Russia
Russia the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country in Eastern Europe and North Asia. At 17,125,200 square kilometres, Russia is by far or by a considerable margin the largest country in the world by area, covering more than one-eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area, the ninth most populous, with about 146.77 million people as of 2019, including Crimea. About 77 % of the population live in the European part of the country. Russia's capital, Moscow, is one of the largest cities in the world and the second largest city in Europe. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a wide range of environments and landforms. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares land borders with Norway, Estonia, Latvia and Poland, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, China and North Korea, it shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk and the U. S. state of Alaska across the Bering Strait. However, Russia recognises two more countries that border it, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both of which are internationally recognized as parts of Georgia.
The East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, the medieval state of Rus arose in the 9th century. In 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus' disintegrated into a number of smaller states; the Grand Duchy of Moscow reunified the surrounding Russian principalities and achieved independence from the Golden Horde. By the 18th century, the nation had expanded through conquest and exploration to become the Russian Empire, the third largest empire in history, stretching from Poland on the west to Alaska on the east. Following the Russian Revolution, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic became the largest and leading constituent of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the world's first constitutionally socialist state; the Soviet Union played a decisive role in the Allied victory in World War II, emerged as a recognized superpower and rival to the United States during the Cold War.
The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the world's first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the world's second largest economy, largest standing military in the world and the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, twelve independent republics emerged from the USSR: Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and the Baltic states regained independence: Estonia, Lithuania, it is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic. Russia's economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2018. Russia's extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the leading producers of oil and natural gas globally; the country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.
Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and an active global partner of ASEAN, as well as a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the G20, the Council of Europe, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the World Trade Organization, as well as being the leading member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Collective Security Treaty Organization and one of the five members of the Eurasian Economic Union, along with Armenia, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan; the name Russia is derived from Rus', a medieval state populated by the East Slavs. However, this proper name became more prominent in the history, the country was called by its inhabitants "Русская Земля", which can be translated as "Russian Land" or "Land of Rus'". In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus' by modern historiography.
The name Rus itself comes from the early medieval Rus' people, Swedish merchants and warriors who relocated from across the Baltic Sea and founded a state centered on Novgorod that became Kievan Rus. An old Latin version of the name Rus' was Ruthenia applied to the western and southern regions of Rus' that were adjacent to Catholic Europe; the current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Rus', Ρωσσία Rossía—spelled Ρωσία in Modern Greek. The standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are commonly
Skoptsy
The Skoptsy were a heretical sect, within the larger Spiritual Christianity movement in the Russian Empire, best known for practicing castration of men and the mastectomy of women in accordance with their teachings against sexual lust. The term is a descriptive one used by the official Russian Orthodox Church; the movement emerged in the late 18th century. It reached the peak of its popularity in the early 20th century, with as many as 100,000 members, in spite of persecution by the imperial government. Despite severe repression under the Soviet Union some members still lived at the start of the 21st century. Skoptsy is a plural of skopets, at the time the Russian term for "castrate"; the Skoptsy referred to themselves as the "White Doves" белые голуби. Their aim was the perfection of the individual, by eradicating Original Sin, which they believed had come into the world by the first coitus between Adam and Eve, they believed that human genitals were the true mark of Cain, that the true message of Jesus Christ included the practice of castration, that Jesus himself had been a castrate, that his example had been followed by the apostles and the early Christian saints.
They believed that human genitals were a mark of Original Sin, more that after the expulsion from the Garden of Eden and Eve had the halves of the forbidden fruit grafted onto their bodies forming testicles and breasts. Thus, the removal of these sexual organs restored the Skoptsy to the pristine state before the Original Sin. In this the Skoptsy maintained that they were fulfilling Christ's counsel of perfection in Matthew 19:12 and 18:8–9. There were two kinds of castration: the "lesser" and "greater seal". For men, "lesser" castration was the removal of the testicles only, while "greater" castration was the removal of the penis as well. Men who did the "greater seal" used a cow-horn; the castrations and emasculations were made with primitive tools such as a shaving knife without using any anesthetic. The earliest records of mastectomy date from 1815. Only the breasts were amputated; the Skoptsy movement emerged in ca. the 1760s from the flagellant sect of the Khlysty. Its founder was a peasant known by the name of Kondratiy Ivanovich Selivanov, a former adherent of a Khlysty sect of one Akulina Ivanovna in the Oryol Governorate.
