Raisa Taboranskaya
On October 8/21, the Orthodox Church honors the memory of St. Pelagea († 457). This woman, once a courtesan and leader of the dancers of Palestinian Antioch but who was converted to faith in God after hearing a sermon by St. Nonnus, became a nun during the fifth century. Metropolitan Joseph (Chernov † September 4, 1975) was a great hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church who spent over twenty years in the soviet concentration camps for his faith.
