“But the one who endures to the end will be saved”

December 23, 2024

The holy confessor schema-nun Anna (Stoliarova) of Sreznevo passed away on this day in 1958.

Starting in August this year, I have posted more than one hundred reports here, and I do not recall writing about a female figure in any of them. The Byzantine world was a male-dominated word. The term anthropos, “human being,” is a masculine noun (o anthropos). Byzantine society was male-dominated – women did not have an independent role. This is seen from the example of St. Irene (752–803), who became the first empress to reign independently. As a result, Charlemagne used this fact as a pretext for his coronation on December 25, 800, in Rome, by Pope Leo III.

Therefore, I am glad to change this pattern. At the beginning of the twentieth century, most of the Russian population was rural. People were mostly born and died in the same region where their ancestors lived. This is the case of Anisia Gur’evna Stoliarova.

She was born on January 12, 1895, in the village of Zapol’e, Spasskii district, Ryazan province, into a peasant family. There were four children in the family. Anisia stood out among them for her piety and love for worship. She spent her free time in the church, learning liturgical hymns, helping with cleaning and baking prosphora. She had a wonderful voice and from an early age she sang in the choir and read psalms.

At the age of 17, with her parents' blessing, she entered the Ol’khovskii Monastery near the village of Gavrilovskoe, Shilovskii District, Ryazan Province. In this monastery, she was tonsured into the lesser schema with the name Agnia and served in the choir.

In 1920, after the monastery was closed, Nun Agnia returned to her native village and settled in a small gatehouse near the church to continue her monastic labors in the world. At the same time, the future new martyr Abbot Philaret (Priakhin) brought the miraculous icon of the Mother of God, Our Lady Surety of Sinners, to Our Lady of Kazan Church in the neighboring village of Sreznevo. Abbot Filaret settled next to Our Lady of Kazan Church, and Mother Agnia became his spiritual daughter.

In 1931, on the Sunday of Pentecost, Abbot Philaret was arrested, as were, a few days later, Mother Agnia, then the rector of the church Hieromonk Sergii (Sorokin), also a new martyr.

A total of 38 people were arrested. The Soviet secret police (OGPU) had compromised Fr. Filaret as the leader of the “Filaretite” counter-revolutionary group of monarchist churchmen. They also were accused of joining the illegal monastery in the village of Sreznevo, Ryazan Region, in 1931 and were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment.

On October 9, 1931, a troika at the OGPU for Moscow Region sentenced Agnia Stolyarova to three years in prison. Mother Agnia did not admit to any of the charges brought against her.

In 1934, having served her sentence, Mother Angia returned to her homeland. The church in Zapol’e was closed, and Mother Agnia came to the village of Sreznevo, where she became a psalm-reader in the Church of Our Lady of Kazan and a custodian of the miraculous icon of Our Lady Surety of Sinners. She continued to live a monastic life in the same gatehouse. Soon, Father Sergii (Sorokin), who had returned from the camps, was again appointed church rector in the village of Sreznevo. At that time, when the churches all around were closing, Sreznevo became a center. There, solemn religious processions took place, and people remembered beautiful singing. Mother Agnia was known to monastics throughout Ryazan Region. Both holy fools and blessed ones gathered in Sreznevo. This did not go unnoticed by the authorities.

On the night of November 22, 1937, Hieromonk Sergii was arrested, and during the day, Mother Agnia was taken away. They were accused of continuing anti-Soviet agitation (formally, people were not charged in the USSR for believing in God). Hieromonk Sergii Sorokin was sentenced to death, and Mother Agnia to ten years in a concentration camp. She served her sentence in Kazakhstan, Kamchatka, the Far East, and Siberia.

Mother Agnia’s humility and meekness disarmed vicious people. Long years of hard labor did not break Mother Agnia spiritually, but they undermined her health. One day, she became seriously ill, and a priest was sent to her from a neighboring barracks for confession. The priest predicted she would still serve the Queen of Heaven and die in the Virgin Mary’s arms.

