Popis: |
The majority of the nearly 2,000 newly canonized saints (NCS) represent clerics and monastics, and were identified as martyrs for the Christian faith as they had suffered through Communist atheist purges. The rejection of Hegumen Paisii's candidacy suggests that if a person of Russian ethnic background was accused, even without substance, of wartime collaboration with the enemy, this condition alone may have cast a shadow on his reputation. The case of St Mother Maria of Paris is to some extent analogous with that of Fr Paisii. The author elaborates on the paradoxes of the phenomenon of glorifying new saints within the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) since 1988. Mother Maria indeed followed the Gospel; she intentionally risked her life and wished to sacrifice it for the needy and in so doing, to be reborn in Christ. Keywords: Christian faith; Communist atheist; Gospel; Hegumen Paisii; newly canonized saints (NCS); Russian Orthodox Church (ROC); St Mother Maria of Paris |