Seraphim the wonder-worker, pray that Russia will lead the way back to holiness

Saint Seraphim, who died in 1833, was one of the greatest ‘starets’ (holy elder in a Russian monastery).  Even a fearsome bear was calmed enough by his sanctity to receive food from his hand.

Here is a quote of St. Seraphim’s:

"When despondency seizes us, let us not give in to it. Rather, fortified and protected by the light of faith, let us with great courage say to the spirit of evil: ‘What are you to us, you who are cut off from God, a fugitive for Heaven, and a slave of evil? You dare not do anything to us: Christ, the Son of God, has dominion over us and over all. Leave us, you thing of bane. We are made steadfast by the uprightness of His Cross. Serpent, we trample on your head.’ "

Austin Ruse – consistently the best commentator on the United Nations – has an essay on the current Russian government’s efforts to withstand the secular nuttiness of that organization and of the Western elites.

And the historian Philip Jenkins puts the recent controversy over the female punkers at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour into better perspective.