Hélène Iswolsky

Hélène Iswolsky (Елена Александровна Извольская, born in 1896, Tegernsee, Germany - died in 1975, Cold Spring, New York, United States) was a Russian noblewoman, anti-communist political refugee, writer, translator and journalist. Raised Russian Orthodox, Helene was received into the Catholic Church in France and later became an oblate, taking the name Sister Olga.

American novelist Flannery O'Connor, who "used to go with her nephew", later described Iswolsky as, "a Catholic of the Eastern Rite persuasion and sort of one-man Catholic ecumenical movement."[1]

Biography

Hélène Iswolsky was born in 1896 in the family of Alexander Izvolsky, a Russian diplomat of the Russian imperial government in different countries of Europe and Japan from 1894 to 1910, then as Minister of Foreign Affairs, and from 1910 to 1917 as Ambassador to France. Hélenè was the niece of the Procurator of the Holy Synod, Peter Izvolsky. When the First World War started, Hélenè Isvolsky was in Berlin traveling from Russia back to her family in France, where during the war she took care of the wounded. She earned a living by working in French magazines, translating from Russian to French and English, and from French to Russian (among others, the philosophical works of Nicholas Berdyaev). In 1923 Isvolsky converted from Orthodoxy to Eastern Rite Catholicism. The rite of joining the Catholic Church was in a Benedictine monastery, where she met Russian-born nuns Paula and Eustochia Komarov (mother and daughter).

In 1931 Isvolskaya went to Nagasaki (Japan), where she got married and became Baroness R. Ungern-Sternberg, but the marriage was unhappy and in 1932 she returned to Paris and since then used her original name only.

In 1941 Isvolsky moved from France to the United States. She stopped in New York City, where the first time received support from the Tolstoy Foundation. Here she met with Irma Manziarli, a man of unusual fate. Irma was born in Saint Petersburg, her parents were German Protestants. She married an Italian and lived in France, then some time in India, in the Himalayas, where she studied Eastern religions.

During meetings at the home of Manziarli had the idea of publishing an ecumenical magazine. Among the founders of the magazine were so different and people like Vasily Janowski, writer and doctor, Arthur Lourie, composer and converted to Catholicism, and Alexander Kazembek, party leader of the Mladorossi. The magazine title - "The Third Hour" - was taken from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2. 4-17). The first issue was published in 1946 in three versions: English, Russian, and French. There were published ten issues, the last one came out in 1976, after the Izvolskaya's death, and it was dedicated to her. The purpose of the magazine was to unite all Christians - Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants. The magazine published the work of authors such as Simone Weil, Edith Stein, Mother Maria Skobtsova, Teilhard de Chardin. It was attended by eminent scholars Jacques Maritain, Karl Barth, and Jean Daniélou. When it became possible, Elena visited Russia. Initially, with Dorothy Day she traveled by train from Moscow to Vladivostok.

Then, in 1961 made the journey by car along the route Leningrad - Novgorod - Moscow - Vladimir - Tula - Eagle -Kharkiv - Poltava - Kiev. In Moscow, she visited the tomb of Vladimir Solovyov, where have some land (in December 1975 in Tivoli, New York, the land has been put in her grave. In the United States Elena joined the social movement Catholic Worker. In her 60s Izvolskaya lived at times in Tivoli that housed the village community movement. Not far from the Tivoli was a small Benedictine monastery, and Elena began to take an active part in the spiritual life of the monastery. In 1972, the monastery was moved to Cold Spring, near Tivoli. In the summer of 1974 she finally moved from New York to Cold Spring, to be closer to the monastery. The brothers helped her carry things, a library, an extensive archive. Elena Izvolskaya died in 1975, on Christmas Eve, in a hospital near Cold Spring. Shortly before her death, she became an oblate of the Benedictine monastery of Regina Laudis with the name Olga.

Works

Light before dusk. Russian Catholics in France, 1923-1941

Soul of Russia

American Saints

Christ in Russia. History, traditions and life of the Russian Church

Our Lady of Guadalupe phenomenon

The Diary of a Russian Priest, by Alexander Elchaninov, translated by Helen Iswalsky, London, 1967

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References
  1. The Habit of Being: The Letters of Flannery O'Connor, page 97.
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