1.
Mikhail Nesterov
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Mikhail Vasilyevich Nesterov was a Russian and Soviet painter, associated with the Peredvizhniki and Mir Iskusstva. He was one of the first exponents of Symbolist art in Russia and he was born to a strongly patriarchal merchant family. His father was a draper and haberdasher, but always had a strong interest in history, in 1879, he began to participate in the schools exhibitions. Two years later, he entered the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts and he was disappointed at the teaching there and returned to Moscow, only to find Perov on his deathbed, so he took lessons from Alexei Savrasov. After a brief stay in Ufa, where he met his wife, Maria, he returned to Moscow. While creating a series of paintings, he supported himself doing illustrations for magazines and books published by Alexei Stupin. In 1885, he was awarded the title Free Artist and married, the following year, his wife died after giving birth to his daughter, Olga. Several of his works from this period feature his wifes image and his first major success came with his painting, The Hermit which was shown at the seventeenth exhibition of the Peredvizhniki in 1889. It was purchased by Pavel Tretyakov and the money enabled Nesterov to take a trip to Austria, Germany, France. This series would include fifteen large canvases and occupy him for fifty years. In 1890, Adrian Prakhov, who was overseeing work at St Volodymyrs Cathedral, became familiar with Nesterovs paintings and invited him to participate in creating murals, after some hesitation, he agreed, then travelled to Rome and Istanbul to acquaint himself with Byzantine art. This project would take years to complete. Despite this, he undertook other religious commissions, in 1898, Grand Duke George Alexandrovich asked him to work at the Alexander Nevsky church in Abastumani. He spent six years there, off and on, creating 50 small murals and the iconostasis and he was apparently much more pleased with later work at the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent. He refused to work on the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Warsaw, in 1901, he wanted to deepen his spiritual appreciation of the monastic life, so he spent some time at the Solovetsky Monastery on the coast of the White Sea. He painted numerous works there and the influence of his visit could be seen in his canvases for many years after and he was also inspired by the novels of Pavel Ivanovich Melnikov, dealing with the lives of the Old Believers in the Volga Region. In 1902, he married Ekaterina Vasilyeva, whom he had met admiring his works at an exhibition, in 1905, after the Revolution began, he joined the Union of the Russian People, an extreme right-wing nationalist party that supported the Tsar. As a result, he was in danger after the October Revolution
2.
Pskov
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Pskov is a city and the administrative center of Pskov Oblast, Russia, located about 20 kilometers east from the Estonian border, on the Velikaya River. Pskov is one of the oldest cities in Russia, the name of the city, originally spelled Pleskov, may be loosely translated as of purling waters. Its earliest mention comes in 903, which records that Igor of Kiev married a local lady, Pskovians sometimes take this year as the citys foundation date, and in 2003 a great jubilee took place to celebrate Pskovs 1, 100th anniversary. The first prince of Pskov was Vladimir the Greats youngest son Sudislav, once imprisoned by his brother Yaroslav, he was not released until the latters death several decades later. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the town adhered politically to the Novgorod Republic, in 1241, it was taken by the Teutonic Knights, but Alexander Nevsky recaptured it several months later during a legendary campaign dramatized in Sergei Eisensteins 1938 movie Alexander Nevsky. Having fortified the town, Daumantas routed the Teutonic Knights at Rakvere and his remains and sword are preserved in the local kremlin, and the core of the citadel, erected by him, still bears the name of Dovmonts town. By the 14th century, the town functioned as the capital of a de facto sovereign republic and its most powerful force was the merchants who brought the town into the Hanseatic League. Pskovs independence was recognized by Novgorod in 1348. Several years later, the veche promulgated a law code, which was one of the sources of the all-Russian law code issued in 1497. For Russia, the Pskov Republic was a bridge towards Europe, for Europe, the importance of the city made it the subject of numerous sieges throughout its history. The Pskov Krom withstood twenty-six sieges in the 15th century alone, at one point, five stone walls ringed it, making the city practically impregnable. A local school of icon-painting flourished, and the masons were considered the best in Russia. Many peculiar features of Russian architecture were first introduced in Pskov, finally, in 1510, the city fell to Muscovite forces. The deportation of families to Moscow is a subject of Rimsky-Korsakovs opera Pskovityanka. As the second largest city of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, most famously, it withstood a prolonged siege by a 50, 000-strong Polish army during the final stage of the Livonian War. The king of Poland Stephen Báthory undertook some thirty-one attacks to storm the city, even after one of the city walls was broken, the Pskovians managed to fill the gap and repel the attack. Its amazing how the city reminds me of Paris, wrote one of the Frenchmen present at Báthorys siege, as a consequence, the citys importance and well-being declined dramatically, although it has served as a seat of separate Pskov Governorate since 1777. During World War I, Pskov became the center of much activity behind the lines, Pskov was also occupied by the Estonian army between 25 May 1919 and 28 August 1919 during the Estonian War of Independence when Bułak-Bałachowicz became the military administrator of Pskov
3.
