national park research project high school

National Parks Lesson Plan: Research a National Park

This lesson plan, adaptable for grades 3-12, invites students to explore BrainPOP resources to learn about America’s National Parks, from the history of why they were established to how they provide shelter for endangered species, showcase natural wonders , and more.  Then students will select one National Park and and conduct further research to present to the group.

Lesson Plan Common Core State Standards Alignments

Students will:.

• Brainstorm what they know about National Parks.
• Research one National Park featured in the movie or not.
• Use Make-a-Map to identify National Parks and their features.
• Share research with small group, through a visual presentation, such as Make-a-Movie
• Internet access for BrainPOP
• Interactive whiteboard
• Class set of Web Graphic Organizer (alternative to Make-a-Map)

Preparation:

If students will be working offline, make copies of the Web Graphic Organizer .  

Lesson Procedure:

• Ask students to share what they know about the National Parks. This could be anything from the role the Parks play protecting wildlife to the natural wonders they showcase. Jot their responses on the board.
• After students brainstorm, explain that today they will watch a movie about the National Parks that describes what they are, the role they play, and more.
• Show the movie National Parks on the whiteboard or other large display to the whole class.
• Next, have students open Make-a-Map from the National Parks topic page. Instruct them to choose the Structure Map template or make their own. If students are not using individual computers, distribute the Web Graphic Organizer to complete offline.
• Now invite students to watch the movie again on their own devices. As they do, have them make note on their concept maps of National Parks mentioned in the movie and features that make them special or unique. For example, Bryce Canyon’s rock formations and Carlsbad Canyons’ mineral formations. Suggest they pause the movie as they take notes. Remind them that they can include images and movie clips in their organizer (if they’re using Make-a-Map).
• Divide the class into small groups of four or five. Within each group, have students each select a different National Park to research. Students may use approved web sites as well as offline resources to conduct their research. Encourage them to research facts such as when and why the park was established, where it’s located, its natural features, etc.
• Then, have students use their research to create a BrainPOP-style movie about their National Park using Make-a-Movie .
• Finally, have students present to their groups.

Extension Activities:

• Have students test their knowledge of natural resources by playing Sortify: Natural Resources .
• Divide the class into groups of six. Assign each person in the group a different National Parks Related Reading to read. Then have them share what they learned with the rest of the group

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National Parks Project

Our national parks project.

Crater Lake National Park

 In this exciting project, you and your partner will be researching a National Park. There will be several components to this project which you will be completing along with your partner.   Use the "Research Resources" links to begin your research. 

Research Resources

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Science in the Wild: The Legacy Of the U.S. National Park System

As the National Park Service marks its centennial this month, the parks are being celebrated for their natural beauty and priceless recreational opportunities. But they also provide a less recognized benefit: the parks serve as a living laboratory for critical scientific research.

By Jim Robbins • August 24, 2016

In a small cabin that serves as the Glacier National Park climate change office, Dan Fagre clicks through photos that clearly show the massive glaciers that give this park its name are in a hasty retreat. “There was a hundred square kilometers of ice in 1850,” Fagre, a United States Geological Survey researcher who has studied the glaciers of Glacier since 1991, explains. “We are down to 14 to 15 square kilometers, so an 85 to 86 percent loss of ice in the park. There’s no doubt they are going to disappear unless some massive cooling happens,” he says, which isn’t likely.

