St Elisabeth Convent. Orthodox Life And Chants

15 hours ago | [YT] | 232

St Elisabeth Convent. Orthodox Life And Chants

The Holy Royal Passion-Bearers Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra, and their children — Tsarevich Alexei and the Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia

1 day ago (edited) | [YT] | 414

St Elisabeth Convent. Orthodox Life And Chants

SHE FOLLOWED AFTER CHRIST
Holy Martyr, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna
by Archimandrite John (Krestiankin)
“O Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they do!” was the final prayer of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna before the black abyss of an abandoned mine swallowed her.
She went consciously to this yawning abyss, categorically refusing to leave Russia when the lawlessness began. She followed after Christ, and from that abyss the light of the Resurrection sprang forth to the eyes of her soul. What brought this aristocrat from a foreign country to the distant Ural city of Alapayevsk, her Golgotha? What gave her over to the hands of that mysterious diabolic evil in demonically possessed people? Their paths could never have crossed any earlier. She saw these people for the first and last time in her life. She met with them only in order that they might carry out that sentence pronounced by a court of unknown venue. But this is according to human judgment. And what about God’s judgment? In God’s judgment it was human judgment—“for God” or “against God”.
And Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, a former Protestant who had accepted Orthodoxy in her new homeland, in Russia, and who came to love the Orthodox Church in Russia, “even unto death”, answered to evil. No matter what sentence that newly unleashed, mad evil might have pronounced on her, she accepted it as a sentence from above, as an opportunity sent down to her to confirm in deed what constituted the meaning and content of her life.
Love for God and love for mankind was the true meaning of her life, and it led the Grand Duchess to the cross. And her cross grew and met the Cross of Christ, and became her delight.
The Grand Duchess lost her husband, who perished at the hands of an evil-intentioned terrorist. She gathered with her own hands what was left of her beloved, and bearing in her heart the pain of this terrible loss, she went to the criminal in prison with the Gospel in order to forgive him and bring him to Christ in repentance.
All the rest of her life in Russia became a work of mercy and service to God and people. The grand duchess gathered a sisterhood and built the Martha and Mary Convent, serving all the deprived and sorrowful after the example of the two Gospel sisters. She put everything she owned to the last penny into this work, and gave herself entirely to it up to the last. Her love for people returned to her through people’s mutual love for her.
Nun Barbara, who was with the grand duchess-abbess in the days of her labors, did not wish to leave her in her final podvig—death. And she seized a martyr’s crown through her self-sacrificing devotion.
During the terrible, seditious days of 1917, when the ancient order of former Russia was crashing down, when they were making ready to kill Russian sovereignty in the person of the Sovereign, when everything sacred was being trampled underfoot, and the sacred treasure of the Kremlin was under fire, Grand Duchess Elizabeth wrote that in precisely this tragic moment she felt so strongly: “The Orthodox Church is the true Church of the Lord. I felt such profound pity for Russia and her children,” she writes, “who at the present time do not know what they are doing. Is this not a sick child?... I would wish to bear his suffering, teach him patience, help him… Holy Russia cannot perish. But Great Russia, alas, is no more.” “Completely destroyed is ‘Great Russia, fearless and irreproachable’.”
From the ruins and ashes of Russia, from the pain of a whole nation, from its countless deaths sounds the voice of holy sacrifice, affirming life: “Holy Russia and the Orthodox Church, against which ‘the gates of hell shall not prevail,’ exists, and exists more fully than they ever have.” These are the words written by her on the threshold of her grave.
“I am sure,” continues the Grand Duchess, that the Lord Who punishes is the same Lord Who loves.” This was the measure of her spiritual maturity, the measure of her refinement. She herself had already voluntarily become a sacrifice, and the Lord accepted her sacrifice for Russia, which she so loved. And those executioners who came from who knows where onto her life’s path would not have had the slightest power over her had it not been given them from on high. All those who were with Grand Duchess Elizabeth were thrown alive into the mineshaft except for one who resisted. They did not die right away. For a long time the local people heard the Cherubic Hymn rising from beneath the earth. And the grand duchess there also, in their common grave, continued to do God’s work—the wounded head of one who was with her was bound by her apostolnik, her monastic veil.
When three months after the martyrs’ death the place of their repose was found, it was seen that the grand duchess lay on a log shelf fifteen meters down, with an icon of the Savior on her breast, with which she had been blessed on the day she was united to the Orthodox Church. The righteous live forever!
And the Russian New Martyrs are those awaited sacrifices of the Universal Church, who fill the ranks of those killed for God’s Word. And who knows how long the “lesser” apocalyptic time will go on, in which the earthly Church is ripening for the Divine Judgment, which shall bring vengeance upon those living on earth for the blood of the righteous?