Selivanov had started his own sect in village of Sosnovka near Morshansk, styling himself "Son of God" and "Redeemer": The community of Selivanov's followers, numbered at 246 people, were put on trial in 1772. Selivanov was convicted of having persuaded thirteen other peasants to castrate themselves, he at first managed to escape. His followers organized to help him escape, he was found to live in Irkutsk, managed to escape and move to Moscow in ca. 1795. In 1797, he moved to Saint Petersburg where, according to Skoptsy accounts he was interviewed by Tsar Paul I, to whom he revealed himself as his father, Peter III, following which Paul I had him confined to the madhouse at Obukhov hospital, he was released in 1802, for eighteen years, until 1820, he lived in Saint Petersburg, in the house of one of his disciples, receiving double homage as Christ and tsar, as he identified himself as both Tsar Peter III and as Christ Returned. Peter had been popular among the Raskolniks because he granted them liberty of conscience, among the peasants because when pillaging the convents he divided their lands among the labourers.
Selivanov claimed the title "God of Gods and King of Kings", announced his accomplishment of the salvation of believers through castration. Selivanov succeeded in gaining followers among the upper classes of Saint Petersburg; when the Governor General of Saint Petersburg, Mikhail Miloradovich, learned that two of his nephews, as well as several members of the guards regiments and sailors, were members of the sect, he asked the imperial government to intervene. In June 1820, it was decided to once again arrest Selivanov, confine him to Evfimiev monastery in Suzdal, where he remained until his death in 1832 his hundredth year. During his stay in Suzdal, his followers continued to plead for his release. Although this was denied, Selivanov was free to receive visitors in the monastery, his followers worshipped him there, he left writings, known under the title The Message and Harvest, as well as nine letters addressed to the priest Sergeyev. Despite the furious investigations of the Third Department, Skoptsism did not disappear after Selivanov's death, scandals continued to arise.
The sect established a presence in Saint Petersburg, Moscow and Odessa, in Bukarest and Iași in Romania, where members of the sect had fled to due to the persecution by authorities. By 1866, the sect was reported as having 5,444 members. Although Skoptisism prescribed castration as a precondition for entering paradise, only a minority of members had undergone bodily mutilation. Alexandre Dumas, père, writes about the sect, calling them scopsis, towards the end of his account of his journey through Caucasia, "Le Caucase, Memoires d'un Voyage", 1858, where he met them in Georgia. In the book The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoevsky mentions Skoptsy tenants in a boarding house. Dostoevsky also
Orenburg
Orenburg is the administrative center of Orenburg Oblast, Russia. It lies on 1,478 kilometers southeast of Moscow, on the boundary of Europe and Asia. Orenburg is very close to the border with Kazakhstan. Population: 548,331; the city is in the basin of the middle current of the River Ural. The highest point of the city is 154.4 meters. Several historians have tried to explain the origins of the city's name, it was traditionally accepted. In all probability, the word combination "orenburg" was proposed by I. K. Kirillov, the founder of the city. In 1734, in accordance with his project, a package of governmental documents was worked out; this was the starting point for Orenburg as a fortress city near the place where the Or and the Ural rivers cross. On 7 June 1734, "A Privilege for Orenburg" was ordered by Empress Anna Ivanovna. While a construction site of the main fortress changed many times, the name "Orenburg" has not changed since its founding in 1743. Between 1938 and 1957, the city was referred to as Chkalov, named after the famous Soviet pilot Valery Chkalov, although he was not born in and never lived in Orenburg, never visited Orenburg.
In 1954, Chkalov's 5-meter bronze sculpture was erected on the occasion of his 50th birth anniversary. Orenburg was unofficially called the Asian capital of Russia. In 1734, the Russian Empire began expanding its control and influence in Asia starting from the construction of the fortress city called "Orenburg" on its eastern border. For this purpose, a settlement was founded here in 1735 - at the place where the Or and the Ural rivers cross; the initial site was chosen for settlement during the expedition of I. K. Kirilov, who initiated developmental activities in the region, he argued that the city was necessary "...for opening up transit routes to Bukhara, Bulk, to India", making it possible to receive "wealth from there — gold, lapis lazuli, garnet." After his death, a new administrator of the Orenburg expedition, Vasily Tatishchev, was appointed. He did not consider this place to be convenient for construction of the city, because it was flooded by the spring high waters; this encouraged to launch in 1739 preparations for building a new town with the old name downstream the river Ural on the mountain Krasnaya.
