Tag: Christianity

If, fathers and brothers, all our knowledge were to put together, it would be nothing compared to the knowledge of John Vasilievich.”

Archbishop Hilarion (Troitsky) on the New Martyr John Popov

Popov: this surname, one of the most common in Russia, does not necessarily connect the family of its bearer with the priesthood. There are two possible origins: from the nickname “pop” or from the colloquial word for a priest. But in our case this surname is very significant: both the grandfather and the father of the future martyr were priests.

John Vasilievich Popov     

Priest Vasily Mikhailovich Popov served at the Holy Resurrection Church in the town of Vyazma in te Smolensk province. It was in his family that on January 17, 1867, a boy was born, who was named Vanechka [an affectionate form of the name John/Ivan.—Trans.]. And on January 19 the infant John was baptized by his grandfather, Archpriest Mikhail Popov, in honor of St. John Chrysostom.

The Life of the martyr John tells us nothing about his childhood, so we can only speculate. Endowed by God with high intelligence and a chaste soul, John grew in the virtues and scholarly knowledge, which can be attributed not only to him, but also to his wonderful parents. His mother Vera Ivanovna and father, Fr. Vasily, must have contributed in every possible way to the development of piety and spiritual knowledge in their child. The fruits of their common labors were truly marvelous. This is how a contemporary and a fellow prisoner at the Solovki Special-Purpose Camp wrote about his personality: “In secular life John Vasilievich was a true monk, celibate and virgin, a humble toiler, an abstainer in food and drink, and a devout man of prayer. All those who knew him are witnesses to this. Having the gift of Divine grace, the word of knowledge (cf. 1 Cor. 12:8), he increased his talent tenfold through his labors, served the Church for its great benefit, and glorified it with his martyrdom.”

But that was still a long way off. At the age of twenty-one John graduated from the Smolensk Theological Seminary and immediately entered the Moscow Theological Academy. John Vasilievich studied at the Academy from 1888 to 1892. That period was interesting because of the change of rectors of the Moscow Theological Academy: Professor Archpriest Sergei Konstantinovich Smirnov resigned, and Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky)Anthony (Khrapovitsky), Metropolitan

“>Archimandrite Anthony (Khrapovitsky), who had previously headed (although only for a few months) St. Petersburg Theological Seminary, was appointed the new rector. The future Vladyka Anthony was twenty-seven at the time, and John Vasilievich was twenty-three. The new rector was very young and very active, brought some new and fresh elements, and was a shining example for his students. Later one of his former students recalled: “The fact that seemed legendary and incredible to us at that time—that the new rector, Archimandrite Anthony, came to the Academy entrusted to him with only a pilgrim’s staff and a suitcase filled with several books of spiritual content, having nothing else with him. This fact alone spoke loudly… that the new rector was bringing us an absolutely new direction and way of life.” And Archpriest (later Hieroschemamonk) Hieroschemamonk Sergei (Chetverikov)Sergei (Chetverikov), Hieroschemamonk”>Sergei Chetverikov called Vladyka Anthony “the heart of our academic world.”

The Moscow Theological Academy. The early twentieth century     

We can safely assume that all these circumstances had a favorable effect on the development of the personalities of the Academy students, including John Vasilievich Popov. By the way, Vladyka Anthony would later become the founder and the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.

But let’s return to John Vasilievich. After graduating from the Academy, he was not allowed to leave it, but was left as a teacher. This suggests that by the age of twenty-five he was an outstanding theologian and a valuable source of patristic knowledge. They did not want to lose him and saw him as a teacher at the leading Theological Academy of the Russian Empire. He was appointed to a teaching position a year later. After four years, in 1897, he received a master’s degree in theology. In the following year the thirty-one-year-old John Vasilievich became an extraordinary professor at the Department of Patristics. In those and subsequent years he wrote a lot, and his works were published. The young professor was very well versed in Western Christian teachings. He wrote of the Protestants: “They imitate prayer.” After visiting a Protestant gathering abroad, he wrote about its leader: “He just plays at being a pastor”, and about his flock: “And the others act insincerely, imitating his tastes.” Professor Popov’s contribution to Russian theology cannot be overestimated. Archpriest Mikhail Polsky wrote about John Vasilievich: “In Russia, patrology as a science was created by him [Fr. John Popov].”

