So I was looking at some iconography online, and I came across this one saint (or rather, I don't think he's been canonized yet, as he is really recent). He is called Martyr Evgeny Rodionov, and he was a Russian soldier in Chechnya who was beheaded because he would not convert to Islam, and would not remove his cross. Had been captured by the Cheschnyan soldiers, and was executed on his 19th birthday. I'm more than likely not doing him justice with his story, so check this link out. Because he is quite recent (I believe he martyred in 1996) there are photo's of him, just like Mother Maria Skobtsoba. It's like getting a window into a saints life, to see what they actually looked like.
When we were at a monestary when Fr and I were at the Byzantine music workshop, we had the privlage to venerate some relics that they had there (and there were some really big saints, like St. John of Damascus, St. George, the 40 Martyrs of Sabaste to name a few) and it struck me, especially looking at the bones of some of they 40 Martyrs of Sabaste, that these were real people. We forget that the saints lived and breathed as we did, and we're alive like we are. It's really easy to forget their humanity and they were real people, not just characters of legends and stories.
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