The old settlement was named the Orsk fortress. On 6 August 1741, the new town was founded. However, its construction did not start; the location on the mountain Krasnaya — treeless and remote from the river — was inappropriate for building the town. A new administrator of the Orenburg expedition, Ivan Neplyuyev, was appointed. On 19 April 1743, Orenburg was founded for a third time, on the compound, once the Berd fortress, 70 versts from the Krasnogorsk mountain area. In the summer of 1742, Neplyuev chose a new place surrounded by forests and crop fields, where the Yaik and the Sakmara rivers cross. Now it is the historical center of the city; the city built upon the mountain Krasnaya was named Krasnogorsk. Orenburg, was established by Ivan Neplyuyev in its present location 250 kilometers west down the Ural from Orsk in 1743; this third Orenburg has functioned as an important military outpost on the border with the nomadic Kazakhs. It became the center of the Orenburg Cossacks. Orenburg played a major role in Pugachev's Rebellion.
At the time, it was the seat of the governor. Yemelyan Pugachev besieged the city and its fortress from nearby Berda from October 1773 - March 26, 1774; the defense was organized by lieutenant-general Reinsdorp. General Golytsin defeated Pugachev at Berda, again at Kargala. Most of the city was left in ruins, thousands of inhabitants had died in the siege. Alexander Pushkin visited Orenburg in 1833 during a research trip for his books The History of Pugachev and his famous novel The Captain's Daughter, he met his friend Vladimir Dal here, who would write the first serious dictionary of the Russian language. Orenburg was the base for General Perovsky's expeditions against the Khanate of Khiva in the 1830s through 1850s. After the incorporation of Central Asia into the Russian Empire, Orenburg became a trading station and, since the completion of the Trans-Aral Railway, a prominent railway junction en route to the new Central Asian possessions and to Siberia. Orenburg functioned as the capital of the Kirghiz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic within Russia from 1920–1925.
When that republic was renamed Kazak Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1925, Orenburg joined Russia and Kyzylorda became the new capital. Almaty became the capital in 1929 after the construction of the Turkestan–Siberia Railway. Kazak Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was promoted to the union republic status as the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic Kazakh SSR in 1936. Orenburg remained in Russia. From 1938 to 1957, the city bore the name Chkalov; the city's distance from the German invasion during World War II led many Soviet enterprises to flee there, helping to spur the city's economic growth. Orenburg is the administrative center of the oblast and, within the framework of administrative divisions, it serves as
Grigori Rasputin
Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin was a Russian mystic and self-proclaimed holy man who befriended the family of Tsar Nicholas II, the last monarch of Russia, gained considerable influence in late imperial Russia. Born to a peasant family in the Siberian village of Pokrovskoye, Tyumen Oblast, Rasputin had a religious conversion experience after taking a pilgrimage to a monastery in 1897, he has been described as a monk or as a "strannik", though he held no official position in the Russian Orthodox Church. After traveling to St. Petersburg, either in 1903 or the winter of 1904–05, Rasputin captivated some church and social leaders, he became a society figure, met the Tsar in November 1905. In late 1906, Rasputin began acting as a healer for Alexei, the Tsar and his wife Alexandra's only son, who suffered from hemophilia. At court, he was a divisive figure, seen by some Russians as a mystic and prophet, by others as a religious charlatan; the high point of Rasputin's power was in 1915, when Nicholas II left St Petersburg to oversee Russian armies fighting World War I, increasing both Alexandra and Rasputin's influence.