John Vasilievich devoted many years of his life to his alma mater. He was an excellent teacher and a brilliant lecturer. Students listened to him with bated breath and with admiration. According to the memories of one of the students, they saw in him “deep concentration and inner strength”. According to the same student: “He tried to comprehend the meaning of the changes that were taking place and understand the reasons that had given rise to them in this particular form, trying to predict what would follow in the future.” And there was much to think seriously about; the October Revolution was sweeping across the country in a frenzy, crushing everything traditional and well-established on its way…

In 1917 John Vasilievich was elected member of the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church from the Moscow Theological Academy. His prerogative was matters of higher spiritual education. In the early post-revolutionary years, he observed the decline in people’s living standards and their spiritual impoverishment. “According to official reports, I am observing a terrible increase in hunger, disease and destruction. The expectation of even greater disasters is a heavy weight on my soul,” John Vasilievich wrote to a friend. His high intelligence analyzed what was going on, but his soul suffered. It is difficult to say which hurt his delicate soul more—the general situation in the country, or his personal domestic troubles. Probably both. In a letter to the same friend John Vasilievich described the plight of his loved ones, the shortage of food prepared for the winter, the inability to buy anything to eat, difficulties with heating the house, since firewood was sold by whole trunks of fallen trees so that the buyers would chop them themselves, and “we can’t do it at all due to our lack of skill for this, while peasants do not want to be hired for money—they demand also food.”

Patriarch Tikhon and members of the Local Council of 1917–1918     

The new reality was changing Professor Popov’s life, and in 1920 he took a second vegetable garden, complaining about the lack of a horse, without which they would not be given additional land; and it was hard to cultivate virgin soil, otherwise he would have taken “about an acre in the field to sow oats and fodder.” Dear readers, do you think that the professor of theology was now preoccupied with the routine, and his brilliant mind was wholly immersed in the beds of fodder? Not at all! He immediately wrote to a friend: “Of course, our life is full of disasters and does not bode well yet. But still, let’s trust in God. The soul finds peace when you commend yourself to His will.” And John Vasilievich perceived that trial in life as a lesson from which people had to come to a spiritual understanding of what was happening.

He was very saddened when the Moscow Theological Academy was closed. “I’m not worried about my personal fate: we will certainly all sort ourselves out somehow and earn our livings… It’s not my personal fate, but the death of an institution that I loved and served faithfully for twenty-six years that depresses me.” At the same time, he was seriously thinking about publishing a fundamental work that would include all his theological research over the years combined. However, there were no favorable conditions for that. John Vasilievich did not yet know that his idea was never destined to come to fruition.

In 1923, Professor Popov, with the participation of his student, Hieromonk Seraphim (Thievart). A Golgotha for TwoThese two holy martyrs saved the Russian Orthodox Church at that time—literally, not figuratively.

“>Monk Seraphim (Tyevar; a New Martyr; feast: December 6), was compiling a complete list of bishops who had remained faithful to the Orthodox Church and those who had gone into schism (with their surnames, places of service, etc.). The work was meaningful: a Council of all the Eastern Orthodox Churches was scheduled for 1925. John Vasilievich was blessed for this work by Patriarch Tikhon himself.

Then, in the same year, Professor Popov took part in another remarkable task: he helped transfer abroad Patriarch Tikhon’s decree appointing Metropolitan Platon (Rozhdestvensky) the administrator of the North American parishes. Both of the mentioned activities of John Popov qualified as the most blatant “counter-revolutionary activity”. On December 10, 1924, he was arrested. For John Vasilyevich the period of his confession began.

He was interrogated by Eugene Tuchkov himself, the head of the sixth secret department of the OGPU (the organization for investigating and combating counter-revolutionary activities)—a very high official in the new government. He was naturally very interested in those lists of bishops with their surnames.

John Vasilievich did not mention any names from the list, nor the names of those who had at least some connection with this list, nor the name of his student, Monk Seraphim. However, the tormentors already knew it perfectly well, with all the consequences for Monk Seraphim. Professor Popov complained about his allegedly poor memory in all clarifying questions: “I don’t remember exactly.” He was well aware that if he mentioned any names, arrests would be made based on his testimony. When asked about his attitude towards the Soviet government, he answered directly and clearly: “As a Christian I do not support anti-religious and immoral deviation in the modern order of things.”

The charge against John Vasilievich was formulated as follows: “He is charged with communicating with representatives of foreign States with the purpose of their intervening against the Soviet government, for which Popov gave them obviously false and wrong information about the persecution… of the Church and the bishops.”

