SKOBTSOVA, MARIA. Mother Maria Skobtsova (1891–1945) became a very unusual sort of Russian Orthodox nun in 1932. She did not join a monastic community or withdraw from her secular milieu, the Russian émigré community of France. Instead, she defined her way as "monasticism in the world."

For a nun, this lifestyle had little precedent in modern Orthodoxy and Mother Maria did not intend to set a new trend for others to follow. She needed and demonstrated a great deal of dedication, responding pragmatically to people's suffering rather than simply accepting a convent rule. As she put it, she saw "the true image of God in the human being [ … ] the very icon of God incarnate in this world" in each of the individuals she helped.

Mother Maria often criticized traditional Russian convents as inward-looking and defensive. This criticism provided the basis for her mystery play, Anna, composed in the...