Yuri Arabov | Martyria

Ars Christiana No. II (XVI) / 2023 ‘The Monk and the Demon’: a philosophical take on ‘Stan Pățitul’ Elena Dulgheru

The Monk and the Demon (2016), the final film by Russian director Nikolai Dostal, based on a screenplay by Yuri Arabov, is a dramatic comedy blending folk parable, hagiographic fable and theological inquiry into the relationship between man and the devil, set in a nineteenth-century monastery. Following monk Ivan and the demon Legion through a series of fantastical adventures culminating in Jerusalem, the film raises the provocative question of whether fallen angels can be humanised through love and repentance.

Ars Christiana No. I (XV) / 2023 ‘The Miracle’ – a film about a miracle performed by Saint Nicholas that shook the Soviet Union Elena Dulgheru

The film Ciudo/The Miracle (2009), directed by Aleksandr Proșkin from a screenplay by Yuri Arabov, recreates the miracle known as ‘Zoya’s Stiffening’, which took place in 1956 in Kuibyshev, at the height of Khrushchev’s anti-religious campaign. This historical epic traces the reactions of various social groups — a journalist, a party propagandist, a priest, Khrushchev himself — to a miracle that defies state-sanctioned scientific atheism, offering a reflection on faith, lies and collective repentance.

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