The flows of mountain streams and rivers throughout the park will dwindle as their sources melt. And one species that will dearly miss the ice-cold runoff from the glaciers is the meltwater stonefly, an insect that’s only found in a few glacier-fed streams in the park. It will likely disappear when the glaciers vanish, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says. As the United States marks the centennial of the National Park Service, which was officially established 100 years ago this week, the nation’s parks are being widely celebrated for their natural grandeur and vistas, their wildlife, and their abundant recreational opportunities. Far less appreciated though is the critical role that the U.S.’s 59 national parks and hundreds of other park service units play in scientific research, providing unspoiled, protected, and accessible landscapes that host research that can be done few other places. In fact, with a long history of data and field study on everything from wildlife to wildfires, the national parks offer scientists an incredibly rare living outdoor lab. And the high profile of the parks in the American imagination often provides an avenue for conveying that research to the public. Science and scientific education have long been a key part of the National Park Service’s mission. Research in the parks has blossomed to the point where there currently are scientists working in about 289 of the 412 national park units (which include national monuments and historic sites), conducting some 4,000 experiments. Since 2000, there have been 28,000 studies. The work falls into two main categories — research done to aid park management, and more general research on issues that range from climate change to ecological restoration, and even on new products such as medicines or industrial materials, and technologies. “Our lands are the least impacted in U.S.,” says Kirsten Gallo, chief of the park service’s National Inventory and Monitoring Division, the agency that oversees park research. There is a lot of research seeking to understand the “reference” conditions in national parks, she says, which serves as a baseline indicating the original natural variability of ecosystems and providing a guide for ecological restoration elsewhere.

The parks are playing a key role in research to determine how climate change will impact protected ecosystems.

These days, climate change, which President Obama has called the greatest threat to the nation’s parks, is one of the park service’s most important science missions. The parks currently are playing a key role both in global climate research and in efforts to determine how climate change will impact protected ecosystems — from the glaciers of Glacier National Park in Montana, to the giant forests of Sequoia National Park in California, to the East Coast beaches of Assateague Island National Seashore — and in finding possible ways to adapt. Patrick Gonzalez, principal climate change scientist for the National Park Service, says the intact natural landscapes of parks provides climate researchers with a picture of how natural ecosystems, free from most kinds of human influence, are responding to warming. One important study, part of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s research, focuses on biome shifts, which are major vegetation formations that are on the move — north, south, or up slope — to stay within their preferred temperature range. They are key indicators of a warming planet. “Research in Yosemite has documented a shift of sub-alpine forest into sub-alpine meadows,” Gonzalez said. “Research in Alaska has found a northward shift of boreal forest onto tundra. Both have been attributed to human climate change and not other factors because they have happened in national parks that have not been affected by grazing, logging, and other local human disturbances.” A century ago, when the National Park Service was established, University of California at Berkeley biologist Joseph Grinnell advocated study of the parks to better manage them. Without scientific investigation of the animal life in the parks, “no thorough understanding of the conditions of the practical problems they involve is possible,” he and biologist Tracy Storer wrote in the journal Science in 1916. Grinnell and Storer also predicted that development across the country would someday render the parks “the only areas remaining unspoiled for scientific study.” Yellowstone, the country’s first national park, has one of the most robust scientific programs of any national park, largely because of its size, intactness, and unusual natural features. The research mission there is shared by a staff of scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), which does much of the research in national parks, and outside researchers from universities and other institutions.

Yellowstone was important to researchers even before it was a park. One of the first major scientific expeditions was by USGS geologist Ferdinand Hayden in 1871, a year before Yellowstone National Park was created by President Ulysses S. Grant. A key area of focus for today’s research in Yellowstone is the hunt for the unusual microbial life — microbes called extremophiles — that inhabits the extreme conditions of the hot springs. The major discovery in these steaming waters in the 1960s was a species of bacteria called Thermus aquaticus , or Taq. An enzyme later isolated in Taq revolutionized DNA fingerprinting by allowing inexpensive and rapid amplification of DNA. Yellowstone has about two-thirds of the world’s geothermal features, and few are as pristine as those found in the park. “It’s important that it’s protected because you don’t have people swimming in it — that has value to science,” said Brent Peyton, director of the Thermal Biology Institute at Montana State University. One of the most unique wildlife research projects ever conducted has been the return of wolves to the elk-rich landscape in Yellowstone. Once regarded as a menace, wolves were hunted to extirpation in the Northern Rockies in the mid 20th century, but were reintroduced by federal biologists in 1994. Since then, careful study of the wolf packs (now numbering 12) on Yellowstone’s wild landscape has given researchers a deep look at what happens to an ecosystem when an apex predator returns. It has also provided a rare look at what takes place in packs as they re-establish and evolve on a landscape where human influence, especially hunting, is virtually absent. A hunted wolf, says National Park Service wolf biologist Doug Smith, is a very different animal than a protected Yellowstone wolf. Shooting wolves is “scrambling your omelet constantly,” he said. “By killing wolves you are rearranging packs and their social structure on a routine basis.” That is no small matter. Outside the park, some 90 percent of wolves are shot and trapped. Among the lessons learned on the protected landscape of Yellowstone, is that wolf packs can persist for twenty years or more in the wild, that older males are essential to packs for their wise ways, especially in battles against other packs, and that for some reason, wolves with black coats have a stronger immune system than those with gray coats. Other researchers in Yellowstone have documented the wolf-caused trophic cascade — the major downstream impact of wolves on elk populations and behavior and how that has altered everything from aspen and willow growth to the numbers of beaver.