The hierarchs who signed the “Memorandum of the Solovki Bishops.” 1925     

Three years of camps. SLON (Solovki Special-Purpose Camp). The once-blessed Solovetsky Monastery was turned by the atheists into one of the most cruel and merciless labor camps. Monk Seraphim (Tyevar) was sent there as well. It is unthinkable, but in the harshest inhumane conditions, hard labor and everyday problems, John Vasilievich managed to write. He was the author of the text of the appeal of the Orthodox bishops to the government of the USSR, known as the “Memorandum of the Solovki Bishops “, which was signed by all the hierarchs who were serving their terms at the Solovki Camp at that time. It was the unmasking of the hypocritical “democracy” of the Bolshevik government, a blow to the “Living Church”, and a call for respect for personal freedom of faith. No wonder that right there, at Solovki, John Vasilievich was sentenced to three more years and sent to Surgut. On the Ob River, near Surgut, he lived in the same house with the exiled Bishop Onuphrius (Gagalyuk; New Hieromartyr; feast: June 1). In exile John Vasilievich wrote a work on St. Gregory of Nyssa.

The term ended on December 11, 1930. But John Vasilievich was forbidden to leave. According to the authorities, he was extremely dangerous and managed to “conduct subversive activities” even in the camps. At the end of December, a new case was initiated against him. He was released, then new cases against him were opened, he was released again, and so forth. Finally, in 1934, John Vasilievich returned from exile and took up his residence in Lyubertsy near Moscow.

His position during this period cannot be called passive. He actively communicated with like-minded people about Church issues. Among them were Archbishop Nikolai (Dobronravov; a New Hieromartyr; feast: December 10) and Metropolitan Anatoly (Grisyuk; a New Hieromartyr; feast: January 23). They usually met at the apartment of Archbishop Bartholomew (Remov), and it was he who, when arrested, disclosed Professor Popov’s name during the interrogations. John Vasilievich was arrested on February 21, 1935.

Now the investigator was interested not only and not so much in the names (they were already known) as in the content of the conversations. John Vasilievich replied during the interrogation that they had discussed everyday matters. The professor answered harsh provocative questions with categorical denials.

The investigator:

“Once again, I insist on truthful answers. I have information that these gatherings were by their nature meetings at which the situation of the Church in the USSR was discussed.”

Popov:

“I deny it.”

Five years of exile in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. The place of exile was the village of Volokovskoye of the Pirovskoye district. John Vasilievich was sixty-eight at that time…

On November 28, 1935, he wrote a complaint to the NKVD (People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs): “During my arrest on February 22 of this year, in my apartment… twelve silver tablespoons, eight silver teaspoons, one silver dessert-spoon, a golden pectoral cross, two savings books with a balance of five rubles on each, one Torgsin shop card with a balance of twelve rubles twenty kopecks and two white metal tablespoons were taken from me.” The deplorable truth of the fates of those convicted of “dissent”: During the search John Vasilievich was simply robbed…

John Vasilievich Popov in the NKVD prison in 1935 The professor was in exile for two years. Over time, he lived in a separate room in a shepherd’s house, where he was able to work on his research.

Everything changed with the publication of NKVD Order No. 00447 in July 1937. The massive, merciless eradication of the faithful children of the Mother Church who were still alive at that time was unleashed.

John Vasilievich was arrested on October 9, 1937. The charges were based on the testimonies of a stool-pigeon and the very shepherd in whose house the professor had lived. The former cited voluminous counter-revolutionary “quotes” from the professor: “He would say: ‘I believe the all talk about class struggle is absurd; there is no class struggle—it’s all nonsense. I have always been and remain an idealist, and in my opinion, it is not some economic and class struggle that drives history, but the spiritual interests of different nations. Religion, of course, plays a leading role in the development of history.’” The latter limited himself to a few words: “I remember Popov saying that ‘the Soviet government levies taxes from collective farmers in various payments, which was not the case before.’ He used to say many such counter-revolutionary things, but I can’t recollect everything now, and I didn’t understand a lot of it as I am hard of hearing.” Most likely he didn’t understand everything, but John Vasilievich’s fate was sealed anyway.

He was interrogated extensively again. Now the investigation was interested in his connections abroad: the names, addresses, from whom he had received these addresses, and also his statements against the new Constitution and the VKPB (the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks) policies. It is noteworthy that John Vasilievich was well informed about the political situation in the country.

Icon of the New Martyr John Popov From the interrogation protocol:

“The investigation has established that regarding the latest trial of eight Fascist spies you expressed regret for them and spoke about the instability and non-monolithic nature of the VKPB.”

“Indeed, there was talk about shooting these eight, but I did not feel sorry for them; as for the instability and non-monolithic nature of the party, this is true, since three factions have been formed in it: the Trotskyists, the Zinovievites, and the Bukharinites; it is clear that with such disagreements the party cannot be monolithic.”

