The Saint Euphrosynos Cafe

The stories of Stalin visiting Matrona (or Matronushka, as the MP likes to call her) have been denounced as spurious by many of even her most fervent admirers and followers. There is a whole body of stalinist "Orthodox" legend, mostly dealing with events at the time of World War II (the &q...

I'm very sorry if this upsets anyone, but St. Matrona of Moscow is not venerated nor recognized as a saint by any of the True Orthodox jurisdictions of Russia. There are many unorthodox elements in her life, and it is considered suspect and spurious by many within the Moscow Patriarchate as well. Sh...

At Lesna we do it like this: Monday: after the 50th psalm and the litia of the saints, read the 1st biblical ode up until the verse where you start reading the canons (this is indicated in most liturgical Psalters, in which the Biblical odes are collected together at the end, usually it's the last 1...

The prayer of St. Epraim is read for the first time tonight, at Vespers on Tuesday evening of Cheesefare Week.We begin chanting from the Triodion on Sunday evening at Vespers, and there are special services for Wednesday and Friday of this week, almost identical with the Great Lent services, with th...

To clarify: Jean Serge is right, the spirit of the Russian Exarchate is very ecumenical, and I doubt anyone there will consider joining any True Orthodox group. We (the Lesna Monastery) know many people from the Exarchate, and have old friends amongst them, and they have been sharing their worries a...