The 1963 Leopold Report found wilderness parks were best managed as a “vignette of primitive America.”

Yellowstone has also given us much of the recent science of fire behavior on large wild landscapes. After the historic blazes of 1988 swept through Yellowstone and burned nearly 800,000 acres (more than a third of the park), and the ashes cooled, scientists began to decipher what had occurred. Dozens of experiments were undertaken to study everything from the explosion of biodiversity after a fire to how quickly forests recover. And because this work was done in what is arguably the most iconic of U.S. parks, the results have been thoroughly covered by the media and exposed to a vast audience than usually hears little about fire science. The fundamental wildfire lesson was that, as Yellowstone Superintendent Bob Barbee put it to me at the time, “Nature does not destroy herself.” Fires in fire-dependent western ecosystems are as essential as rain and sun for healthy forests and are how the landscape is renewed. Yellowstone is also where nature broke out of its box. In the early 1960s, Secretary of Interior Stewart Udall charged a committee to come up with a plan to better manage the large wild national parks. It resulted in the 1963 Leopold Report — named after Starker Leopold, the biologist son of famed naturalist Aldo — which concluded that the wilderness parks were best managed ecologically as a “vignette of primitive America.” It was the beginning of what is now called “natural regulation.” That means that understanding ecological principles and allowing them to operate should guide the management of parks. After two attacks on campers in Glacier in 1967, for example, both Yellowstone and Glacier ended the feeding of bears in garbage dumps and elsewhere, enabling the animals to become re-acclimated to the wild. Biologists, based on research in those parks, have since established procedures for keeping bears wild and away from people, for the sake of both species. It’s a model that has been adopted all over the world. But the greatest ecological lesson of Yellowstone science is that the park, as big as it is at 2.2 million acres — the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined — is not nearly large enough to sustain many of the species that live there, from elk to grizzly bears to antelope and a wide spectrum of migratory birds. The park itself is just the core of the apple. What’s important, scientists now realize, is not just acres of ground, but natural systems. The wide-ranging grizzlies, for example, need the summer swarms of ladybugs and the fall crop of white bark pine nuts high in the park, as well as the succulents that grow along low-lying rivers well outside the park in the spring. The high profile of parks and the role they play in educating the public about key scientific issues is not to be underestimated, experts say.