As Russian defeats in the war mounted, both Rasputin and Alexandra became unpopular. In the early morning of 30 December 1916, Rasputin was assassinated by a group of conservative noblemen who opposed his influence over Alexandra and the Tsar. Historians suggest that Rasputin's terrible reputation helped discredit the tsarist government, thus helped precipitate the overthrow of the Romanov dynasty, which happened a few weeks after he was assassinated. Little about Rasputin's life and influence is certain, however, as accounts have been based on hearsay and legend. Rasputin was born a peasant in the small village of Pokrovskoye, along the Tura River in the Tobolsk Governorate in Siberia. According to official records, he was christened the following day, he was named for St. Gregory of Nyssa. There are few records of Rasputin's parents, his father, was a peasant farmer and church elder, born in Pokrovskoye in 1842, married Rasputin's mother, Anna Parshukova, in 1863. Efim worked as a government courier, ferrying people and goods between Tobolsk and Tyumen The couple had seven other children, all of whom died in infancy and early childhood.
According to historian Joseph T. Fuhrmann, Rasputin was close to Feodosiya and was godfather to her children, but "the records that have survived do not permit us to say more than that."According to historian Douglas Smith, Rasputin's youth and early adulthood are "a black hole about which we know nothing", though the lack of reliable sources and information did not stop others from fabricating stories about his parents and his youth after Rasputin's rise to fame. Historians agree, that like most Siberian peasants, including his mother and father, Rasputin was never formally educated, he remained illiterate well into his early adulthood. Local archival records suggest that he had a somewhat unruly youth – involving drinking, small thefts, disrespect for local authorities – but contain no evidence of his being charged with stealing horses, blasphemy, or bearing false witness, all major crimes that he was rumored to have committed as a young man. In 1886, Rasputin travelled to Abalak. After a courtship of several months, they married in February 1887.
Praskovya remained in Pokrovskoye throughout Rasputin's travels and rise to prominence, remained devoted to him until his death. The couple had seven children, though only three survived to adulthood: Dmitry and Varvara. In 1897, Rasputin developed a renewed interest in religion and left Pokrovskoye to go on a pilgrimage, his reasons for doing so are unclear: according to some sources, Rasputin left the village to escape punishment for his role in a horse theft. Other sources suggest that he had a vision – either of the Virgin Mary, or of St. Simeon of Verkhoturye – while still others suggest that Rasputin's pilgrimage was inspired by his interactions with a young theological student, Melity Zaborovsky. Whatever his reasons, Rasputin's departure was a radical life change: he was twenty-eight, had been married ten years, had an infant son with another child on the way. According to Douglas Smith, his decision "could only have been occasioned by some sort of emotional or spiritual crisis."Rasputin had undertaken earlier, shorter pilgrimages to the Holy Znamensky Monastery at Abalak and to Tobolsk's cathedral, but his visit to the St. Nicholas Monastery at Verkhoturye in 1897 was transformative.
There, he was "profoundly humbled" by a starets known as Makary. Rasputin may have spent several months at Verkhoturye, it was here that he learned to read and write, but he complained about the monastery itself, claiming that some of the monks engaged in homosexuality and criticizing monastic life as too coercive, he returned to Pokrovskoye a changed man, looking disheveled and behaving differently than he had before. He became a vegetarian, swore off alcohol, prayed and sang much more fervently than he had in the past. Rasputin would spend the years that followed living as a Strannik, leaving Pokrovskoye for months or years at a time to wander the country and visit a variety of holy sites, it is possible that Rasputin wa
Russian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church, alternatively known as the Moscow Patriarchate, is one of the autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Christian churches. The Primate of the ROC is the Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus'; the ROC, as well as the primate thereof ranks fifth in the Orthodox order of precedence below the four ancient patriarchates of the Greek Orthodox Church, those of Constantinople, Alexandria and Jerusalem. Since 15 October 2018, the ROC is not in communion with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, having unilaterally severed ties in reaction to the establishment of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, finalised by the Ecumenical Patriarchate on 5 January 2019; the Christianization of Kievan Rus' seen as the birth of the ROC, is believed to have occurred in 988 through the baptism of the Kievan prince Vladimir and his people by the clergy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, whose constituent part the ROC remained for the next six centuries, while the Kievan see remained in the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate until 1686.
