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The Svyato-Spassky Convent in Kostomarovo is an ancient cave monastery located about 150 kilometers south of the town of Voronezh, just 3-hours drive away. There are two churches in these caves: a big Spassky temple with columns and a small St. Seraphim Sarovsky church. The Spassky temple burrows deep into the chalky cliff to form a spacious interior that can house up to 2,000 people. According to legend, the first cave temples were built on the banks of the Don river, before the adoption of Christianity in Russia. Hermits and monks would use these ascetic cave cells to hide from persecution and it wasn’t until the 12th century that the first monastery was built. The monastery was built with the intention of providing parishioners a place to take refuge in case of enemy attacks and even sustain a long-term siege. Within the walls of the shrine were cut small cells for monks and hermits to live. Their only contact with the outside world was through a little window cut into t...

France is creating its Easter Island with a timeless saga set in stone. Year after year new statues adorn a Breton Hill, are a tribute to the founders of Christianity in this region, from the north come monks, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Cornwall: St Tugdual, Saint Hernin, St. Gildas, St. Brieuc, St. Malo. Breton that is a project that has gone on for over fifteen years and "the statues are very much in fifty years. This project aims to create a thousand monumental statues between 3 and 4 meters high, in blocks of granite. In 1999 the philosopher and lay missionary, Philippe Abjean founded what is called the "Valley of the Saints," to immortalize the monks, "a site ready for eternity" in those days say emphatically. The idea is to fill the valley with a thousand monumental statues between 3 and 4 meters high, in the Breton granite blocks. At the time we got to fifty.  The project is fascinating, but challenging: every statue now costs 13,000 euro an...