THIS YEAR we commemorate the 150th anniversary of the outbreak of the tragic Crimean War, and much media attention has been paid to this fact, so it seems appropriate that we should include the following article, submitted by one of our parishioners:

THE PLACE

CRIMEA, a large peninsula on the northern Black Sea coast is now part of independent Ukraine, though it has its own autonomous administration and is strongly Russian in language and culture. Its Orthodox inheritance is most interesting and stretches back to the earliest Christian period.

The name Crimea (Krim in Russian) is of Tatar origin and in ancient, classical times the area was called Tauris or Tauric Chersonese. The area south of a formidable mountain range, stretching across the middle of the peninsula, came under Roman rule and was an important Byzantine trading centre until the Tatar conquest in the 14th century. The principal city and diocese was Chersonesus, whose excavated remains are next to the modern port of Sebastopol.

HISTORY

The Christian history of Crimea stretches from the time of the holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called, through the period of Roman persecutions, Byzantine and then Tatar (and therefore Muslim) rule, until the liberation by Russia in 1783 A.D. After a peaceful and prosperous period as part of “New Russia” - as the conquests of Empress Catherine II’s great general, Prince Grigory Potemkim, were called - Crimea had to suffer the full force of Soviet “power.” Many Orthodox martyrs bore witness in the 1930s and large numbers of churches and monasteries were desecrated or destroyed. In addition, a whole people, the Crimean Tatars, were deported as war criminals and their culture and spirit broken. Only now, with the end of Communist rule, can the rebuilding of Orthodox hearts and holy places begin again.

HOLY APOSTLE ANDREW

The tradition that Saint Andrew visited the northern shores of the Black Sea is an old one. Even the sceptical Czech historian Dvornik considers it not only probable but much more likely than the later traditions connected with St Clement of Rome or Saint Andrew’s visit to the hills of Kiev.

However, Crimea was not the place of the Apostle’s martyrdom, and there are no particular holy places there associated with him, though he is said to have visited Kerch, Feodosia and Chersonesus.