2 days ago | [YT] | 321

St Elisabeth Convent. Orthodox Life And Chants

EPISODES FROM THE LIVES OF THE ROYAL MARTYRS
A LESSON IN HUMILITY
The royal couple was taking a walk in a park when a box fell off a carriage carrying mail. Immediately, the Tsar ran to the box, lifted it and handed it to the postal officer. He thanked him from the heart. Then he asked the Tsar why he had taken the trouble to help. To this, the Tsar replied, “The higher in the hierarchy one is, the more effort one should make to help others and the less he should remind them of his high position. I set the example, and I want my children to do the same!”
The water jug
Despite the high position, all members of the Royal Family treated others with dignity and respect. Here is another example.
Every evening, Empress Alexandra visited Dr Botkin to have her heart checked.
Before each visit, the doctor always asked his children to help him with hand-washing. They filled a water jug and poured water from it onto his hands. The Great Princess jokingly called it the milk jug.
One evening, when his children had already left, the Great Princess Anastacia came to him for an appointment. He asked her to go out into the corridor and call his servant.
“Why?” she asked.
“To help me wash my hands,” replied the doctor.
“I can help you,” she offered. The doctor was hesitant, but she insisted,
— If your children can do it, why can’t I?”
So she took the jug and poured the water from him abundantly onto his hands as his children did.

SALVAGING AN UMBRELLA
On a walk along the Dnieper, the successor to the throne was in a playful mood. He took a maid’s umbrella and threw it into the river. The maid tried to fish it out with a stick, assisted by the Great Princess Olga. But the umbrella was unfolded, and the wind and the currents were quickly carrying it away.
The Emperor happened to pass by. “What is happening?” — he asked. “Alexei threw the maid’s umbrella into the river, and we are trying to get it back, it was her best!” — the Great Princess replied while trying to catch the umbrella’s handle with a crooked branch. The smile disappeared from the Emperor’s face. He looked sternly at his son. “You cannot treat a lady like that. I am ashamed of you, Alexei.” “I apologise on his behalf. But let me try to salvage your umbrella,” he said to the maid. He went into the water, caught the umbrella and gave it back to its owner. “I did not have to swim to get it,” he added with a smile. “Now I will sit down and dry in the sun. The little heir to the throne was ashamed of himself. He went to the maid and apologised like an adult.
Perhaps the Tsar talked to him about the incident later on. After that episode, he would often copy his father’s old-fashioned manners of a gentleman, especially around women.

A CONVERSATION WITH A SOLDIER
When the war began in 1914, the Grand Duchesses volunteered with their mother as nurses in a military hospital.
A new group of wounded soldiers arrived. The grand duchesses met them at the station.
They followed all the doctors’ instructions and even washed the soldiers’ feet to clean the wounds. Finally, they brought the wounded to the hospital and put them in the wards. Tired, Princess Olga sat down to rest on the bed of one of the wounded soldiers. Immediately, he began a conversation. He did not know who the nurse was, and Olga did not tell him.
“Tired?” — asked the soldier.
“Yes, a little. But it is good to be tired.”
“What’s so good about it?”
“It means that I have done some good work.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that you should not be here, but go to the front instead?”
“Yes, I wish I were at the front.”
“Why are you waiting? Just pick up and go.”
The princess laughed.
“No, I can’t ignore him. We love each other very much.”

A SOLDIER FOR LIFE
In a meeting at the War Ministry that considered the adoption of new equipment for the foot soldiers, Tsar Nicholas asked to try it on himself on a forty-kilometre march. He did the test without disclosing his identity to anyone but the minister of the royal court and the palace commandant. In the morning, he asked for a set of the equipment prepared for a regiment stationed in Livadia. He fixed it on himself and left his palace with a rifle on his soldier and a soldier’s reserve of bread and water. He returned to the palas at sunset after covering the distance of forty kilometres in eight hours or so. He did not feel any soreness in his shoulders or back, so gave the equipment his approval.
The regiment commander whose uniform the emperor was wearing, asked if he could enlist him in his first company and call him out as a private at the roll-call. The Tsar agreed and asked to fill out the service record with his hand.
He gave his name, Nicholas Romanov. In the question box about the length of service, he wrote, “to the grave.”

