November 9, 2021 834 0 Royals Who Became Saints after Taking Tonsure against Their Will In our age, it is hard to imagine how anyone could accept monastic tonsure against their will. At church, tonsure is a holy sacrament,…
October 5, 2021 2365 3 Fayum Mummy Portraits — The Antecedents of Christian Icons Icon painting has deep roots in the doctrine of the Orthodox Church, but its artistic tradition originates from ancient art. No cultural phenomenon begins…
September 28, 2021 112 0 The True Cross: History of Loss and Acquisition. Part 2 Part 1 What Happened to the Cross after the Crucifixion? A long staircase leads today’s pilgrims down to the Church of the Holy Queen…
June 1, 2021 778 0 High Priests Ananias and Caiaphas: Arbiters in the Trial of God We are free to change our decisions, and God humbly waits for us to make up our minds, as long as we are still…
June 1, 2021 1168 16 What Brings People to Choose Evil — Lessons from Nazi Germany World War 2 ended more than seventy years ago and seems to have been studied by historians in every detail. However, one key question…
May 6, 2021 228 0 Who Was Pontius Pilate? He is in the Bible and in secular literature. Mikhail Bulgakov depicts him in his famous novel “Master and Margarita” as a gentle and…
April 22, 2021 100 0 The Royal Isographers — Who Were These People, and What Did They Do? We asked this question to Dmitry Trofimov, director of the visual arts workshops “Tsargrad” The royal isographers were the icon copiers or icon painters…
April 21, 2021 462 0 Where Has the African Church Gone? The disappearance of the church in northwestern Africa (the Roman province called Africa Proconsularis) during the Arab conquests of the late 7th – early…
April 9, 2021 372 0 The Title Panel of the Holy Cross in Rome — a Relic or a Forgery? Historian Timothy Kitnis weighs the evidence on both sides The discovery of the Holy Life-bearing Cross took occurred in 326, when the Byzantine empress…
February 1, 2021 160 0 What is Paleh? Anatoly Vlezko, leader of the workshop “Palehsky Ikonostas”, answers. Paleh is an old Russian village, now an urban-type settlement in Ivanovo Region of Russia….