Jeanne Kormina, Sergey Shtyrkov The Female Spiritual Elder and Death: Some Thoughts About Contemporary Lives of Russian Orthodox Saints Jeanne Kormina - Assistant Professor at the Higher School of Economics, St Petersburg (Russia), kormina@eu.spb.ru Sergey Shtyrkov - Senior Researcher, Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Kunstkamera); Assistant Professor at the European University at St Petersburg (Russia), shtyr@eu.spb.ru In the contemporary Orthodox hagiography the special type of saint has formed - blazhennyie staritsy ("blessed female spiritual elders"). In some respect this type of sainthood succeeds to traditional "folly for the sake of Christ". Yet the staritsy have their distinguishing features, and the main such feature is incurable disease such as blindness or motor function disorder. The meaning of such disorder can be interpreted as a sign of permanent liminality and the person's divine election. It indicates that while being alive she also belongs to the world of the dead (or the next world). The creation of these iconic narratives can be seen as attempts to democratize hagiographical canon by including some folk religious motives and images. Such folklorisation' of the genre of church hagiography expresses the idea that Orthodox faith has deep roots in the popular religiosity and therefore can be accessible to common people. Keywords: anthropology of religion, Orthodox saints, contemporary hagiography, female sainthood, body, death. On a SPRING day in 1952, Matrona Nikonova, a 67-year-old Muscovite woman, felt death approaching and asked to call a priest. At confession, "she was very worried," and when the priest asked: "Are you really afraid, too page 107death?", answered: "I'm afraid" " 1. This short dialogue, which is included in the official version of the life of the blessed old woman Matrona, is always accompanied by an explanatory comment from the publishers - for example, that the priest was very surprised ... Read more