![Boris Gleb astride](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Boris_Gleb_astride.jpg)
In
Eastern Christianity
Eastern Christianity comprises Christian traditions and church families that originally developed during classical and late antiquity in Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, Asia Minor, the Caucasus, Northeast Africa, the Fertile Crescent and ...
, a passion bearer ( rus, страстотéрпец, r=strastoterpets, p=strəstɐˈtʲɛrpʲɪts) is one of the various customary titles for saints used in commemoration at divine services when honouring their feast on the Church Calendar; it is not generally used by Catholics of the Roman Rite, but it is used within the
Eastern Catholic Churches
The Eastern Catholic Churches or Oriental Catholic Churches, also called the Eastern-Rite Catholic Churches, Eastern Rite Catholicism, or simply the Eastern Churches, are 23 Eastern Christian autonomous (''sui iuris'') particular churches of th ...
.
Definition
The term can be defined as a person who faces his or her death in a Christ-like manner. Unlike
martyr
A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...
s, passion bearers are not explicitly killed for their faith, though they hold to that faith with piety and true love of God. Thus, although all martyrs are passion bearers, not all passion bearers are martyrs.
In Eastern Orthodoxy
Notable passion bearers include the brothers
Boris and Gleb
Boris and Gleb ( orv, Борисъ и Глѣбъ, ''Borisŭ i Glěbŭ''; russian: Борис и Глеб, ''Boris i Gleb''; ua, Борис і Гліб, ''Borys i Hlib''), Christian names Roman and David, respectively ( orv, Романъ, Да ...
,
Alexander Schmorell
Alexander Schmorell (; russian: Александр Гугович Шморель, translit=Aleksandr Gugovich Shmorel', ; 16 September 1917 – 13 July 1943) was a Russian-German student at Munich University who, with five others, formed a resist ...
(executed for being a member of the
White Rose
The White Rose (german: Weiße Rose, ) was a Nonviolence, non-violent, intellectual German resistance to Nazism, resistance group in Nazi Germany which was led by five students (and one professor) at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, ...
student movement which wrote and distributed
Samizdat
Samizdat (russian: самиздат, lit=self-publishing, links=no) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the document ...
that denounced
Nazism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
), Mother
Maria Skobtsova
Maria Skobtsova (20 Old_Calendar.html"_;"title="_Old_Calendar">_Old_CalendarDecember_1891_–_31_March_1945),_known_as_Mother_Maria_(russian:_Мать_Мария),_Saint_Mary_(or_Mother_Maria)_of_Paris,_born_Elizaveta_Yurievna_Pilenko_(),_Kuz ...
, and
the entire Imperial Family of Russia, executed by the Bolsheviks on July 17, 1918.
Byzantine Catholicism
Following the
collapse of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...
, the surviving Russian Catholics, many of whom were directly connected to the Greek Catholic community of
Dominican Sisters founded in August 1917 by Mother
Catherine Abrikosova, began to appear in the open. At the same time, the martyrology of the
Russian Greek Catholic Church
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, alt =
, caption = Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
, abbreviation =
, ty ...
began to be investigated.
In 2001,
Exarch
An exarch (;
from Ancient Greek ἔξαρχος ''exarchos'', meaning “leader”) was the holder of any of various historical offices, some of them being political or military and others being ecclesiastical.
In the late Roman Empire and ea ...
Leonid Feodorov
Leonid Ivanovich Feodorov (russian: Леонид Иванович Фёдоров; 4 November 1879 – 7 March 1935) was a Studite hieromonk from the Russian Greek Catholic Church, the first Exarch of the Russian Catholic Apostolic Exarchate of R ...
was
beatified
Beatification (from Latin ''beatus'', "blessed" and ''facere'', "to make”) is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a deceased person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in their nam ...
during a
Byzantine Rite
The Byzantine Rite, also known as the Greek Rite or the Rite of Constantinople, identifies the wide range of cultural, liturgical, and canonical practices that developed in the Eastern Christianity, Eastern Christian Church of Constantinople.
Th ...
Divine Liturgy
Divine Liturgy ( grc-gre, Θεία Λειτουργία, Theia Leitourgia) or Holy Liturgy is the Eucharistic service of the Byzantine Rite, developed from the Antiochene Rite of Christian liturgy which is that of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of C ...
offered in
Lviv
Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine ...
by
Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...
.
In 2003, a
positio
In the Catholic Church, a ''positio'' (''Positio super Virtutibus'') is a document or collection of documents used in the process by which a person is declared Venerable, the second of the four steps on the path to canonization as a saint.