“We’ve had an impact on people’s view of climate change with these photographs of melting glaciers,” the USGS’s Fagre told me. “It really resonates more with people because of the emotional content of Glacier’s name.” Citizen science, the involvement of volunteers in collecting data, is also a growing part of the National Park Service’s efforts. In one nationwide project, hundreds of school kids captured dragonfly larvae in 40 national parks to test them for mercury and see if the levels posed a risk to humans. Because parks are relatively pristine, they provide a strong signal of how much and how far airborne mercury has spread around the country. Much of the park service’s scientific mission is, unfortunately, chronicling the demise of some of the treasures the parks were set aside to protect. That’s particularly true around Yellowstone, where — because of increasing development, visitation, and recreation — the ecosystem continues to be fragmented. And then there are the impacts of climate change. Forests throughout the National Park system are dying, from the whitebark pine of Yellowstone, to the bristlecone pines of Great Basin in Nevada, to the Joshua trees of Joshua Tree in California. Scientists working in parks are conducting “future vulnerability assessments” on how climate-related changes will impact wildlife — from desert bighorns to salamanders — as well as forests, wildfire behavior and other natural phenomena. These assessments are expected to lead to adaptive measures. “We might start irrigating the sequoias,” said Nathan Stephenson, a USGS ecologist at Sequoia National Park who is in charge of charting a future for the massive trees. “Or we might build a giant fuel break around the great sequoias so if a fire came toward the grove we could defend it.” The National Park Service hopes to pioneer these measures, which can then be used elsewhere. The parks are widely seen as among the most important modern-day biological arks in the U.S. — not only for the species that live there, but for species that might someday have no other place to go. American pikas, for example, a relative of the rabbit that lives in boulder fields high in the mountains, are disappearing in some of their lower-elevation redoubts in and out of the parks. Among the possible pika refuges being studied are the higher and colder peaks of mountains in Olympic, Rocky Mountain, and Mount Rainer national parks. Scientists are also looking at how protected migration corridors can be created between parks and other federal land as species move in response to warming. There are no plans, though, to protect the dwindling glaciers of Glacier, by covering them with blankets say, as has been done in Europe. “It’s too expensive,” Fagre says. Instead, he and others he will simply monitor and measure the glaciers as they most certainly vanish over the next few decades. “They are probably already doomed,” he said.

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3 Ways the National Park Service Can Support PBL

Teachers can access a variety of resources from the National Park Service to set up engaging project-based learning units.

While many teachers are aware of the benefits of high-quality project-based learning (PBL), delivering those experiences to students isn’t always easy. Teachers are often especially concerned with challenges like authenticity, honoring individual students, and elevating student work outside the classroom. I’ve seen these challenges, inherent in the facilitation of real-world learning, come up time and time again and trip up even the most dedicated teachers. 

During the summer, I work as a facilitator for the National Park Service (NPS) Teacher Ranger Teacher Program , a professional development program where classroom teachers work in parks across the country and create learning resources for the parks that they can then bring back to their classrooms. My work over the past two years has brought me into contact with educators from throughout the United States and its territories. In the process, I’ve been introduced to examples of collaborations between schools and parks that provide solutions to some common PBL problems. Here are three examples of the power of collaborations between classroom educators and national parks.

1. Use Classroom Projects to Connect Students to Their Community

If what students learn has little perceived relevance to the world directly outside the classroom, projects suffer. Not only does that cut into the authenticity of a project, but in subjects like history—where the content can focus on places and events that don’t reflect the culture of the students in your classroom—it can send the subtle message that they and their lived experience aren’t significant. Connecting learning back to a student’s own community counteracts this notion and contributes positively to skills like mathematical thinking and reading comprehension .

The Buffalo National River in northern Arkansas, the first waterway designated a national river, is home to hundreds of years of human history and thousands of stories. To support the efforts of the NPS to interpret the history of the region, students from Harrison Middle School created a video about one of the last residents of the area, Granny Henderson, by visiting her homesite and interviewing her descendants. This project not only helped develop key history and literacy competencies but also connected students to a story that had cultural parallels to their own.

2. Maintain Individual Voice in a Group Project

Large-scale products, such as school gardens or collaborative murals, are advantageous for several reasons: They save the teacher from having to manage and monitor multiple final products, and they leverage the collective effort of an entire classroom. However, the tradeoff is that you have to coalesce around a singular plan, meaning lots of compromise and the loss of individual student voice. 

In 2018, a group of Topeka, Kansas, artists worked with the National Historical Parks to create a community mural commemorating the Supreme Court’s decision in the case Brown v. Board of Education , which outlawed school segregation. Lots of community members, including a large contingent of students, contributed to the effort. To ensure that individual voices and creativity were honored in the process, each collaborator was given a small section at the bottom of the mural to make their own. 

Setting aside space or creating an element that affirms individual ideas and contributions that weren’t incorporated into the main product helps ensure that all students see the value of their learning and view themselves in the final product.