John Vasilievich behaved with the utmost dignity throughout the investigation, courageously enduring all the difficult circumstances of his situation.

From the last interrogation protocol:

“Do you plead guilty to the charges against you?”

“I plead not guilty to the charges.”

He was so inconvenient for the government, his personality was so significant, and his authority in Orthodox circles was so high that he had to be dealt with once and for all, without any possibility of continuing his activities or spreading his influence. On January 17/30, 1938, John Vasilievich turned seventy-one. Apart from a short break, he had spent the last thirteen years of his earthly life in prisons, camps and exile. Six days later, on February 5, 1938, the ascetic and elder, great intellectual, and brilliant theologian of his age, Professor John Popov was sentenced to death by firing squad. Professor John Vasilievich Popov was executed on February 8, 1938, on the eve of the feast of his Heavenly patron, St. John Chrysostom.

The fight against human trafficking requires a global response and coordinated efforts at every level, Pope Francis said.

He urged everyone, “especially representatives of governments and organizations that share this commitment, to join us, animated by prayer, to promote initiatives in defense of human dignity, for the elimination of human trafficking in all its forms and for the promotion of peace in the world.”

His appeal was part of a message released Feb. 7 for the International Day of Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking, observed Feb. 8, the feast of St. Josephine Bakhita. The saint was kidnapped by slave traders in Sudan in the late 1870s and sold into slavery before she eventually secured her freedom and became a religious sister in Italy.

Trafficking is a complex problem that is “fuelled by wars, conflicts, famine and the consequences of climate change,” the pope wrote. “It therefore requires global responses and a common effort, at all levels, to tackle it.”

“Together — trusting in the intercession of St. Bakhita — we can make a great effort and create the conditions for trafficking and exploitation to be banned and for respect for fundamental human rights to prevail, in fraternal recognition of common humanity,” he wrote.

Highlighting the Holy Year theme of hope, the pope acknowledged the difficulty of not losing hope when so many millions of people, especially women and children, young people, migrants and refugees, are trapped in this modern form of slavery.

“Where do we get new impetus to combat the trade in human organs and tissues, the sexual exploitation of children and girls, forced labor, including prostitution, drug and arms trafficking?” he asked.

“With the help of God, we can avoid becoming accustomed to injustice and ward off the temptation to think that certain phenomena cannot be eradicated,” he wrote.

“The Spirit of the Risen Lord sustains us in promoting, with courage and effectiveness, targeted initiatives to weaken and oppose the economic and criminal mechanisms that profit from trafficking and exploitation,” the pope wrote.

Jesus “teaches us first of all to listen, with closeness and compassion, to the people who have experienced trafficking, to help them get back on their feet and together with them to identify the best ways to free others and to do prevention,” he added.

Pope Francis praised the many young people around the world who are fighting against trafficking through a “youth ambassadors project” coordinated by Talitha Kum, an international network of religious working against human trafficking.

The pope also met with some youth ambassadors and members of Talitha Kum when he had an audience in his residence Feb. 7 with organizers of the world day of prayer. Like he did the day before, the pope was holding his meetings at the Domus Sanctae Marthae instead of the Apostolic Palace because of a bout of bronchitis, according to the Vatican.

He thanked the group for coming to Rome for their pilgrimage to the Holy Doors and a week of prayer, training and awareness-raising against human trafficking.

Human trafficking “continually finds new ways to infiltrate our societies,” he said, and “we must not remain indifferent.”

“We must not tolerate the shameful exploitation of so many of our sisters and brothers. Trafficking in human bodies, the sexual exploitation even of small children and forced labor are a disgrace and a very serious violation of fundamental human rights,” he said.

“Like yourselves, we need to unite our forces and our voices, calling upon everyone to accept responsibility for combating this form of crime that profits from the most vulnerable,” he said.

Pyanteg, Perm Krai, Russia, February 7, 2025

Photo: chitaitext.ru     

A wooden church in the Urals that dates back hundreds of years has been restored.

In fact, the Church of the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God is the oldest wooden structure in the Urals. According to an administrative document from 1707, the church was built in 1617, though local tradition says it actually dates to 1500, reports chitaitext.ru.

The hexagonal-shaped Church of the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God resembles ancient fortress towers that were built during the region’s development. The church is included in the State List of Cultural Heritage Sites of Federal Significance.

During the restoration work, the log walls were restored, doors and windows were repaired, hexagonal wooden elements were replaced, and the roofing was restored. The main construction work has now been completed.

This year, the grounds will be landscaped—the site will be leveled, grass will be planted, and walkways and fencing will be installed.

