Dear Friends. Today we would like to share your hours with this icon. Kortorye kindly sent to us by one of our customers. This is interesting, because it is quite rare iconography (atelierdamascene.fr/spip.php?article332): Maria Skobtsova (1891–1945), known as Mother Maria (Russian: Мать Мария), Saint Mary (or Mother Maria) of Paris, born Elizaveta Yurievna Pilenko (Елизавета Юрьевна Пиленко), Skobtsova (Скобцова) by her second marriage, was a Russian noblewoman, poet, nun, and member of the French Resistance during World War II. She has been canonized a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Born to an aristocratic family in 1891 in Riga, Latvia, then part of the Russian Empire. She was given the name Elizaveta Pilenko.[1] Her father died when she was a teenager, and she embraced atheism. In 1906 her mother moved the family to St. Petersburg, where she became involved in radical intellectual circles. Her first book, Scythian Shards (Скифские черепки), was a collection of poetry from this period. Through a look at the humanity of Christ — He also died. He sweated blood. They struck his face — she began to be drawn back into Christianity. She moved—now with her daughter, Gaiana—to the south of Russia where her religious devotion increased. Furious at Leon Trotsky for closing the Socialist-Revolutionary Party Congress, she planned his assassination, but was dissuaded by colleagues, who sent her to Anapa.[2] In 1918, after the Bolshevik Revolution, she was elected deputy mayor of Anapa in Southern Russia. When the anti-communist White Army took control of Anapa, the mayor fled and she became mayor of the town. The White Army put her on trial for being a Bolshevik. However, the judge was a former teacher of hers, Daniel Skobtsov, and she was acquitted. Soon the two fell in love and were married. Soon, the political tide was turning again. In order to avoid danger, Elizaveta, Daniel, Gaiana, and Elizavetas mother Sophia fled the country. Elizaveta was pregnant with her second child. They traveled first to Georgia (where her son Yuri was born) and then to Yugoslavia (where her daughter Anastasia was born). Finally they arrived in Paris in 1923. Soon Elizaveta was dedicating herself to theological studies and social work. In 1926, Anastasia died of influenza. Gaiana was sent away to Belgium to boarding school. Soon, Daniel and Elizavetas marriage was falling apart. Yuri ended up living with Daniel, and Elizaveta moved into central Paris to work more directly with those who were most in need. Her bishop encouraged her to take vows as a nun, something she did only with the assurance that she would not have to live in a monastery, secluded from the world. In 1932, with Daniel Skobtovs permission, an ecclesiastical divorce was granted and she took monastic vows. In religion she took the name Maria. Her confessor was Father Sergei Bulgakov. Later, Fr. Dmitri Klepinin would be sent to be the chaplain of the house. Mother Maria made a rented house in Paris her convent. It was a place with an open door for refugees, the needy and the lonely. It also soon became a center for intellectual and theological discussion. In Mother Maria these two elements—service to the poor and theology—went hand-in-hand.
Posted on: Mon, 27 Oct 2014 06:45:30 +0000
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