The ROC claims its exclusive jurisdiction over the Orthodox Christians, irrespective of their ethnic background, who reside in the former member republics of the Soviet Union, excluding Georgia and Armenia, although this claim is disputed in such countries as Estonia and Ukraine and parallel canonical Orthodox jurisdictions exist in those: the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church, the Metropolis of Bessarabia, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, respectively. It exercises ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the autonomous Church of Japan and the Orthodox Christians resident in the People's Republic of China; the ROC branches in Belarus, Latvia and Ukraine since the 1990s enjoy various degrees of self-government, albeit short of the status of formal ecclesiastical autonomy. The ROC should not be confused with the Orthodox Church in America, another autocephalous Orthodox church, that traces its existence in North America to the time of the Russian missionaries in Alaska in the late 18th century; the ROC should not be confused with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, headquartered in the United States.
The ROCOR was instituted in the 1920s by Russian communities outside Communist Russia, which refused to recognize the authority of the Moscow Patriarchate de facto headed by Metropolitan Sergius Stragorodsky. The two churches reconciled on May 17, 2007; the Christian community that developed into what is now known as the Russian Orthodox Church is traditionally said to have been founded by the Apostle Andrew, thought to have visited Scythia and Greek colonies along the northern coast of the Black Sea. According to one of the legends, Andrew reached the future location of Kiev and foretold the foundation of a great Christian city; the spot where he erected a cross is now marked by St. Andrew's Cathedral. By the end of the first millennium AD, eastern Slavic lands started to come under the cultural influence of the Eastern Roman Empire. In 863–69, the Byzantine monks Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius, both from the region of Macedonia in the Eastern Roman Empire translated parts of the Bible into the Old Church Slavonic language for the first time, paving the way for the Christianization of the Slavs and Slavicized peoples of Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Southern Russia.
There is evidence that the first Christian bishop was sent to Novgorod from Constantinople either by Patriarch Photius or Patriarch Ignatios, c. 866–867. By the mid-10th century, there was a Christian community among Kievan nobility, under the leadership of Bulgarian and Byzantine priests, although paganism remained the dominant religion. Princess Olga of Kiev was the first ruler of Kievan Rus′, born a Christian, her grandson, Vladimir of Kiev, made Rus' a Christian state. The official Christianization of Kievan Rus' is believed to have occurred in 988 AD, when Prince Vladimir was baptised himself and ordered his people to be baptised by the priests from the Eastern Roman Empire; the Kievan church was a junior metropolitanate of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Ecumenical Patriarch appointed the metropolitan, a Greek, who governed the Church of Rus'. The Kiev Metropolitan's residence was located in Kiev itself, the capital of the medieval Rus' state; as Kiev was losing its political and economical significance due to the Mongol invasion, Metropolitan Maximus moved to Vladimir in 1299.
Following the tribulations of the Mongol invasion, the Russian Church was pivotal in the survival and life of the Russian state. Despite the politically motivated murders of Mikhail of Chernigov and Mikhail of Tver, the Mongols were tolerant and granted tax exemption to the church; such holy figures as Sergius of Radonezh and Metropolitan Alexis helped the country to withstand years of Mongol rule, to expand both economically and spiritually. The Trinity monastery founded by Sergius of Radonezh became the setting for the flourishing of spiritual art, exemplified by the work of Andrey Rublev, among others; the followers of Sergius founded four hundred monasteries, thus extending the geographical extent of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. In 1439, at t
Saint
A saint is a person, recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness or likeness or closeness to God. However, the use of the term "saint" depends on the denomination. In Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Lutheran doctrine, all of their faithful deceased in Heaven are considered to be saints, but some are considered worthy of greater honor or emulation. While the English word saint originated in Christianity, historians of religion now use the appellation "in a more general way to refer to the state of special holiness that many religions attribute to certain people", with the Jewish tzadik, the Islamic walī, the Hindu rishi or Sikh guru, the Buddhist arhat or bodhisattva being referred to as saints. Depending on the religion, saints are recognized either by official ecclesiastical declaration, as in the Catholic faith, or by popular acclamation; the English word "saint" comes from the Latin "sanctus". The word translated in Greek is "ἅγιος", which means "holy"; the word ἅγιος appears 229 times in the Greek New Testament, its English translation 60 times in the corresponding text of the King James Version of the Bible.
