Women of the Catacombs
Women of the Catacombs

Author:

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2021-03-15

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 150175405X

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The memoirs presented in Women of the Catacombs offer a rare close-up account of the underground Orthodox community and its priests during some of the most difficult years in Russian history. The catacomb church in the Soviet Union came into existence in the 1920s and played a significant part in Russian national life for nearly fifty years. Adherents to the Orthodox faith often referred to the catacomb church as the "light shining in the dark." Women of the Catacombs provides a first-hand portrait of lived religion in its social, familial, and cultural setting during this tragic period. Until now, scholars have had only brief, scattered fragments of information about Russia's illegal church organization that claimed to protect the purity of the Orthodox tradition. Vera Iakovlevna Vasilevskaia and Elena Semenovna Men, who joined the church as young women, offer evidence on how Russian Orthodoxy remained a viable, alternative presence in Soviet society, when all political, educational, and cultural institutions attempted to indoctrinate Soviet citizens with an atheistic perspective. Wallace L. Daniel's translation not only sheds light on Russia's religious and political history, but also shows how two educated women maintained their personal integrity in times when prevailing political and social headwinds moved in an opposite direction.

The Art of the Roman Catacombs
The Art of the Roman Catacombs

Author: Gregory S. Athnos

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2023-07-07

Total Pages: 197

ISBN-13: 1666777323

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Every story in catacomb art is a tale of deliverance, a tale of the powerlessness of death and the certainty of the resurrection. Looking back through fifteen hundred years of Christian art, it appears the crucifixion of Jesus holds the highest place. We haven’t looked back far enough. Go back to the first three centuries after Jesus walked among us. Walk the dark corridors of those subterranean burial chambers of the persecuted Christians. There we find a much different theology at work: a theology with resurrection hope and power at the center. If catacomb art were all we had of Christian theology and practice from the first three centuries AD—no Scriptures—we would have no choice but to conclude that the first message of the Christian faith was the Easter gospel.

Onward
Onward

Author: Russell D. Moore

Publisher: B&H Publishing Group

Published: 2015-08

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1433686171

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Christianity Today "Beautiful Orthodoxy" Book of the Year in 2016. Keep Christianity Strange. As the culture changes all around us, it is no longer possible to pretend that we are a Moral Majority. That may be bad news for America, but it can be good news for the church. What's needed now, in shifting times, is neither a doubling-down on the status quo nor a pullback into isolation. Instead, we need a church that speaks to social and political issues with a bigger vision in mind: that of the gospel of Jesus Christ. As Christianity seems increasingly strange, and even subversive, to our culture, we have the opportunity to reclaim the freakishness of the gospel, which is what gives it its power in the first place. We seek the kingdom of God, before everything else. We connect that kingdom agenda to the culture around us, both by speaking it to the world and by showing it in our churches. As we do so, we remember our mission to oppose demons, not to demonize opponents. As we advocate for human dignity, for religious liberty, for family stability, let's do so as those with a prophetic word that turns everything upside down. The signs of the times tell us we are in for days our parents and grandparents never knew. But that's no call for panic or surrender or outrage. Jesus is alive. Let's act like it. Let's follow him, onward to the future.