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Sunday Mass attendance in person at Catholic churches in the U.S. is back to pre-pandemic levels — although just under one quarter of the nation’s Catholics are in the pews on a regular weekly basis.

The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University noted in a Feb. 5 post on its Nineteen Sixty-four research blog that Sunday Mass attendance in person has risen to 24% since the declared end of the COVID-19 pandemic in May 2023. That rate has held through the first week of 2025.

From the start of the pandemic lockdowns in March 2020 to May 2023, attendance had averaged 15%. Prior to the pandemic, the average attendance was 24.4%.

Mark Gray, CARA’s director of polls and editor of the blog, told OSV News that attendance figures recently released by the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, had underscored a trend he and his colleagues had identified.

“It’s something I noticed, and then when the Diocese of Arlington posted their October headcount numbers … I thought, all right, I’ll go ahead and put this (data) out there,” said Gray, referencing an annual tally of Mass attendance undertaken by many U.S. dioceses.

Gray — who is also a research associate professor at Georgetown University — and his colleagues relied on data from their various national surveys, along with Google Trends queries that he said “allow you to see variations in how frequently people are searching for” certain terms that “would correlate with Mass attendance.”

“It’s not a direct measurement, but it’s a proxy,” Gray explained.

He also noted that the dip in data does not account for those who relied on livestreamed and televised liturgies during the pandemic lockdowns.

“We’ve looked at those numbers too,” he said. “We can alter the search terms and Google Trends to different queries. And we did that in the past, and we saw that about the same percentage of Catholics were participating in Mass during lockdowns, if you included watching on television or watching on the internet. And then we’ve got surveys on engaging in-person Mass attendance, and watching on television or the internet.”

Gray said the Mass attendance data “almost looks like a straighter distribution once you include the television and internet numbers” during the pandemic lockdowns.

He also noted that pandemic lockdowns were “a local situation” in which some areas “opened up … quickly” and “others stayed closed for much longer.”

But since “this last Christmas in 2024, things are back to normal,” he said.

Some Masses during the year generally reflect “spikes” in attendance, Gray said, with Christmas, Easter and then Ash Wednesday the most well-attended liturgies.

“We’re always interested in Ash Wednesday,” since “it’s probably one of the most unusual days,” said Gray.

“It’s not a holy day of obligation, but it’s the third highest attendance of Mass historically, according to the data,” he said. “And it also has probably the highest participation of young adult Catholics.”

And, Gray added, “If there’s any moment that the church has to reach out to young adult Catholics, Lent and specifically Ash Wednesday is the time. So it’s always a good barometer to see what activity looks like during that period, because it gives you a little view into the future of the next generation of Catholics.”

Antioch, February 7, 2025

Photo: orthodoxianewsagency.gr     

Several clergy and Orthodox faithful gathered yesterday for a Divine Liturgy and memorial service in the ruins of a church that was destroyed in the Massive earthquake destroys churches, kills 100s in Turkey, SyriaThe quake, among the strongest to hit the region in 100 years, brought numerous buildings tumbling down, trapping many unfortunate people inside.

“>devastating earthquakes that shook Turkey and Syria two years ago.

With the blessing of His Beatitude Patriarch John of Antioch, Archimandrite Paul (Ordologlu) concelebrated with several other priests in the rubble of the Sts. Peter and Paul Church in Antioch. At the end, a memorial service was held for the repose of the souls of those who lost their lives in the deadly earthquake, reports the Orthodoxia News Agency.

The services were celebrated under a canopy, with a makeshift iconostasis of icons on tripod stands set up in front of a huge pile of rubble.

Watch the service below:

​

The Antiochian Patriarchate has been working for two years to recover from the destruction wrought by the earthquakes, rebuilding churches and providing the people with the necessities of life.

Patriarch of Antioch consecrates church rebuilt after 2023’s devastating earthquakes (+VIDEO)The Cathedral of St. George in Latakia, Syria, was festively consecrated and inaugurated on Sunday, May 26.

“>In May last year, His Beatitude Patriarch John consecrated the Cathedral of St. George in Latakia, Syria, which had been rebuilt by then.

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said the State Department is currently determining which foreign aid programs will be granted exemptions from the Trump administration’s plans to freeze spending at USAID.

Rubio, at a press conference in Guatemala, said the State Department is now working “to identify which programs should be specifically designated and therefore exempted” from President Donald Trump’s funding freeze and stop-work orders.

The secretary of state also said the State Department has reached out to USAID officials to help determine these exemptions.