The word sanctus was a technical one in ancient Roman religion, but due to its "globalized" use in Christianity the modern word "saint" in English and its equivalent in Romance languages is now used as a translation of comparable terms for persons "worthy of veneration for their holiness or sanctity" in other religions. Many religions use similar concepts to venerate persons worthy of some honor. Author John A. Coleman S. J. of the Graduate Theological Union, California wrote that saints across various cultures and religions have the following family resemblances: exemplary model extraordinary teacher wonder worker or source of benevolent power intercessor a life refusing material attachments or comforts possession of a special and revelatory relation to the holy. The anthropologist Lawrence Babb in an article about Sathya Sai Baba asks the question "Who is a saint?", responds by saying that in the symbolic infrastructure of some religions, there is the image of a certain extraordinary spiritual king's "miraculous powers", to whom a certain moral presence is attributed.
These saintly figures, he asserts, are "the focal points of spiritual force-fields". They exert "powerful attractive influence on followers but touch the inner lives of others in transforming ways as well". According to the Catholic Church, a "saint" is anyone in Heaven, whether recognized on Earth or not, who form the "great cloud of witnesses"; these "may include our own mothers, grandmothers or other loved ones" who may have not always lived perfect lives but "amid their faults and failings they kept moving forward and proved pleasing to the Lord". The title "Saint" denotes a person, formally canonized, authoritatively declared a saint, by the Church as holder of the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, is therefore believed to be in Heaven by the grace of God. There are many persons that the Church believes to be in Heaven who have not been formally canonized and who are otherwise titled "saints" because of the fame of their holiness. Sometimes the word "saint" denotes living Christians. In his book Saint of the Day, editor Leonard Foley, OFM says this: the " surrender to God's love was so generous an approach to the total surrender of Jesus that the Church recognizes them as heroes and heroines worthy to be held up for our inspiration.
They remind us that the Church is holy, can never stop being holy and is called to show the holiness of God by living the life of Christ."The Catholic Church teaches that it does not "make" or "create" saints, but rather recognizes them. Proofs of heroicity required in the process of beatification will serve to illustrate in detail the general principles exposed above upon proof of their "holiness" or likeness to God. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church Chapter 2, Article 1, 61, "The patriarchs and certain other Old Testament figures have been and always will be honored as saints in all the church's liturgical traditions." On 3 January 993, Pope John XV became the first pope to proclaim a person a "saint" from outside the diocese of Rome: on the petition of the German ruler, he had canonized Bishop Ulrich of Augsburg. Before that time, the popular "cults", or venerations, of saints had been local and spontaneous and were confirmed by the local bishop. Pope John XVIII subsequently permitted a cult of five Polish martyrs.
Pope Benedict VIII declared the Armenian hermit Symeon to be a saint, but it was not until the pontificate of Pope Innocent III that the Popes reserved to themselves the exclusive authority to canonize saints, so that local bishops needed the confirmation of the Pope. Walter of Pontoise was the last person in Western Europe to be canonized by an authority other than the Pope: Hugh de Boves, the Archbishop of Rouen, canonized him in 1153. Thenceforth a decree of Pope Alexander III in 1170 reserved the prerogative of canonization to the Pope, insofar as the Latin Church was concerned. One source claims that "there are over 10,000 named saints and beatified people from history, the Roman Martyrology and Orthodox sources, but no definitive head count". Alban Butler published Lives of the Saints including a total of 1,486 saints; the latest revision of this book, edited by the Jesuit Herbert Thurston and the British author Donald Attwater, contains the lives of 2,565 saints. Monsign
Tambov
Tambov is a city and the administrative center of Tambov Oblast, located at the confluence of the Tsna and Studenets Rivers, about 480 kilometers south-southeast of Moscow. Population: 280,161; the name "Tambov" originates from the Moksha language word "томба" meaning "abyss", or "deep pool". Tambov was founded by the decree of Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich on April 17, 1636, it was a border fortress against attacks by the Crimean Tatars, but it soon declined in importance as a military outpost. It became the region's administrative and trade centre. Roman Boborykin, the emperor's court menial and voivode was the town's first builder. Thanks to his experience, the fortress had been completed rapidly. Tambov was granted city status in 1719. In 1779, Tambov Viceroyalty was formed, on August 16, 1781, Empress Catherine the Great approved the city's coat of arms depicting a beehive, symbolizing the town's hardworking residents; this viceroyalty was formed from southern parts of Ryazan Viceyorality and northern parts of Voronezh Viceyorality.
