Street in Paris was named after the Russian nun

Today, March 31, in the XV district of Paris, the opening ceremony named after Maria Skobtsova - nun, poet, icon painter, participant in French resistance took place.

As Interfax was told in the Korsunsky diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church, Maria Skobtsova Street adjoins Lurmel Street, which housed the Orthodox Association, founded by Mother Maria.

The native of Riga, Elizaveta Yuryevna Skobtsova, during the Civil War, went abroad, in the mid-1920s settled in Paris, in 1932 she took monastic tonsure, receiving the name of Maria.

She was engaged in charitable and preaching activities: she organized a hostel for single women in Paris, a vacation house for recovering tuberculosis patients in the Paris suburbs of Nuisi-le-gran, in 1935, on the initiative of the Monki Maria, a charity and cultural and educational society “Orthodox business” was created.

During the Nazi occupation of Paris, the hostel of the nun Mary on Lurmel Street became one of the stern of resistance, asylum for Jews and prisoners of war.

In 1943, the mother of Maria was arrested by the Parisian Gestapo, and in March 1945 she died in the Ravensbruk camp. There are several versions of her death. According to one of them, on March 31, 1945, she entered the gas chamber instead of another woman.

In January 2004, Mother Maria was canonized by the Patriarchate of Constantinople as a Martyr.

To assign one of the streets the name of the Russian nun offered the vice-mayor of the XV District of Paris on cultural heritage and new technologies Gislen Fonladoss. The municipal council of the city hall unanimously voted for this decision.