Source: catalog.obitel-minsk.com/blog/2022/07/episodes-fro…

2 days ago | [YT] | 380

St Elisabeth Convent. Orthodox Life And Chants

HONORING THE ROYAL MARTYRS & ST. ELISABETH 🌿 Prayer Requests
Our monastery prepares to celebrate two patronal feasts—July 17 (the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers) and July 18 (St. Elisabeth the New Martyress). These saints gave their lives for Christ with humility and love, and they now intercede for all who call upon them.

📝 Send us your prayer requests.
As we celebrate these holy days, we would be honored to remember you and your loved ones at the Divine Liturgy. You may submit names for the living, for the departed, or for any personal intention known only to God.
➤ Submit your prayer requests here 👉 obitel-minsk.org/prayer-request-youtube

(Donations are appreciated but never required.)

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4 days ago | [YT] | 544

St Elisabeth Convent. Orthodox Life And Chants

GOD’S POWER IS MANIFEST IN WEAKNESS: LEARNING FROM ST. PETER AND ST. PAUL
by Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Today we commemorate the Apostles Peter and Paul. Peter was an apostle among Jews; Paul preached the Gospel to the Gentiles. They served two fundamental causes of missionary work of their time – converting the people of Israel and bringing to Christ all the people of the world.
When we think about saints, we imagine their greatness; they appear to us as giants and heroes of the spirit. Their spectacular feats inspire us. Yet, in our perception, the distance to them is so immense that it seems we could never be like them. So we might benefit from a reminder that all the saints – even the apostles – were human. As humans, they had weaknesses, made mistakes, and sometimes acted far below the standard they reached by the end of their earthly lives.
Think of the Apostle Paul. He was a most outstanding preacher who dedicated his whole life to the end to bringing the word of God to the people. But where did he begin? He was travelling from Jerusalem to Damascus to unleash the persecution of Christians like in Jerusalem. On his way, he came face to face with the risen Christ, worshipped Him and became a faithful Christian. He always carried in his memory the twin pillars of his faith: the Cross and the Resurrection. The Saviour died on the Cross, and His resurrection made Paul one of His witnesses.
Now consider the Apostle Peter. At the Last Supper, Christ announced to everyone around the table that they would fall away on his account out of fear. Peter Peter replied, “Even if all fall away from you, I never will.” Jesus answered, “this very night before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.” Even before it happened – and it did happen – Jesus retreated to the Garden of Gethsemane in the expectation of His capture and death and asked three of His closest disciples – Peter, John and James to stay with him for these last several hours of his inner struggle. But Peter, like the rest of the two, fell asleep, overcome by sorrow, cold, fatigue and the late hour. Christ came to them three times, hoping that His friends would be awake to spend this last night with him, but found them asleep.
What happened next? Christ was arrested and led to a hideous and unfair trial. Peter followed him at a distance, right up to the courtyard of the high priest, where His teacher and Lord was on trial. But they asked him, “Were you not also were with Him in the garden?” They noticed that he also spoke with a Galilean accent, and Christ and His Disciples were also Galilean. Then Peter swore three times, “I do not know the man you are talking about. He is nobody to me.”
So it began with this. Peter and Paul displayed a human weakness like all of us do from time to time. But at some point, Paul met the resurrected Christ. Peter stood face to face again with His teacher, Who asked him one question. He did not ask him why he had disowned Him. He posed a far more profound and intimidating question: “Peter, do you love Me…?” Christ asked him this question three times, and each time Peter answered sincerely and from his heart, “Yes, O Lord! I love You. You know it.” With this, he meant to say, “You know I disavowed you. You know about weakness and my fear. But You also know that I love You.” From that moment onwards, he never wavered. He remained loyal to the end, up until his death as a martyr.
Now here is what we can all learn from Peter and Paul, the disciples of Christ and His apostles: God’s power is manifest in weakness. Christ says these words to Paul, but he addresses them to all of us. Dedicate yourself fully to God, His truth and His love, and God’s indestructible power will give us strength when we are at our lowest point.
Amen.