Knowing her angelic character, the female camp commander decided to leave Mother Agnia to care for her children. She worked for three years, conscientiously raising the children, and prayed at night. Mother Agnia miraculously preserved a paper icon of the Holy Great Martyr Barbara, before whom she offered her prayers. Once someone touched her shoulder, she turned around and saw the Great Martyr Barbara in an unearthly radiance, who reassured her that she would soon be in Sreznevo at the miraculous icon. And so it happened. The camp commander was arrested, and Mother Agnia was sent home.

In 1950, she returned to Sreznevo and settled in the gatehouse for the third time. Mother Agnia became a psalm-reader and sang in the choir. After World War II, many nuns settled near the church in Sreznevo, and Mother Agnia became like the abbess of a small monastery in the world. She established a monastic rule among the sisters. They walked in a religious procession around the temple, reading the prayer rule of the Mother of God. At night, they prayed on their knees. There was strictness in everything, and at the same time, true Christian love. Mother Agnia had a special love for the children who might come to the church.

In the surrounding villages, she was revered as a saint. The faithful would come to Mother Agnia for consolation and spiritual advice. The Lord opened her spiritual eyes. The nuns repeatedly saw her talking with the Mother of God.

Mother Agnia met the maiden Maria (later Schema-nun Marianna, the custodian of the miraculous icon), as if she had known her all her life and had been waiting for this meeting.

After her release from prison in 1950, mother Agnia lived for eight more years. The authorities kept an eye on her, doing everything to make her life as difficult as they could.

In 1958, Mother suddenly fell seriously ill: she was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. At this time, Mother Agnia took the Great Schema with the name Anna.

She had a torturous death from malnutrition in the arms of Maria. And when it seemed that she had died, Mother Anna suddenly rose up and, with wide-open eyes, looked up, quietly smiling, and whispered: “I see…!” The day was December 23, 1958. The ascetic mother was buried with a large gathering of residents of the surrounding villages and hamlets. Schema-Archimandrite Seraphim conducted the funeral service for Mother Anna from the church in the village of Sushki.

On January 16, 1989, she was rehabilitated by a Ryazan Regional Prosecutor’s Office decree concerning the 1937 repressions. On May 7, 2003, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church canonized her as a new martyr and confessor of the Russian Church.

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The First Christian Codification of Laws

The Western part of the Roman Empire adopted the Theodosian code on this day in 438.

Bust of Byzantine Empreror Theodosius II (reigned 408–450 AD). Marble, 5th c. Louvre, Paris

After Emperor Theodosios I (379–395) died, the Empire was divided between his sons. Honorios ruled the East, and Arcadios ruled the West.

Theodosios II was Honorios’ son. He was a man of learning surrounded by the dominant figures of his wife Eudokia and sister Pulcheria. He also invited Nestorios to take the see of the Archbishop of Constantinople. Emperor Theodosios is known for erecting the walls around Constantinople (on the photo). They would last until 1453 (but did not survive the artillery of Mehmet II).

The Theodosian legislation encompassed all Christian laws of the Empire issued since Emperor Constantine the Great’s Edict of Milan (313). The collection, which came out almost one hundred years before Emperor Justinian’s Institutes, became an important milestone in the formation of Byzantine law. There is no contemporary notion of separation of church and state found in the codex. The legislators proceeded from the perception that these laws were for a Christian Empire and the clergy enjoyed a special status, while the rights of heretics, pagans, and Jews were limited. The new laws thus became a marker of the irreversible Christianization of the empire.

Sources

A Chronology of Byzantine Empire, Timothy Venning ed. (New York, 2006);

Sil’vestrova, “Kodeks Feodosiia,” Pravoslavnaia entsiklopedia

Relevant Resource
”The End of Antiquity: Talban Style Orthodox Zealots in Alexandria”