Kiev
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Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population in July 2015 was 2,887,974, Kiev is an important industrial, scientific, educational, and cultural centre of Eastern Europe. It is home to many industries, higher education institutions. The city has an infrastructure and highly developed system of public transport. The citys name is said to derive from the name of Kyi, during its history, Kiev, one of the oldest cities in Eastern Europe, passed through several stages of great prominence and relative obscurity. The city probably existed as a centre as early as the 5th century. A Slavic settlement on the trade route between Scandinavia and Constantinople, Kiev was a tributary of the Khazars, until seized by the Varangians in the mid-9th century. Under Varangian rule, the city became a capital of the Kievan Rus, completely destroyed during the Mongol invasion in 1240, the city lost most of its influence for the centuries to come. It was a capital of marginal importance in the outskirts of the territories controlled by its powerful neighbours, first the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, followed by Poland. The city prospered again during the Russian Empires Industrial Revolution in the late 19th century, in 1917, after the Ukrainian National Republic declared independence from the Russian Empire, Kiev became its capital. From 1919 Kiev was an important center of the Armed Forces of South Russia and was controlled by the White Army. From 1921 onwards Kiev was a city of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which was proclaimed by the Red Army, during World War II, the city again suffered significant damage, but quickly recovered in the post-war years, remaining the third largest city of the Soviet Union. During the countrys transformation to an economy and electoral democracy. Kievs armament-dependent industrial output fell after the Soviet collapse, adversely affecting science, Kiev emerged as the most pro-Western region of Ukraine where parties advocating tighter integration with the European Union dominate during elections. As a prominent city with a history, its English name was subject to gradual evolution. The early English spelling was derived from Old East Slavic form Kyjev, the name is associated with that of Kyi, the legendary eponymous founder of the city. Early English sources use various names, including Kiou, Kiow, Kiew, on one of the oldest English maps of the region, Russiae, Moscoviae et Tartariae published by Ortelius the name of the city is spelled Kiou. On the 1650 map by Guillaume de Beauplan, the name of the city is Kiiow, in the book Travels, by Joseph Marshall, the city is referred to as Kiovia
4.