5 days ago | [YT] | 429

St Elisabeth Convent. Orthodox Life And Chants

5 days ago | [YT] | 348

St Elisabeth Convent. Orthodox Life And Chants

GOD’S POWER IS MANIFEST IN WEAKNESS: LEARNING FROM ST. PETER AND ST. PAUL
by Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Today we commemorate the Apostles Peter and Paul. Peter was an apostle among Jews; Paul preached the Gospel to the Gentiles. They served two fundamental causes of missionary work of their time – converting the people of Israel and bringing to Christ all the people of the world.
When we think about saints, we imagine their greatness; they appear to us as giants and heroes of the spirit. Their spectacular feats inspire us. Yet, in our perception, the distance to them is so immense that it seems we could never be like them. So we might benefit from a reminder that all the saints – even the apostles – were human. As humans, they had weaknesses, made mistakes, and sometimes acted far below the standard they reached by the end of their earthly lives.
Think of the Apostle Paul. He was a most outstanding preacher who dedicated his whole life to the end to bringing the word of God to the people. But where did he begin? He was travelling from Jerusalem to Damascus to unleash the persecution of Christians like in Jerusalem. On his way, he came face to face with the risen Christ, worshipped Him and became a faithful Christian. He always carried in his memory the twin pillars of his faith: the Cross and the Resurrection. The Saviour died on the Cross, and His resurrection made Paul one of His witnesses.
Now consider the Apostle Peter. At the Last Supper, Christ announced to everyone around the table that they would fall away on his account out of fear. Peter Peter replied, “Even if all fall away from you, I never will.” Jesus answered, “this very night before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.” Even before it happened – and it did happen – Jesus retreated to the Garden of Gethsemane in the expectation of His capture and death and asked three of His closest disciples – Peter, John and James to stay with him for these last several hours of his inner struggle. But Peter, like the rest of the two, fell asleep, overcome by sorrow, cold, fatigue and the late hour. Christ came to them three times, hoping that His friends would be awake to spend this last night with him, but found them asleep.
What happened next? Christ was arrested and led to a hideous and unfair trial. Peter followed him at a distance, right up to the courtyard of the high priest, where His teacher and Lord was on trial. But they asked him, “Were you not also were with Him in the garden?” They noticed that he also spoke with a Galilean accent, and Christ and His Disciples were also Galilean. Then Peter swore three times, “I do not know the man you are talking about. He is nobody to me.”
So it began with this. Peter and Paul displayed a human weakness like all of us do from time to time. But at some point, Paul met the resurrected Christ. Peter stood face to face again with His teacher, Who asked him one question. He did not ask him why he had disowned Him. He posed a far more profound and intimidating question: “Peter, do you love Me…?” Christ asked him this question three times, and each time Peter answered sincerely and from his heart, “Yes, O Lord! I love You. You know it.” With this, he meant to say, “You know I disavowed you. You know about weakness and my fear. But You also know that I love You.” From that moment onwards, he never wavered. He remained loyal to the end, up until his death as a martyr.
Now here is what we can all learn from Peter and Paul, the disciples of Christ and His apostles: God’s power is manifest in weakness. Christ says these words to Paul, but he addresses them to all of us. Dedicate yourself fully to God, His truth and His love, and God’s indestructible power will give us strength when we are at our lowest point.
Amen.

1 week ago | [YT] | 379

St Elisabeth Convent. Orthodox Life And Chants

WE'RE BACK! 🕊️ Feast of Saints Peter and Paul | Send Us Your Prayer Requests
We took a short break — but we are back, and we are so happy to be with you again. Thank you for your patience and for keeping us in your prayers.
From now on, we will continue to share our videos, hymns, and reflections with you, just as before. We are grateful for each one of you who watches, comments, and prays with us.

In just three days, on July 12, the Orthodox Church will celebrate the Feast of the Holy, Glorious and All-Praised Leaders of the Apostles — Saints Peter and Paul.
These two pillars of the Church — Peter the chief apostle and Paul the preacher to the Gentiles — ended their earthly lives as martyrs in Rome under Emperor Nero. Their joint feast reminds us that the Church is built on the confession of faith (Peter) and the preaching of the Gospel (Paul) — two gifts that continue to guide us.

