The Martha-Mary Convent

St. Elizabeth was a grand daughter of Queen Victoria of Great Britain and Ireland, and the sister of the last Czarina Alexandra. Following the assassination of her husband, the Grand Duke Serge, in 1905, she became a nun. This short work sets forth in the Grand Duchess’s own words her vision for monastic life in inner city early twentieth century Moscow. The style is very different from that of better-known monastic rules, as for example of St. Benedict. Through it the reader is offered a glimpse into the daily life of this short-lived but fruitful outreach to the poor of pre-revolutionary Russian society. A short life of the new martyr, murdered by the Bolsheviks, is provided at the end of the work. Well illustrated with black and white photos.