In March 1786, the disgraced Russian poet and statesman Gavrila Derzhavin was appointed the governor of Tambov Governorate—a post that he held until December 1788. During that brief tenure, he accomplished a great deal: a theatre, a college, a dancing school, a printing business, an orchestra, a brickyard were built. Tambov erected a monument to Derzhavin. In November 1830, during the Cholera Riots in Russia, the citizens of Tambov attacked their governor, but they were soon suppressed by the regular army. In the 19th century Tambov became a significant cultural centre that supported a growing number of schools and other institutions. By 1897, its population was more than 50,000 people. During the Civil War, in 1920–1921, the region witnessed the Tambov Rebellion—a bitter struggle between local residents and the Bolshevik Red Army. In 1921, a Tambov Republic was established, but it was soon crushed by the Red Army under the command of Mikhail Tukhachevsky. Between 1928 and 1934, Tambov became okrug centre in Central Black Earth Oblast.
After dissolving the oblast on 13 June 1934, it became the raion center in Voronezh Oblast. Tambov became the centre of Tambov Oblast, created from oblasts of Voronezh and Kuybyshev on 27 September 1937; the oblast had present form after separation of Penza Oblast on 4 February 1939. During and after World War II, most of the Malgré-nous from Alsace-Moselle were jailed in "Camp #188" at Tambov. Between 4,000 and 10,000 French people died in this camp. In 1991, a 360-meter high guyed television antenna was built in Tambov. Tambov serves as the administrative center of the oblast and, within the framework of administrative divisions, it serves as the administrative center of Tambovsky District though it is not a part of it; as an administrative division, it is incorporated as the city of oblast significance of Tambov—an administrative unit with the status equal to that of the districts. As a municipal division, the city of oblast significance of Tambov is incorporated as Tambov Urban Okrug; the city is industrialized.
The city is served by Tambov Donskoye Airport. Tambov is the location of the Tambov air base of the Russian Air Force. A railway connection between Tambov and Moscow was first established in 1871; the railroad is not electrified. There are small suburban trains, or "rail buses" that connect Tambov Oblast's capital with other cities, such as Michurinsk and Kirsanov. Tambov has a humid continental climate; the average temperature of the coldest month is about -8 °C, the warmest month – about +20 °C. Because of the southerly location average annual temperature in Tambov is about 2 degrees higher than in Moscow. Annual rainfall ranges from 400 to 650 mm, more than half of them of precipitation falls in the warm season. Duration of the warm period is 154 days; the city is home to Tambov State University and Tambov State Technical University. The Tambov Art Gallery houses a vast collection of canvases by West-European artists. Russia's oldest drama theater is located in Tambov, as well as two universities, two military colleges, a musical school, a museum of local lore, other cultural institutions.
Tambov's professional association football team, FC Tambov, plays in the Russian Football National League. Andrey Kolmogorov, mathematician Constantin Fahlberg, a chemist known for artificial sweetener Saccharin Sergei Rachmaninoff, musician Alexander Lodygin, electrical engineer Nikolay Fyodorov, religious philosopher Lev Kuleshov, movie director Ida Kar, photographer Victor Merzhanov, pianist Anastasia Rodionova, tennis player Arina Rodionova, tennis player Yuri Zhirkov, football player Tambovskaya Bratva, a famous criminal gang from Tambov covering many areas of Russia. Tambov is a sister city of: Balchik, Bulgaria Bar-le-Duc, France Grodno, Belarus Sukhumi, Abkhazia Terre Haute, United States Тамбовская областная Дума. Закон №72-З от 21 июня 1996 г. «Об административно-территориальном устройстве Тамбовской области», в ред. Закона №544-З от 11 июня 2015 г. «О внесении изменений в статью 7 Закона Тамбовской области "Об административно-территориальном устройстве Тамбовской области"». Опубликован: "Тамбовская жизнь", №131, 1996 г.
(Tambov Oblast Duma. Law #72-Z of June 21, 1996 On the Administrative-Territorial Structure of Tambov Oblast, as amended by the Law #544-Z of June 11, 2015 On Amending Article 7 of the Law of Tambov
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