Today, the Russian Church celebrates the feast of all the saints of Russian lands. Conventionally, the reign of Tsar Ivan IV is divided into two parts: productive and unproductive. St. Metropolitan Makary of Moscow (d. 1563) beneficially influenced the tsar during the first part of Ivan’s reign. The Council of One Hundred Chapters took place in 1551, attempting to harmonize the realities of church life with its ideal. Metropolitan Makary canonized new saints and established today’s feast as part of this process. This feast, on the one hand, was a marker of a mature Russian Church. On the other, it could be interpreted in the spirit of Russian superiority over other Orthodox. This latter sense manifested itself in the Old Believers’ schism. Be this as it may, with time, this celebration came out of the practice. The liturgical commission of the All-Russian Church Council, which took place in 1917-1918, suggested restoring the annual commemoration of the synaxis (all the saints) of Russian lands. The service was composed by the Russian Egyptologist Boris Taraev, Professor of Petrograd University, member of the Imperial Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences, and Holy Confessor Afanasii (Sakharov), at the time of the council a priest-monk and later Bishop of Kovrov. The head of the liturgical commission, Metropolitan Sergii (Stragorodskii) of Vladimir and Shuiia, added to the service a troparion of his composition (“Iako zhe plod krasnyi…”). On September 8, 1918, the council approved the raw draft of the new service, and on September 20 of the same year, the council finished its work. The service and feast's character differed from the 16th-century features. The service had a penitential character asking for forgiveness from the builders of Holy Rus’. At the same time, this feast became a marker of the new identity where sanctity and not monarchy became a common denominator. The service was printed in limited numbers. Nevertheless, the feast became popular. Since it was impossible to build new churches in Soviet Russia, only churches inside other buildings were dedicated to the feast. Similar processes were taking place among the Russian refugees. In Russia the service was reprinted within the context of church life following a meeting between Joseph Stalin and Metropolitan Sergii (Stragorodskii) in 1943. In 1946, the service was printed for general use. Professor of Leningrad Ecclesiastical Academy Lev Pariiskii edited the text for publication removing all the references to the new martyrs. Prof. Taraev died in 1920 from the famine or, according to other accounts, from dysentery. St. Afanasy (Sakhorov) continued his work on the service even after its censored text (which did not consider his revisions) was published. St. Afanasy’s service was published in the 1990s. Now, when the adjective “Russian” may invoke various connotations, it became common to serve these days to the saints of local lands: the British, the Americans, and so on. In one of his radio sermons, Archbishop Seraphim (Ivanov, d. 1987) of Сhicago called July "the month of the Russian saints." It is extraordinary to celebrate this feast, which usually takes place the second week after Pentecost, that late! There is also a noticeable difference in liturgical minds in the Russian Church and the Russian Church Abroad. Because of St. John the Forerunner's birth, this year, on the second Sunday after Pentecost, the feast for all Russian saints has been moved to the third Sunday. In the Russian Church, they celebrated this feast last Sunday. I noticed the same discrepancy with the celebration of St. John of Shangai and San Francisco, whose memory is on the same day as Apostle Judas. It is left on the same day in Russia, and in the Russian Church Abroad, St. John's memory has been customarily moved to the Saturday before June 19/July 2. | 