Roman Catholicism
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The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church or the Universal Church, is the largest Christian church, with more than 1.28 billion members worldwide. As one of the oldest religious institutions in the world, it has played a prominent role in the history, headed by the Bishop of Rome, known as the Pope, the churchs doctrines are summarised in the Nicene Creed and the Apostles Creed. Its central administration is located in Vatican City, enclaved within Rome, the Catholic Church is notable within Western Christianity for its sacred tradition and seven sacraments. It teaches that it is the one church founded by Jesus Christ, that its bishops are the successors of Christs apostles. The Catholic Church maintains that the doctrine on faith and morals that it declares as definitive is infallible. The Latin Church, the Eastern Catholic Churches, as well as such as mendicant orders and enclosed monastic orders. Among the sacraments, the one is the Eucharist, celebrated liturgically in the Mass. The church teaches that through consecration by a priest the sacrificial bread and wine become the body, the Catholic Church practises closed communion, with only baptised members in a state of grace ordinarily permitted to receive the Eucharist. The Virgin Mary is venerated in the Catholic Church as Queen of Heaven and is honoured in numerous Marian devotions. The Catholic Church has influenced Western philosophy, science, art and culture, Catholic spiritual teaching includes spreading the Gospel while Catholic social teaching emphasises support for the sick, the poor and the afflicted through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. The Catholic Church is the largest non-government provider of education and medical services in the world, from the late 20th century, the Catholic Church has been criticised for its doctrines on sexuality, its refusal to ordain women and its handling of sexual abuse cases. Catholic was first used to describe the church in the early 2nd century, the first known use of the phrase the catholic church occurred in the letter from Saint Ignatius of Antioch to the Smyrnaeans, written about 110 AD. In the Catechetical Discourses of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, the name Catholic Church was used to distinguish it from other groups that call themselves the church. The use of the adjective Roman to describe the Church as governed especially by the Bishop of Rome became more widespread after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire and into the Early Middle Ages. Catholic Church is the name used in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church follows an episcopal polity, led by bishops who have received the sacrament of Holy Orders who are given formal jurisdictions of governance within the church. Ultimately leading the entire Catholic Church is the Bishop of Rome, commonly called the pope, in parallel to the diocesan structure are a variety of religious institutes that function autonomously, often subject only to the authority of the pope, though sometimes subject to the local bishop. Most religious institutes only have male or female members but some have both, additionally, lay members aid many liturgical functions during worship services
5.
Eastern Catholicism
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The Melkite and Italo-Greek churches also have claims of perpetual communion. Full communion constitutes mutual sacramental sharing between the Eastern Catholic Churches and the Latin Church, including Eucharistic intercommunion, notably, Eastern Catholic churches have different traditions concerning clerical celibacy than the Latin Church, in general, Eastern Catholic Churches allow the ordination of married men as priests. Eastern Catholic churches have their origins in the Middle East, East Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin Catholics in the Middle East, on the other hand, are traditionally served by the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. The Eastern Catholic churches are instead distinct particular churches sui iuris, although maintain full, there are different meanings of the word rite. Apart from its reference to the patrimony of a particular church. The rites treated in CCEO, unless stated, are those that arise from the Alexandrian, Antiochene. The Second Vatican Council spoke of Eastern Catholic Churches as particular Churches or rites, in 1999, the United States National Conference of Catholic Bishops stated, We have been accustomed to speaking of the Latin Rite or the Eastern Rites to designate these different Churches. Canon 112 of the Code of Canon Law uses the phrase autonomous ritual Churches to designate the various Churches, and a writer in a periodical of January 2006 declared, The Eastern Churches are still mistakenly called Eastern-rite Churches, a reference to their various liturgical histories. They are most properly called Eastern Churches, or Eastern Catholic Churches, however, the term rite continues to be used. The 1983 CIC forbids a Latin bishop to ordain, without permission of the Holy See, Pope Benedict XVI wrote, in his 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, that any Catholic priest of the Latin rite, under certain conditions, may use either edition of the Roman Missal. The term Uniat or Uniate applies to Eastern Catholic churches previously part of Eastern or Oriental Orthodox churches or of the Assyrian Church of the East. The term is considered to have a derogatory connotation, though it was occasionally used by Latin. Official Catholic documents no longer use the due to its perceived negative overtones. According to John Erickson of Saint Vladimirs Orthodox Theological Seminary, The term uniate itself, Eastern Rite Catholic also was no longer in vogue because it might suggest that the Catholics in question differed from Latins only in the externals of worship. The Second Vatican Council affirmed rather that Eastern Catholics constituted churches whose vocation was to provide a bridge to the churches of the East. Communion between Christian churches has been broken over matters of faith, whereby each side accused the other of heresy or departure from the true faith, communion has been broken also because of disagreement about questions of authority or the legitimacy of the election of a particular bishop. In these latter cases each side accused the other of schism, Major breaches of communion, In 431 the Churches that accepted the teaching of the Council of Ephesus classified as heretics those who rejected the Councils statements. The Church of the East, which was mainly under the Sassanid Empire and it later experienced a period of great expansion in Asia before collapsing after the Mongol invasion of the Middle East in the 14th century
6.