3. Wide Visibility ensures That Students know their WORK is Impactful

A core component of PBL is showing students that their knowledge and expertise matters by making sure that their work is destined for somewhere other than the teacher’s filing cabinet. The culmination of their hard-won knowledge and skills should have an impact. If it doesn’t, this significantly detracts from the impact that a project can have. 

An example of this is writing a letter to an elected representative. While writing a formal letter like this is a great way to develop literacy and knowledge of civics, when the representative doesn’t reply (and they probably won’t), what message are the students getting about the value of the work if it has no observable impact?

Guaranteeing students a wider audience for their work means displaying it in a place where the people seeing it are interested in the content being shared. National park visitor centers are a perfect location for this. Lots of people stop by, and those who do are already expecting to engage with learning opportunities in the form of exhibits or displays.

Students from High Tech Middle School in San Diego displayed their research projects on local area animal species in the visitor center at Cabrillo National Monument , which meant they would get lots of interested viewers. Passive viewing is fine, but finding ways to encourage audience interaction is better. A collection of student photo essays at Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park included reflective questions for the audience to answer, along with a social media hashtag that the students could monitor to see the impact their work was having.

If you would like to learn more about how resources from the National Park Service might support PBL in your classroom, you’re in luck. Their education portal is a great place to start and provides information for all grade levels. You might also consider joining an online community of educators who are passionate about integrating parks into their practice.

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National Parks Research - 5th Grade

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In-Class Work - National Parks

• National Parks BINGO Get to know the national parks by playing a research BINGO game.
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• National Parks Scavenger Hunt Use WorldBook Online to learn about the national parks. Match each park to the correct fact and state that it is located in.
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Analysis: Studies of U.S. National Parks Are Trending Down, Focused on Popular Parks

For Immediate Release

Research conducted in U.S. national parks has focused largely on five iconic parks, with more than a third of academic papers focused on Yellowstone National Park , researchers from North Carolina State University found in a new analysis.

They also found that the number of publications per year increased during the 1990s and 2000s, but has dropped since 2013. The findings, published in the journal Conservation Science and Practice , were drawn from an analysis of nearly 7,000 published, peer-reviewed studies conducted at U.S. designated national parks since 1970.

“Looking at the data was a surprise and perhaps a wake-up call,” said the study’s lead author Jelena Vukomanovic , assistant professor of parks, recreation and tourism management at NC State. “Overall, there’s more research being published than ever before, but we’re actually seeing a decline in publications of research conducted in the national parks.”

In the study, researchers used the Web of Science database to analyze academic journal articles on national parks published between 1970 and 2018. While the National Park Service manages more than 400 properties including battlefields and national seashores, the researchers focused on 59 designated national parks. They excluded research on three newly established parks, and did not include reports published outside of peer-reviewed journals.

“National parks are large, relatively intact natural areas that serve conservation objectives and provide aesthetic and other connections between people and nature,” Vukomanovic said. “We wanted to look at what research was being conducted in national parks and what kind of biases there might be in our understanding of these unique and special places.”

They found more than half of all studies since 1970 have focused on five national parks – the parks that see the greatest number of visitors per year. Yellowstone accounted for 36.2% of studies; the Everglades represented 6.8%; Great Smoky Mountains accounted for 6.2%; Glacier represented 5.6%; and Yosemite was at 5.3%.

“We need to understand that this is the context behind the conclusions we come to about our landscapes,” said study co-author Josh Randall, graduate student in parks, recreation and tourism management at NC State. “Many of the findings – and their management implications – that we may apply broadly come from a small number of parks.”

The location of parks near research universities wasn’t necessarily linked to the amount of published research on them.

“We know that well-funded researchers can travel to interesting places that have unique phenomena,” Vukomanovic said. “We found some relatively understudied parks are close – within a day trip distance – from a lot of research universities. This is a call for future work on the drivers of research, which could help both park and university administrators identify and address barriers.”

More than half of studies were conducted in parks in northwestern forested mountains. Seventeen percent of studies were done in North American deserts, 10% were in eastern temperate forests, tropical wet forests represented 7% of studies and marine west coast forests were at 6%.