Des ...
towards the Causes for
Beatification
Beatification (from Latin ''beatus'', "blessed" and ''facere'', "to make”) is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a deceased person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in their nam ...
of six others of those whom Fr. Christopher Zugger has termed, "The Passion bearers of the
Russian Catholic Exarchate":
Fabijan Abrantovich
Fabian Ivanovich Abrantovich (Fabijan Abrantovič; russian: Фабиан Иванович Абрантович, be, Фабіян Янавіч Абрантовіч, pl, Fabian Abrantowicz; September 14, 1884 – January 2, 1946) was a prominent ...
,
Anna Abrikosova,
Igor Akulov
Igor Alexandrovich Akulov (Epiphany, Epiphanius; 13 April 1897, Novo-Nikitskaya, Korchevsky County, province of Tver — 27 August 1937, Leningrad) originally a Russian Orthodox monk, later a priest of the Russian Catholic Church and victim of Jose ...
,
Potapy Emelianov
Potapy Emelianov (c. 1889, Ufa Governorate, Russian Empire – 14 August 1936, Nadvoitsy, Segezhsky District, Karelian ASSR, USSR) was a monastic priest, or Hieromonk, from the Old Ritualist tradition within Russian Orthodoxy who entered the Russi ...
,
Halina Jętkiewicz, and
Andrzej Cikoto
Archmandrite Andrei Tsikota MIC ( be, Андрэй Цікота, Andrej Cikota, pl, Andrzej Cikoto, also Andrew Cikoto; ; was submitted to the
Holy See
The Holy See ( lat, Sancta Sedes, ; it, Santa Sede ), also called the See of Rome, Petrine See or Apostolic See, is the jurisdiction of the Pope in his role as the bishop of Rome. It includes the apostolic episcopal see of the Diocese of Rome ...
's
Congregation for the Causes of Saints
In the Catholic Church, the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, previously named the Congregation for the Causes of Saints (), is the dicastery of the Roman Curia that oversees the complex process that leads to the canonization of saints, pa ...
by the Bishops of the
Catholic Church in Russia
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.
Passion bearers
Unified Church
*
Boris
*
Gleb Gleb ( Russian and be, Глеб) or Hlib ( uk, Гліб) is a Slavic male given name derived from the Old Norse name ''Guðleifr'', which means "heir of god." According to another version, the name Gleb comes from the name Olaf. It is popular in Ru ...
*
Doulas
*
George the Hungarian
20th century Orthodox Passion bearers
*
Eugene Botkin
Yevgeny Sergeyevich Botkin (russian: Евгений Сергеевич Боткин; 27 March 1865 – 17 July 1918), commonly known as Eugene Botkin, was the court physician since 1908 for Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra. He sometimes ...
*
Romanovs
The House of Romanov (also transcribed Romanoff; rus, Романовы, Románovy, rɐˈmanəvɨ) was the reigning imperial house of Russia from 1613 to 1917. They achieved prominence after the Tsarina, Anastasia Romanova, was married to t ...
(
Nicholas
Nicholas is a male given name and a surname.
The Eastern Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Anglicanism, Anglican Churches celebrate Saint Nicholas every year on December 6, which is the name day for "Nicholas". In Greece, the n ...
,
Alexandra
Alexandra () is the feminine form of the given name Alexander (, ). Etymologically, the name is a compound of the Greek verb (; meaning 'to defend') and (; GEN , ; meaning 'man'). Thus it may be roughly translated as "defender of man" or "prot ...
,
Olga,
Tatiana
Tatiana (or Tatianna, also romanized as Tatyana, Tatjana, Tatijana, etc.) is a female name of Sabine-Roman origin that became widespread in Eastern Europe.
Variations
* be, Тацця́на, Tatsiana
* bg, Татяна, Tatyana
* germ ...
,
Maria
Maria may refer to:
People
* Mary, mother of Jesus
* Maria (given name), a popular given name in many languages
Place names Extraterrestrial
* 170 Maria, a Main belt S-type asteroid discovered in 1877
* Lunar maria (plural of ''mare''), large, ...
,
Anastasia
Anastasia (from el, Ἀναστασία, translit=Anastasía) is a feminine given name of Greek origin, derived from the Greek word (), meaning "resurrection". It is a popular name in Eastern Europe, particularly in Russia, where it was the most ...
,
Alexei)
*
Alexander Schmorell
Alexander Schmorell (; russian: Александр Гугович Шморель, translit=Aleksandr Gugovich Shmorel', ; 16 September 1917 – 13 July 1943) was a Russian-German student at Munich University who, with five others, formed a resist ...
References
Types of saints
Groups of Eastern Orthodox saints
{{Orthodoxy-stub