Lidya Golovkova

GolovkovaLidya Golovkova, a graphic artist by training, from 1994 teaches at the Department of contemporary history of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Orthodox St Tikhon University. Her field of studies includes the martyrs and confessors of the twentieth century, repression, the history of prisons and concentration camps in the USSR. She has conducted research on the papers of those condemned for religious motives and on the places of mass execution. She has collaborated in publications on the trial of Patriarch Tikhon and on an encyclopedic dictionary of new martyrs and confessors in Kazakhstan.


The Testimony of Love and Mercy of St Elizabeth Feodorovna

The human and spiritual figure of great duchess Elizabeth Fedorovna, wife of great duke Sergej Aleksandrovič. After the assassination of her husband Elizabeth founded the monastic community of Martha and Maria, in which the nuns united the striving of a spiritual life with service to the needy.  After the revolution Elizabeth was arrested and killed together with the nun Barbara on 18 July 1918. In 1992 the two were canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church among the neo-martyrs and confessors. In particular, her last days will be examined on the basis of archival documents and findings at the place of martyrdom.