Eastern Orthodox Church
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The Eastern Orthodox Church teaches that it is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church established by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission to the apostles. It practices what it understands to be the original Christian faith, the Eastern Orthodox Church is a communion of autocephalous churches, each typically governed by a Holy Synod. It teaches that all bishops are equal by virtue of their ordination, prior to the Council of Chalcedon in AD451, the Eastern Orthodox had also shared communion with the Oriental Orthodox churches, separating primarily over differences in Christology. Eastern Orthodoxy spread throughout the Roman and later Eastern Roman Empires and beyond, playing a prominent role in European, Near Eastern, Slavic, and some African cultures. As a result, the term Greek Orthodox has sometimes used to describe all of Eastern Orthodoxy in general. However, the appellation Greek was never in use and was gradually abandoned by the non-Greek-speaking Eastern Orthodox churches. Its most prominent episcopal see is Constantinople, there are also many in other parts of the world, formed through immigration, conversion and missionary activity. The official name of the Eastern Orthodox Church is the Orthodox Catholic Church and it is the name by which the church refers to itself in its liturgical or canonical texts, in official publications, and in official contexts or administrative documents. Orthodox teachers refer to the Church as Catholic and this name and longer variants containing Catholic are also recognized and referenced in other books and publications by secular or non-Orthodox writers. The common name of the Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, is a shortened practicality that helps to avoid confusions in casual use, for this reason, the eastern churches were sometimes identified as Greek, even before the great schism. After 1054, Greek Orthodox or Greek Catholic marked a church as being in communion with Constantinople and this identification with Greek, however, became increasingly confusing with time. Missionaries brought Orthodoxy to many regions without ethnic Greeks, where the Greek language was not spoken. Today, many of those same Roman churches remain, while a large number of Orthodox are not of Greek national origin. Eastern, then, indicates the element in the Churchs origin and development, while Orthodox indicates the faith. While the Church continues officially to call itself Catholic, for reasons of universality, the first known use of the phrase the catholic church occurred in a letter written about 110 AD from one Greek church to another. Quote of St Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans, Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be, even as where Jesus may be, thus, almost from the very beginning, Christians referred to the Church as the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. The Orthodox Church claims that it is today the continuation and preservation of that same Church, a number of other Christian churches also make a similar claim, the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, the Assyrian Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches. The Church of England separated from the Roman Catholic Church, not directly from the Orthodox Church, the depth of this meaning in the Orthodox Church is registered first in its use of the word Orthodox itself, a union of Greek orthos and doxa
7.
