Faith · Art · Observations · Nature · Ethnography
“The Walnut Tree of Benevento” is a picture of 1826 by Giuseppe Pietro Bagetti, created for a series of images of the mystical and miraculous phenomena of Italy, in which the artist documented not real events but folk legends, traditions and marvels that existed within Italian culture. The subject is
Faith · Art
The painting is by the Italian Baroque artist of the seventeenth century Felice Ficherelli. The canvas made such an impression on Vermeer that he copied it
Faith · Books · Observations · People
Give me the bitter years of illness, Breathlessness, sleeplessness, fever, Take away both my child and my friend, And the mysterious gift of song - Thus I pray at Your liturgy, After so many wearisome days, That the cloud over dark Russia May become a cloud in a glory of rays.
Faith · Art · Books · Paris
Today a monument to Alexander Pushkin was solemnly unveiled in the grounds of the Holy Trinity Church on the Left Bank of the Seine, in Paris's 7th arrondissement. Among those present was a direct descendant of the poet in the male line, Alexander Alexandrovich Pushkin, together with his
Archive · Faith · Observations · Society
I did not know such details: it turns out that in the early twentieth century Orthodox Christians in America were accused of being agents of the Russian state. In 1901, when Saint Tikhon of Moscow was a bishop in the United States, he called “meaningless words” the charge that anyone
NB! · Faith
Faith · Cinema · Mores · Rome
The execution scene involving a gorilla or chimpanzee belongs to a very late myth about Roman mores. There is no confirmation that such a practice as the abuse of human women by wine-intoxicated apes ever existed. Nor, for that matter, is there a Latin word for the chimpanzee. Some
Faith · Science · Society · People
Tesla has not been canonised, but as a great scientist he is regarded by the people as a saint of a cultural order. Hence his portraits, and even icons bearing his likeness, may be found in churches, though this is the private initiative of parishes, priests or parishioners. Incidentally, Tesla
NB! · Faith · Art
NB! · Architecture · Faith · Moscow · Observations
Speaking of Sklifosovsky. Many who drive past the handsome blue building with the colonnade on the Garden Ring do not even realise that it is no country estate or palace of Praskovya Zhemchugova, but a working Orthodox church
Faith · Art · Society
Live with that Illustration: “Civil War. Decossackisation”, Dmitry Shmarin, 2000
Faith · Art · Society · Pop Culture
…a few words on church art as an instrument of the Orthodox mission. Church art, in its most varied forms, has always been a vital component of our national culture. Of late, a new and highly ambiguous style of icon painting has gained currency, in which the images of the