Shamordino Convent

Finally, as a last resort, they were divided up and sent to various locations of forced labour and imprisonment throughout the Soviet Union in the hopes that total isolation would break their will and that they should submit to their captors.

The main points of John Noble's account are that they show that the wills of at least these three surviving nuns were unbroken, though they had by now been undergoing afflictions and punishments for some 25 years or so.

Moreover, they displayed astounding courage and strength: when subjected to torture, namely being placed in straitjackets that were extremely tight so as to cut off circulation, though writhing in agony they simply moaned quietly until they passed out.

The camp commander, in a desperate bid to either get them to comply or die, then instructed them to be put outside in the snow on a hilltop in the winds of winter, and force them to stand there motionless for the full 8-hour workday and watch the other women prisoners work.

After that point, at least until John H. Noble's release, they were allowed to stay in a room by themselves, make habits for themselves, and were taken off punishment rations, being left in peace to observe their religious rule of prayer and communal life.

While they have not been officially glorified (recognized as saints), they are commemorated on November 12[5] on the Julian Calendar by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) which is in union with the Moscow Patriarchate.

Hence, here also, the veneration of many "unofficial" Orthodox confessors and martyrs who courageously refused to bend to the oppression of the Soviet State is exemplified and encouraged by the iconography that has arisen.