"This is the first time a television serial has been filmed about the thousand-year history of the Russian Orthodox Church, shot with the blessing of Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II," said the press-service of the television channel.
We still know very little about the invaluable centuries-old experience of Orthodox society and its life, the spiritual exploits of great rulers, saints revered by all, and individual believers whose modest but sincere service for the good, protected the moral dignity of the Fatherland, it is believed on the channel.
Viewers will be shown events from the appearance of St Andrew the The First Called on Russian soil to the execution of the last Russian emperor, Nicholas II, and his family in Yekaterinburg in 1918, from the battle of the field of Kulikovo (in the upper reaches of the River Don on September 8, 1380 Russian regiments led by Moscow Prince Dmitry, who was later called for this victory "Donskoi" fought against Mongol-Tatar troops led by Khan Mamai. The defeat of the Mongol-Tatars in that battle marked a prologue to the liberation of the Russian and other peoples from the yoke of the Golden Horde) to the fighting on the Kursk Bulge during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45, and from the era of the great church schism (when part of believers who did not recognise the church reform of Patriarch Nikon in 1653-56 separated from Russian Orthodox Church) to GULAG prisons, the press-service said.
The historical scope of the narrative is matched by the geographical range of shooting - from Ukrainian-Belarussian lands to the Far East (Kiev-Pecherskaya Monastery, Valaam, the Solovki Monastery, the Great Novgorod, etc.), including orthodox centres in France, Estonia and Turkey.
To each episode of the serial Alexy gives a compact and laconic characteristic of the epoch concerned, and turning-point events of the times described, and their unbreakable ties with modernity.
Comments by other projects contributors - clergymen, well-known church historians, theologians, and secular researchers - impart to the film particular depth and authenticity, the press-service believes.
