Faith · Art · Humour
Saint Anthony in a detail of a 1501 painting by Hieronymus Bosch
Psst, coming out? Saint Anthony seems to be coming out. Hieronymus Bosch, 1501
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Faith
Faith · Books · Moscow · Science
Prototypes of the Holy Fool Nikolka Iron Cap in Pushkin's Tragedy
Pushkin's Boris Godunov contains a tiny scene with a holy fool: children have taken a coin from Nikolka, who never removes his iron cap and is hung about with chains, and he addresses the Tsar as he passes by:. Holy Fool (weeping) They have taken my little kopeck;
Faith · Museums · Ethnography
Women’s monastic cap of the 1910s trimmed with silk threads at the Vladimir-Suzdal Museum
In the exhibition of the Bishop's Chambers at the Vladimir-Suzdal Museum-Reserve, one can see a women's monastic conical hat of the 1910s, made of dark blue velvet and cotton fabric. This article employs an interesting device that contemporary couturiers would do well to note:
Faith · Books · Ethnography
Maslenitsa's link to the cult of ancestors and the Moon in Neil Gaiman's “American Gods”
Maslenitsa is bound up with the cult of the dead and the cult of ancestors, as, indeed, are almost all East Slavic festivals. One can observe this, for instance, in the symbolism of the blin, the lunar disc, or in the custom of the first blin, which was left on
Architecture · Faith · Art · Observations
Luke Jerram's Museum of the Moon art project installed in Rochester Cathedral in England
These are not stills from a science-fiction film or a dystopia. Rochester Cathedral is simply inviting visitors to the Museum of the Moon beneath its vaults. The art project of the British artist Luke Jerram, who travels the world with a giant inflatable model of the moon, its surface
Faith · Art · Observations · Humour
My favourite pig in the history of world culture, apart from Babe the piglet, of course, is the charming porker of Anthony of Egypt in a late seventeenth-century sculpture in Segovia Cathedral
My favourite pig in the history of world culture, apart from Babe the piglet, of course, is the charming porker of Anthony of Egypt in a late seventeenth-century sculpture in Segovia Cathedral. Just look at this sweet pig with the little spot on its snout! ❤️🐽 Saint Anthony has been
NB! · Faith · Pop Culture · Humour
That Notorious Photograph of the American Bishop Bill Wack Showing Off His Bright Pink Socks
Faith · Pop Culture · Rome · Humour
Bishop in socks showing the Pope sparks debate at Mass in St Peter's Basilica
On Friday a bishop in mischievous socks bearing the image of a kissing, waving Pope was spotted at Mass in Saint Peter's Basilica. The Catholic community is seething like holy water in films about exorcism: the jaunty bishop, whose name remains a mystery to many, is called an
Faith · Museums · Science · Rome
The Mother of All Churches, the Lateran Basilica in Rome, where the Pope celebrates Mass and sits enthroned, keeps a veritable collection of Christian relics
The Mother of All Churches, the Lateran Basilica in Rome, where the Pope celebrates Mass and sits enthroned, keeps a veritable collection of Christian relics. In a small museum, tucked away between the chapels, lies this fragment of the tunic of Saint Francis of Assisi, which is tied to one
Faith · Art · Observations
Saint Iphigenia and the Theories of Her Origin, from Axum to Crimea and Colchis
In the photograph with Iphigenia, the Ethiopian king's daughter from the Martyrdom of St Matthew, there are two young saints: Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi, a Carmelite nun of the 16th and 17th centuries who recorded in her diary mystical apparitions of the Mother of God and of
Archaeology · Faith · Art · Humour
Anyone spending Valentine's Day alone will be under the patronage of the Lion-Headed Goddess, who is also standing alone at this party in the sanctuary of Thinissut, glass in hand, though wrapped in the hem of a sumptuous dress of feathers from some marve
Anyone spending Valentine's Day alone will be under the patronage of the Lion-Headed Goddess, who is also standing alone at this party in the sanctuary of Thinissut, glass in hand, though wrapped in the hem of a sumptuous dress of feathers from some marvellous bird, and is
Archive · Faith · Mores · Saint Petersburg · Humour
Metropolitan Isidore advised an acquaintance in 1888 to take his wife to a spring in Perm
A story comes to mind, told on the word of a participant in the events, which took place in the capital in early 1888. It concerns Isidore, Metropolitan of Novgorod, Saint Petersburg and Finland, who had conducted the funeral service for Alexander II and crowned Alexander III, and who was