“The national parks of the east represent extraordinary biodiversity and cultural heritage,” Vukomanovic said. “How can we bolster research activity there?”

Life sciences research – and ecology and evolutionary biology studies in particular – made up the majority of park research, representing 60% of total publications.

Physical sciences and mathematics research made up 25% of studies, with the largest share of research in that field going to the earth sciences. Social and behavioral science research made up 8% of studies; engineering made up 3%; and education and multidisciplinary research made up 3%. The arts and humanities represented less than 1% of total research.

Researchers said availability of funding could be playing a role in the decline in publications per year since 2013, and should be studied further.

Federal agencies in the United States was the most commonly cited source of research funding. Notably, more than a quarter of research funding sources were based international internationally.

“These are the world’s living laboratories,” Vukomanovic said. “This interest from international sources speaks to the fact that everyone benefits from the research and knowledge that’s being garnered at the national parks. There could be opportunities for that to grow. How can we make it easier for international collaborators to work in national parks?”

Researchers said increasing availability of data from the national parks could spur research.

“This analysis offers a comprehensive overview that can be built on to shape future work, to identify and address research gaps and determine funding priorities,” Vukomanovic said. “It’s a blueprint to consider for the future.”

The study, “Research trends in U.S. national parks, the world’s ‘living laboratories,’” was published online in Conservation Science and Practice on March 30, 2021. The authors were Jelena Vukomanovic and Joshua Randall. The work was supported by the National Park Service award P17AC01439.

Note to editors : The abstract follows.

“Research Trends in U.S. national parks, the world’s ‘living laboratories”

Published online March 30, 2021, in Conservation Science and Practice

Authors : Jelena Vukomanovic and Joshua Randall

DOI : 10.1111/csp2.414

Abstract : U.S. national parks are essential public assets for preserving natural and cultural resources and for decades have provided natural laboratories for scholarly research. However, park research, and how it may be biased, has not been inventoried at a national scale. Such a synthesis is crucial for assessing research needs and planning for the future. Here, we present the first comprehensive summary of national park research using nearly 7,000 peer-reviewed research articles published since 1970. We report when and where these studies occurred, what academic disciplines were most represented, and who funded the research. Our findings show that publication rates increased rapidly during the 1990s and 2000s, but since about 2013 have declined. Over half of the studies occurred in five parks, with Yellowstone representing over a third of all studies, followed by Everglades, Great Smoky Mountains, Glacier, and Yosemite. Nearly half of the studies occurred in the Northwestern Forested Mountains ecoregion. The life sciences, particularly ecological studies, contributed the majority of park research, although the earth sciences dominated several arid ecoregions of the West. Federal agencies funded the largest proportion of research, followed by U.S. universities, non-profit organizations, federal programs (mainly the National Science Foundation), state agencies, and private industry. Over a quarter of the research was supported by international sources. Recent declines in scholarly output suggest that national park research directions and funding opportunities should be examined.

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National Parks Research Activities End of Year Project Includes Yellowstone

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This Visit a National Park research project will have your students so engaged, they won't want the activity to end! In this unit, students have the opportunity to plan a trip to a National Park, create a road map, write a research article, and so much more! What better way to have students use real-life math, reading, and writing skills than with this fun U.S. National Parks Activity? Now includes nonfiction reading passages and other bonus reading activities!

Click HERE to SAVE 25% with the PBL Activities Bundle for the Year!

Click the PREVIEW above to see everything included.

All of the hard work is done for you. Simply print the NO PREP pages, and let your students make the decisions in this fun U.S. National Parks Project Based Learning Unit!

This engaging National Parks research activity packet includes:

• Unit Guide for Teachers
• List of U.S. National Parks
• 6 Nonfiction Reading Passages & Questions
• Exploring National Parks Questions
• National Parks History Timeline Activity
• The Name Game
• Research the Park
• Planning the Trip
• Campfire Food
• Pack Your Gear
• Design a Park Ranger Badge
• National Park Math Mania (word problems)
• Park Selfies
• Park Snapshots
• Postcards from the Park
• Park Text Messages
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LR celebrates National Park week, engaging youth in history

by Cayla Christian

(Little Rock, KATV) — In honor of National Park week, with over 400 national historic units across the U.S., The Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site offered a special program for youth in the state.