The Trump administration announced on Monday that all USAID employees would be put on leave and global personnel would be recalled in light of Trump’s executive order, which put a 90-day freeze on most foreign funding last month. The order, which Trump signed directly after his inauguration, gives Rubio the power to “waive the pause for specific programs.”

Rubio while on a five-day trip in Latin America clarified during the conference that funding “will not continue” for programs that do not further U.S. interests.

According to an Associated Press report, after Trump issued the order, Rubio exempted emergency food programs and military aid to Israel and Egypt. On Tuesday AP reported that he agreed to continue spending funds on “humanitarian programs that provide life-saving medicine, medical services, food, shelter, and subsistence assistance.”

The White House Press Secretary tells EWTN’s @owentjensen that Secretary of State Rubio is going “line by line” over foreign aid help. pic.twitter.com/ehpwUuWvb0

— EWTN News Nightly (@EWTNNewsNightly) February 6, 2025

CBS News reported that in a private meeting on Wednesday, Rubio told U.S. diplomats in Guatemala that the United States plans to continue distributing foreign aid but the government needs to be able to defend what initiatives it is funding abroad.

“The United States is not walking away from foreign aid. It’s not. We’re going to continue to provide foreign aid and to be involved in programs, but it has to be programs that we can defend,” Rubio also said to a gathering of staffers at the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City, according to a partial transcript obtained by CBS News on Wednesday.

“It has to be programs that we can explain. It has to be programs that we can justify. Otherwise, we do endanger foreign aid,” he added.

During a press conference last week, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt listed some of the initiatives funded by USAID, which she called “insane priorities.” The list included $1.5 million to advance DEI in Serbia’s workforce, $70,000 for a “DEI musical” in Ireland, $47,000 for a “transgender opera” in Colombia, and $32,000 for a “transgender comic book” in Peru.

A White House fact sheet also lists $2 million to fund “sex changes” and “LGBT activism” in Guatemala, as well as an undesignated amount of funding for the production of 3D-printed contraceptives.

“I don’t know about you but as an American taxpayer, I don’t want my dollars going towards this crap, and I know the American people don’t either,” Leavitt added.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), along with Catholic Relief Services, the USCCB’s charitable arm, have spoken out against the foreign funding freeze, releasing an action alert urging Catholics to contact their elected officials.

“Your help is urgently needed! Let your members of Congress know that you are deeply concerned about the administration’s recent decision to stop work on almost all U.S. foreign assistance programs,” the alert read, continuing: “This freeze will be detrimental to millions of our sisters and brothers who need access to lifesaving humanitarian, health, and development assistance.”

St. Petersburg, February 7, 2025

At the relics of St. Xenia. Photo: mitropolia.spb.ru     

St. Petersburg festively celebrated the memory of one of its most beloved saints, Blessed Xenia, on Thursday, February 6.

On the eve of the feast, His Eminence Metropolitan Barsanuphius of St. Petersburg was joined by His Grace Bishop Veniamin of Kronstadt for the celebration of the All-Night Vigil at the St. Petersburg church named for the beloved saint.

Met. Barsanuphius offered a homily reflecting on spiritual struggle through the example of St. Xenia of St. Petersburg, who spent 45 years laboring as a fool-for-Christ in the imperial capital. Using her example, he taught that spiritual labors must be undertaken according to one’s strength and carried through to completion, suggesting simple but consistent practices like reading one chapter of the Gospels daily. He emphasized that God’s grace sustains those who persevere in their spiritual struggles, whether in St. Xenia’s time or in modern battles against passions and sins.

Photo: mitropolia.spb.ru     

The next day, Met. Barsanuphius and Bp. Veniamin were joined by another six hierarchs and a host of clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church for the celebration of the Divine Liturgy at the Church of the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God, which St. Xenia herself secretly helped build under cover of night. This year marks the 235th anniversary of its consecration.

The church is located in the city’s Smolensk Cemetery, where St. Xenia’s relics are housed in a nearby chapel.

“Miracles happen,” Met. Barsanuphius preached. “Once, in the 18th century, Blessed Xenia was probably considered the lowest woman in this city, a beggar who wandered the streets, witnessing to her faith and love for God.”

“But we remember the Lord’s words that the last shall be first (Mt.. 20:16). And now, she has become the first woman in St. Petersburg, and indeed in Russia—everyone knows her, prays to her, turns to her with requests.”

Photo: mitropolia.spb.ru     

“That’s how it is with the Lord,” the Metropolitan said.

And speaking of her great feat, he said:

St. Xenia of Petersburg preached Christian life at a time when Russia, having opened the door to the West, let in all the forces of atheism: blasphemy, godlessness—everything poured in here. And who stood against it? A simple woman. Through her life, foolishness and love for Christ, she showed that the main thing in life is to love God. He is our Lord, so we must love Him above all.

