extent, the canonization of the God-pleaser John could only have taken place thanks to the personal insistence of the Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II and his most august spouse, the Tsarina-Martyr Alexandra Feodorovna, who shared a profound veneration for the Siberian wonderworker. In the resolution of Nicholas II regarding the canonization of the saint, we read: “I believe in the intercession of St. John (Maximovitch) in this time of travails for Orthodox Rus’.” Like St. Ioasaph of Belgorod, he was a native of the Ukraine and a descendent of an ancient noble family. He was born in the middle of the seventeenth century, in 1651, as the oldest son in a family with seven more sons. His pious parents strove to provide him with the best education then available. After giving him a wholly church-centered upbringing at home, they gave their first-born son to the Kiev Theological Academy, where he grew close to the ascetic strugglers in the Kiev-Caves Lavra; he himself became a monk around the age of twenty-four. With the general consent of the monastery brethren, the young monk was given the important obedience of preaching. There is evidence that the future saint’s preaching activity in the Lavra lasted for five years. Only three of the sermons he gave in those years have come down to us. Composed in accessible, conversational language, and free from rhetorical devices, these works of the young ascetic were full of life. |
| Tweet Нравится Patriarch Kirill to lead Ural celebrations for centenary of Romanov family martyrdom Moscow, February 20, 2017 Photo: Pravoslavie.Ru His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia is planning to head the commemorative events that will take place next year in the Sverdlovsk region in honor of the 100th anniversary of the assassination of the Royal Martyrs, Tsar Nicholas II and his family, reports Interfax-Religion . Sverdlosk governor Eugene Kuivashevim noted that the main event will be on the night of July 17, 2018, and invited the patriarch to attend and lead the services, saying, “We are preparing for this event with the Ekaterinburg Diocese and, of course, we want to invite you to participate in the celebrations which will be dedicated to this tragic date.” In return, His Holiness stated, “As next year will be the centenary, we must do everything to go on this pilgrimage, if we will be alive and healthy.” He stressed that the date is a momentous one for the Urals, for the whole Russian Church, for the people, and for history. “I have long wanted to visit Ekaterinburg during these days, to go on the cross procession and pray with the people,” Patriarch Kirill stated. The members of the Royal Family, along with Dr. Eugene Botkin and three servants accepted a martyr’s death in the night of July 17, 1918 in the basement of engineer Ipatiev’s house in Ekaterinburg. Since September 2012 there has been a Liturgy in the night of the seventeenth of each month in the Church-on-the-Blood built on the site where the Romanovs were martyred. Every year, following the Liturgy on the night of July 17 there is a cross procession from the church to the monastery at Ganina Yama (13 miles from Ekaterinburg), where their holy bodies were disposed of, in which tens of thousands participate. The Royal Martyrs—Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra, and their five children Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei—and their servants were canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia on November 1, 1981, and the family on August 20, 2000 by the Moscow Patriarchate, with Dr. Eugene Botkin’s canonization following on February 3, 2016. |
| Holy Royal Martyrs Commemorated in Yekaterinburg on their Feast-Day Yekaterinburg, July 17, 2014 The night of July 16/17 is a tragic date in the history of Russia. On this day in Yekaterinburg, the Russian Tsar Nicolas II, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, their children as well as their faithful servants were brutally murdered. The Church “on the Blood” in honour of All Saints who have Shone Forth in the Russian Land, has now been built on the site of the crime. And the tragic night annually gathers thousands of pilgrims to this site from all over Russia and other countries for prayer, reports the News Agency of the Yekaterinburg Diocese . The tradition of commemorating the martyred Royal Family began long before their canonization as Royal Martyrs. In 1992, Archbishop Melchisedek (Lebedev) of Sverdlovsk and Kurgan first gave a blessing to celebrate a service here and hold a procession of the Cross to the site of the destruction of their holy relics at Ganina Yama (“Ganya’s Pit”). On these days of the Royal Martyrs, in spite of the torrential rain (the first such in 22 years) tens of thousands of Yekaterinburg residents, pilgrims from all the corners of Russia and from abroad gathered to honor the Holy Passion-Bearers. Celebration of Small Vespers, Vigil service and Divine Liturgy on the night of the martyrdom of the Royal Family on the porch of the Church on the Blood was headed by permanent member of the Holy Synod Metropolitan Vikenty of Tashkent and Uzbekistan, Metropolitan Nikon of Ufa and Sterlitamak, Metropolitan Kirill of Yekaterinburg and Verkhoturye, Bishop Markell of Beltsy and Falesti, Bishop Nikodim of Edinet and Briceni, Bishop Innocent of Nizhny Tagil and Serov, Bishop Nicolas of Salavat and Kumertau, Bishop Ambrose of Neftekamsk and Birsk, Bishop Methodius of Kamensk-Uralsky and Alapayevsk with several hundred priests and deacons concelebrating. Before the Divine Liturgy Metropolitan Kirill addressed the sea of people gathered in front of the Church on the Blood with his archpastor’s speech on the Holy Royal Martyrs, especially stressing the deep connection between the podvig (feat/ascetic struggle) of St. Sergius of Radonezh (the Church celebrates the 700 th anniversary of his birth in 2014) and the feat of the Holy Royal Martyrs. |
| We pray and believe that the Lord, through the prayers of the holy Martyrs and Confessors of our Church, still preserves our land and covers it with His Heavenly covering. We hope that with God’s help we will lead an Orthodox Christian way of life and will take an example from righteous people, such as the holy Royal Family and their companions, and all those who laid down their heads for our homeland and our Holy Church. Through their prayers, the Lord will forgive and have mercy on all of us by the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos, the Royal Passion-Bearers, and all the saints who have pleased God from time immemorial. Photo: ekaterinburg-eparhia.ru The Royal Days celebrations continue tonight in Alapaevsk where St. Elizabeth the Grand Duchess and sister of Tsarina Alexandra, the Nun Barbara, and Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich Romanov, the Princes Ioann Konstantinovich, Konstantin Konstantinovich, Igor Konstantinovich, and Vladimir Pavlovich Paley, and Grand Duke Sergei’s secretary Fyodor Remez were martyred on July 18, 1918. Photo: ekaterinburg-eparhia.ru Code for blog Since you are here… …we do have a small request. More and more people visit Orthodoxy and the World website. However, resources for editorial are scarce. In comparison to some mass media, we do not make paid subscription. It is our deepest belief that preaching Christ for money is wrong. Having said that, Pravmir provides daily articles from an autonomous news service, weekly wall newspaper for churches, lectorium, photos, videos, hosting and servers. Editors and translators work together towards one goal: to make our four websites possible - Pravmir.ru, Neinvalid.ru, Matrony.ru and Pravmir.com. Therefore our request for help is understandable. For example, 5 euros a month is it a lot or little? A cup of coffee? It is not that much for a family budget, but it is a significant amount for Pravmir. If everyone reading Pravmir could donate 5 euros a month, they would contribute greatly to our ability to spread the word of Christ, Orthodoxy, life " s purpose, family and society. |
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