Female images - faces in old Russian hagiography

The article considers female hagiography based on certain types of holiness inherent in each of the central figures of the narrative. The study presents generalized biographical information about the Holy Martyrs Vera, Nadezhda, Lubov and their Mother Sophia, about the Holy Great Martyr Catherine, about the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Princess Olga, about the Holy Blessed Princess Anna Kashinskaya, the Righteous Yuliana Lazarevskaya. We have noted the adherence to the hagiographic canon in the depiction of canonized saints and possible changes in later female hagiography. Emphasis is made on the images primarily of the martyrs and the righteous women, which are associated with the chronology of the genre's deployment from the 2nd to the 17th centuries. We draw attention to the evolution, when moral (“spiritual”) suffering gradually replaces bodily torment and murdering. An analysis of the female hagiography contributed to the development of a concept that unites the monuments of ancient Russian literature cited in the work, according to which those who sincerely love and believe in Christ cannot be broken.