Following the service, the hierarchs, clergy, and faithful made a short procession to the St. Xenia Chapel, where a moleben was served.

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Is. 6:1-8 / Ps. 138:1-5, 7-8 11 / 1 Cor. 15:1-11 / Lk. 5:1-11

Simon Peter, the fisherman, is the first to be called personally by Jesus in Luke’s Gospel. His calling resembles Isaiah’s commissioning in the First Reading: Confronted with the holiness of the Lord, both Peter and Isaiah are overwhelmed by a sense of their sinfulness and inadequacy.

Yet each experiences the Lord’s forgiveness and is sent to preach the good news of his mercy to the world. No one is “fit to be called an apostle,” Paul recognizes in today’s Epistle. But by “the grace of God,” even a persecutor of the Church — as Paul once was — can be lifted up for the Lord’s service.

In the Old Testament, humanity was unfit for the divine — no man could stand in God’s presence and live (see Exodus 33:20). But in Jesus, we’re made able to speak with him face-to-face, taste his Word on our tongue.

Today’s scene from Isaiah is recalled in every Mass. Before reading the Gospel, the priest silently asks God to cleanse his lips that he might worthily proclaim his Word. God’s Word comes to us as it came to Peter, Paul, Isaiah, and today’s psalmist — as a personal call to leave everything and follow him, to surrender our weaknesses in order to be filled with his strength.

Simon put out into deep waters even though, as a professional fisherman, he knew it would be foolhardy to expect to catch anything. In humbling himself before the Lord’s command, he was exalted — his nets filled to overflowing; later, as Paul tells us, he will become the first to see the risen Lord.

Jesus has made us worthy to receive him in the company of angels in God’s holy Temple. On our knees like Peter, with the humility of David in today’s Psalm, we thank him with all our hearts and join in the unending hymn that Isaiah heard around God’s altar: “Holy, holy, holy. …”

Washington, D.C. February 7, 2025

Photo: Save the UOC     

Robert Amsterdam, the international lawyer who is pro bono defending the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church against persecution, presented at the International Religious Freedom Summit in Washington, D.C., on February 4.

Amsterdam & Partners LLP has been representing the Church Ukrainian Orthodox Church receiving pro bono defense from international law firmThe canonical Ukrainian Orthodox has enlisted the help of a major international law firm to protect its rights.

“>since the fall of 2023. Robert Amsterdam and the firm have spoken with Western media outlets and international human rights organizations many times in order to raise awareness of the Ukrainian government’s plans to ban its largest religion.

They also launched Save the UOC to sound the alarm.

And this Soviet-style act of repression is funded, Amsterdam emphasized on Tuesday, by the American government.

In attacking its own people in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the Ukrainian state imagines it is weakening Russia, Amsterdam explains, but it is, in fact, only dividing its own populace. In addition to the state’s plans to ban the entire Church, it is also targeting individual Church representatives, such as Ukraine court refuses to release UOC bishop despite Parliament members’ guarantees, won’t review evidenceThe Metropolitan was initially detained in late April, just before Holy Week.

“>His Eminence Metropolitan Arseny of Svyatogorsk, who has been languishing in detention for nearly a year on bogus charges, the lawyer emphasizes.

Watch Amsterdam’s full address:

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Ironically, Evstraty Zorya, speaker for the schismatic “Orthodox Church Ukraine” and apologist for the persecution of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, also presented at the Religious Freedom Summit, assuring his Western audience that millions of Ukrainians must be deprived of their religious freedom in order to thereby protect religious freedom.

Zorya used the psychological tactic of a classic manipulator, saying that the MP was created and is controlled by the Kremlin, comparing it with the Nazi “Reichskirche.” A pot calling the kettle black, Zorya was obviously trying to shift attention away from the arguably Nazi memberships, origins, and methods of the OCU, which is undeniably a creation of the current Kiev regime, onto the canonical Orthodox Church.

The Slavic peoples of Rus’ recieved Orthodoxy at the hands of the Byzantine Greeks. What is traditionally known as the Baptism of Rus’ dates to the mass baptism under St. Vladimir in Kiev, in the Dneipr River.

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Rosamond Purcell (b. 1942) is a Boston-based photographer and writer whose domains are the palimpsest melding of past, present, and future; the natural and the man-made; the wonder and mystery of decay.

Raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts — her father was a professor of Byzantine history and Victorian literature — she’s spent much of her life in the dim back rooms of natural history museums.

