St Maria of Paris - A Bride of Christ
Embodied Faith
In the waning days of the Second World War a little-known Parisian artist, philosopher, defender of the dispossessed, and Orthodox Christian nun took the place of a fellow prisoner at Ravensbrück concentration camp and was led to a gas chamber to die.
In a world torn apart, that nun—Mother Maria Skobtsova—remained to her final moments a rock of truth and a well-spring of peace, preaching the Gospel with her pen, her paintbrush, her love of the poor, and her martyrdom at the hands of the Nazis.
“I know, I know with all my being, with all my faith, with all the spiritual force granted to the human soul, that at this moment God is visiting His world.”
— St Maria, Insights in Wartime
A Living Sacrifice
A Hymn in Honour of St Maria
When wicked men had seized you, holy martyr Maria
And sought to kill you for your righteous deeds,
They cast you into the gas chambers of Ravensbrück.
Yet you did not despair to die a martyr of God,
But like the three holy youths amid the furnace
You placed your hope in the Living God.
The prison camp became the Church.
The prison rags became most-holy vestments.
The prisoners became most-beautiful ikons.
The walk to the chambers became a glorious procession.
The chamber floor became your altar of love.
The clouds of gas became your offering of incense to God,
Rising up to meet Him as pure worship;
An aroma of greatest sweetness.
Therefore, pray fervently to Him that our souls may be saved.
“I was simply staggered when I saw her for the first time in monastic clothes. I was walking along the Boulevard Montparnasse and I saw: in front of a café, on the pavement, there was a table, on the table was a glass of beer and behind the glass was sitting a Russian nun in full monastic robes.”
— Metropolitan Anthony Bloom about St Maria
