Moscow's New Nuns

Moscow’s new nuns

Directed by Beate Neumann | 2010 | NDR | WDR | arte

Russian-Orthodox faith in Russia has been gaining strength since the end of the Soviet Union. Five women of three generations have all made the conscious decision to give up their secular lives for a life in the Abbey. They used to be architects, philosophers, engineers or jurists but now they are Moscow’s New Nuns. For many years, the bishopric within a stone’s throw from the Kremlin in Moscow, served as a Soviet prison. By now, reconstruction has begun and the Abbey already opened the doors to an ever growing parish. With the new nuns, faith has returned to the old ruins of the Fifth Abbey.