In “Swift as a Shadow: Extinct and Endangered Animals” (Mariner Books, $16.68), she writes: 

“As a sojourner, I relish the random search: wandering through miles of corridors, opening hundreds of heavy doors, and choking through fumes, dust, and dark to find the holy grail.”

On a field trip to Maine with her students in the mid-’80s, she happened upon one of her greatest discoveries: William Buckminster, who at the time owned 11 acres of what most people would call unsightly, almost terrifyingly chaotic, junk.

Purcell, however, was entranced: The barn, its walls cracking and insides spilling out like a poorly taxidermied elephant. The old family house once owned by a sea captain, likewise engorged with clutter. The mountains of salt-sprayed zinc, aluminum, and brass. “The singular ruined objects,” as she described them in a 2020 interview, “each transformed by decades of snow and summer heat into one-of-a-kind treasures.”

“Owls Head: On the Nature of Lost Things” (Quantuck Lane, $7.70) is the loose story of the unlikely, and semi-comic, friendship that springs up between these two very different kinds of collectors.

Buckminster is descended from generations of land-proud, fiercely stubborn Mainers. His nemesis consists of the ladies of the Owls Head garden club who are always nagging him to clean up his mess. People in plaid Bermuda shorts who walk their poodles. People who would put artificial flowers on their relatives’ graves.

Buckminster himself has a giant patch of rhubarb growing behind the barn, laments the meagerness of that year’s crop of pampas grass, and is incensed that, without his permission, neighbors cut down two of his 30-foot hemlocks because they felt the tops would make “attractive Christmas trees.”

Years ago he started an antique store — still, roughly, standing — with his beloved wife Helen, who kept the books and cheerfully interacted with customers. When she died suddenly, only in her 50s, a gear seemed to have slipped.

An avid — one might say obsessive — picker, Purcell climbs the tottering mountains of broken-down appliances, sodden clothing, mouse-eaten books, handless clock faces, begrimed dolls, and small animal carcasses, making an occasional find and tossing it to an ever-growing pile on the ground that she’ll pay up for later.

Unfailingly courteous and courtly, Buckminster records his sales by hand — his broken-down fingernails like shale — in an old-school carbon copy notebook, including the date, amount, and an esoteric inventory number.

He’s no hermit. He goes into town for groceries each day and out several nights a week to pool tournaments which, well into his 70s, he almost always wins.

Nor is he an aesthete. Unlike Purcell, he’s not interested in artfully arranging his objects and acknowledges that most of the stuff she buys he would bring to the dump.

Still, over time, he begins to intuit her taste. Near a door where he knows she’ll find it, for example, he once leaves a cache of miniature lead figures, most beheaded, under a covering of recycled-tire rubber strips (Purcell ends up buying the lead figures and the rubber, too).

After several years, she’s invited into Buckminster’s actual house, to find a space so dark she can barely see, narrow lanes just wide enough to walk carved through the detritus. Vines grow both outside and inside the windows.

He tries to sort things out from time to time, Buckminster explains, but where would he start? 

There’s no place to put anything.

Never does Purcell use the word “hoarder”; never does she pathologize. She learns that when Buckminster was a child his father, an alcoholic, died after accidentally setting the family barn afire while drunk. I armchair-psychologize that his over-the-top collecting is perhaps a subconscious hedge against ever sustaining such a total loss again.

But Purcell simply accepts, marvels at, and develops a profound affection for this one-of-a-kind character. Buckminster has developed his own unique way — as she has, she seems to infer — of inhabiting the world; of keeping the existential fear of death, the ultimate loss, at bay; of developing a complex, borderline absurd system within which to search for the holy grail, and from which he will not be moved.

Over the years she carts carload after carload of objects back to her Harvard-area studio. She begins incorporating them into her pre-existing collections and arranging them by a self-designed taxonomy: Things With Holes; Odes to Downed WWI Pilots.

Twenty years after their first meeting, Buckminster, in his squeaky Navy dress shoes, flies from Rockland, Maine, to Boston. So out of his element that a fellow passenger, concerned on his behalf, delivers him to Purcell at the gate like a child, he follows her obediently around Cambridge: to Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology — the glass flowers and plaster-cracking giraffes and apes — to the home Purcell shares with her husband, Dennis.

At last they enter her studio. They’re on her turf now, and she’s not sure how he’ll react. “Amazing,” Buckminster breathes. “Absolutely amazing. … The garden club ought to see this.”

It’s the highest possible praise, an unspoken recognition that these two lovers of lost things have, in each other, met a mysterious kind of match. He had acknowledged “the profound relationship between his place and mine.”