Abbess Alexandra (Zharin)
The Orthodox were terribly persecuted by the secular authorities of Rzeczpospolita, the Catholics and Uniates. People were humiliated, deprived of their civil rights, tortured and killed, but they remained faithful to Orthodoxy.
The feast of St. Vladimir the great and the Baptism of Rus’ was festively celebrated at Belarus’ St. Elisha-Larishevsky Monastery with a Baptismal Liturgy in the Neman River.
Professor Alexei Svetozarsky, Vitaly Kaplan
Of course, the majority of people did not understand the full depth of the Christian teaching, but they accepted it in the simplicity of their hearts, out of trust. It is a distinctive characteristic of patriarchal societies: “This is what our elders did, and we will imitate it.” For example, the Tale of Bygone Years conveys this position as follows: if the prince, the boyars, and the armed force (“druzhina”) had not assessed this faith positively and had not considered it to be their own, then they would have had no reason to get baptized.
Maria Tobolova
Nun Maria spent almost half of her life—forty-four years—in seclusion and ended her days in the service of God in the angelic, that is, monastic rank.
The Holy Synod of the Moscow Patriarchate resolved to canonize another saint among the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church.