📝 We invite you to share your prayer requests with us.
If you would like us to remember you or your loved ones — the living or the departed — at the Divine Liturgy on this great feast day, you are welcome to send us their names.
➤ Submit your prayer requests here 👉 obitel-minsk.org/prayer-request-youtube

(Donations are appreciated but never required.)

1 week ago | [YT] | 369

St Elisabeth Convent. Orthodox Life And Chants

WHY PETER AND FEVRONIA?
by Elena Fetisova
Why was it Peter and Fevronia that became revered as the patrons of marriage? This “loaded question” is asked not only by atheists, but even the faithful sometimes marvel: “They were even childless!” And unbelievers sometimes mock them, each in his own way. One famous politician and journalist recently quipped, calling Fevronia a blackmailer, and Peter spineless. Of course, he had a malevolent conclusion: They are strange role models for modern families.
Okay, so this reduction ad absurdum is a good, clear method of argumentation. And the author, accusing St. Fevronia of blackmail, involuntarily highlighted for me the reasons why Sts. Peter and Fevronia can truly be role models, and especially in our day.
In fact, it is extremely important for us that the saints got married before they became saints. Peter, by any measure, lied to Febronia. But Fevronia knew where her interests lay. There is a pious interpretation of her behavior: The future princess saw with her spiritual eye that the prince would perish without her influence, and therefore began to set conditions, and didn’t just simply heal the prince.
But, oddly enough, for today’s young couples, it is more useful to accept the idea that the right-believing prince and princess in their youth were people not without flaws. But they forgave one another these flaws, covering them with love, and their loved blossomed into a readiness to renounce glory and honor for the sake of their beloved.
We are now simply completely marinated with the ideas of perfection and the idealness of anything we “allow” into our lives. Modern freedom in choosing a life partner plays a cruel joke on people. It seems since you are no longer bound by the authority of your parents and class barriers (and some are not bound by moral taboos), you can choose a spouse for yourself like a jacket, finding whichever is “just right,” trying on half the store to find the very best, without any flaws.
On the linguistic level, people understand that “everyone has flaws,” but in the depths of their souls they hope they will be lucky, that they’ll find someone smarter than everyone else! And then half a year passes (a year, five years…), and the young spouses exclaim, “Indeed, everyone has flaws, but what huge ones my spouse has!” And someone standing nearby objects: “It’s no big deal, nothing deadly—you’re not an angel either!”
It’s often only bitter experience that convinces someone that flaws, and even very serious ones, truly exist in everyone, and that you won’t die from them, but you’ll even live long and happy if you figure out in time how to deal with someone else’s shortcomings.
How have many spouses traditionally dealt with one another’s faults? They run to announce them to their mothers, to their friends, and then even on Facebook statuses—why fiddle about on a small scale? And they look deeper into these weaknesses and faults, analyzing, mentally weighing and compartmentalizing them, until they’re finally convinced that it’s time for a divorce.
Spouses are like two warriors with chainmail needing mending in the back, in battle against the temptations of this world. They can stand back-to-back in defense and hold out, or they can start spinning around, looking at one another’s backs with haughty laughter: “Well look at you! How are you going to fight like that, you oaf?!” All they can do is laugh for a long time.
Marital fidelity, among other things, is often expressed in the desire to cover your other half’s faults, not only from the prying eyes of others, but from your own irritability. I’m not talking about any serious sins that destroy marriage in principle, but about weaknesses. Laziness, disorderliness or excessive pedantry, a hot temper, or emotional dryness—you can live with these quite well, until you start making a mountain out of a molehill. A husband comes home tired, not in the mood: How hard it is for a wife to bear this calmly, not harping on her husband’s temper with accusations and inquiries, but waiting until it passes!
How difficult it is to protect our loved one from our own nagging and accusations. How easy it is to fall into irritability and scrupulous studying of others’ faults through the shards of the troll’s mirror, who, as you recall, was the devil himself.
Prince Peter and Princess Fevronia very quickly learned to “stand back-to-back” in marriage, covering one another’s weaknesses from the world and their own infirmities. And they show us that this path is fruitful, that weaknesses are not forever. Only love is forever—we just have to preserve it…

1 week ago | [YT] | 227