Calendar of saints
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The word feast in this context does not mean a large meal, typically a celebratory one, but instead an annual religious celebration, a day dedicated to a particular saint. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, a calendar of saints is called a Menologion, Menologion may also mean a set of icons on which saints are depicted in the order of the dates of their feasts, often made in two panels. As the number of recognized saints increased during Late Antiquity and the first half of the Middle Ages, eventually every day of the year had at least one saint who was commemorated on that date. To deal with this increase, some saints were moved to days in some traditions or completely removed. For example, St. Perpetua and Felicity died on 7 March, when the 1969 reform of the Catholic calendar moved him to 28 January, they were moved back to 7 March. Both days can thus be said to be their feast day, the Roman Catholic calendars of saints in their various forms, which list those saints celebrated in the entire church, contains only a selection of the saints for each of its days. A fuller list is found in the Roman Martyrology, and some of the saints there may be celebrated locally, Saint Martin of Tours is said to be the first or at least one of the first non-martyrs to be venerated as a saint. The title confessor was used for saints, who had confessed their faith in Christ by their lives rather than by their deaths. Martyrs are regarded as dying in the service of the Lord, a broader range of titles was used later, such as, Virgin, Pastor, Bishop, Monk, Priest, Founder, Abbot, Apostle, Doctor of the Church. Pope Pius XII added a common formula for Popes, the 1962 Roman Missal of Pope John XXIII omitted the common of Apostles, assigning a proper Mass to every feast day of an Apostle. The present Roman Missal has common formulas for the Dedication of Churches, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Martyrs, Pastors, Doctors of the Church, Virgins, some Christians continue the tradition of dating by saints days, their works may appear dated as The Feast of Saint Martin. Poets such as John Keats commemorate the importance of The Eve of Saint Agnes, as different Christian jurisdictions parted ways theologically, differing lists of saints began to develop. In the present ordinary form of the Roman Rite, feast days are ranked as solemnities and those who use even earlier forms of the Roman Rite rank feast days as Doubles, Semidoubles, and Simples. See Ranking of liturgical days in the Roman Rite, in the Eastern Orthodox Church the ranking of feasts varies from church to church. In the Russian Orthodox Church they are, Great Feasts, middle, each portion of such feasts may also be called feasts as follows, All-Night Vigils, Polyeleos, Great Doxology, Sextuple. There are also distinctions between Simple feasts and Double, in Double Feasts the order of hymns and readings for each feast are rigidly instructed in Typikon, the liturgy book. In the Church of England, there are Principal Feasts and Principal Holy Days, Festivals, Lesser Festivals, and Commemorations. com
8.
Old Norse
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Old Norse was a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during about the 9th to 13th centuries. These dates, however, are not absolute, since written Old Norse is found well into the 15th century, Old Norse was divided into three dialects, Old West Norse, Old East Norse and Old Gutnish. Old West and East Norse formed a continuum, with no clear geographical boundary between them. For example, Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway, although Old Norwegian is classified as Old West Norse, most speakers spoke Old East Norse in what is present day Denmark and Sweden. Old Gutnish, the more obscure dialectal branch, is included in the Old East Norse dialect due to geographical associations. It developed its own features and shared in changes to both other branches. The 12th century Icelandic Gray Goose Laws state that Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders and Danes spoke the same language, another term used, used especially commonly with reference to West Norse, was norrœnt mál. In some instances the term Old Norse refers specifically to Old West Norse, the Old East Norse dialect was spoken in Denmark, Sweden, settlements in Kievan Rus, eastern England, and Danish settlements in Normandy. The Old Gutnish dialect was spoken in Gotland and in settlements in the East. In the 11th century, Old Norse was the most widely spoken European language, in Kievan Rus, it survived the longest in Veliky Novgorod, probably lasting into the 13th century there. Norwegian is descended from Old West Norse, but over the centuries it has heavily influenced by East Norse. Old Norse also had an influence on English dialects and Lowland Scots and it also influenced the development of the Norman language, and through it and to a smaller extent, that of modern French. Various other languages, which are not closely related, have heavily influenced by Norse, particularly the Norman dialects, Scottish Gaelic. The current Finnish and Estonian words for Sweden are Ruotsi and Rootsi, of the modern languages, Icelandic is the closest to Old Norse. Written modern Icelandic derives from the Old Norse phonemic writing system, contemporary Icelandic-speakers can read Old Norse, which varies slightly in spelling as well as semantics and word order. However, pronunciation, particularly of the phonemes, has changed at least as much as in the other North Germanic languages. Faroese retains many similarities but is influenced by Danish, Norwegian, although Swedish, Danish and the Norwegian languages have diverged the most, they still retain asymmetric mutual intelligibility. Speakers of modern Swedish, Norwegian and Danish can mostly understand each other without studying their neighboring languages, the languages are also sufficiently similar in writing that they can mostly be understood across borders
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