The site gave youth hands on experience with history.

Rebecca Hoffman, a Park Guide for the Little Rock Central Highschool National Historic Site, shared the importance of studying what happened in the past.

"So important that young people understand our history so that we know where we come from. How far we have come. And how far we still have to go and also to make sure that the sacrifices of those who came before us are never in vein," Hoffman said.

They welcomed youth of all ages to learn not only about the importance of National Parks in general but the Civil Rights history here in the state as well.

"If you learn about history, you can make sure progress is being made forward from it," Junior Ranger, Gracie Diggs said.

Junior Rangers chose from drawings of prominent historical figures, participated in civil rights lessons and wrapped up with each Junior Ranger receiving a limited-edition badge depicting the Little Rock Nine in honor of the historic site's 25 years of their official National Park status.

"Today was a surprise adventure," Diggs said. "It can be a lot of fun to come to a museum and there's fun stuff to do other than walking around and learning," Diggs added.

Hoffman shared the reason they want to get youth involved in history.

"This history is so important for anyone to come and learn because it is a testament to strength, courage, opportunity, perseverance. What I like to remind people about the little rock nine is that they we're just kids who wanted to go to school, so it reminds us of the beauty and importance of education. And the fact that anyone can make a difference. It doesn't matter how old you are," Hoffman said.

The Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site will continue the Junior Ranger project throughout this summer, starting with the 60th anniversary of Brown vs the Board of Education.

For more information on the Junior Rangers program click here .

Study of the behavior of vver and pwr fuel irradiated in the hbwr reactor (halden, norway)

• Published: 23 March 2012
• Volume 111 , pages 413–421, ( 2012 )

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• B. Yu. Volkov 1 ,
• E. P. Ryazantsev 1 ,
• V. V. Yakovlev 1 ,
• A. K. Panyushkin 2 ,
• A. V. Ivanov 2 ,
• O. V. Kryukov 2 ,
• P. I. Lavrenyuk 3 ,
• Yu. V. Pimenov 3 &
• C. Vitanza 4  

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The methods, techniques, and results of comparative studies of VVER and PWR fuel tested in the HBWR reactor (Norway) are presented. Experimental VVER fuel elements with uranium dioxide fuel were fabricated at the Machine Building Plant (MSZ) (in Elektrostal) using standard technology; the experimental PWR fuel elements were fabricated according to the model specifications. The results obtained made possible a comparative evaluation of the changes in the thermophysical parameters and the heat and radiation resistance of the two types of fuel as well as the kinetics of the gaseous fission products as a function of the heat load and burnup.

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On the possibility of using uranium-beryllium oxide fuel in a VVER reactor

Multiple recycle of remix fuel at vver-1000 operation in closed fuel cycle.

New fuel types for thermal reactors in LOCA conditions

B. Volkov, H. Devold, E. Ryazantzev, and V. Yakovlev, In-Pile Data Analysis of the Comparative WWER/PWR Test IFA-503.1 , Final Report HWR-590, April 1999.

B. Volkov, E. Ryazantzev, V. Yakovlev, and H. Devold, “In-pile WWER fuel investigation in the Halden Reactor,” in: 3 rd Int. Sem. WWER Reactor Fuel Performance, Modelling and Experimental Support , Pamporovo, Bulgaria, October 4–8, 1999, pp. 158–164.

PIE of One WWER Fuel Rod from IFA-503-1 , IFE/KR/F-2004/064, April 2004.

B. Volkov, P. Strizhov, E. Ryazantzev, et al., Modelling of PWR and WWER Fuel Behaviour in Halden Comparative Tests Using the New Code SPAN , IAEA Techn. Comm. on Nucl. Fuel Modelling at High Burnup and Experimental Support, IAEA-TECDOC-1233 (2000), pp. 305–321.

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National Research Center Kurchatov Institute, Moscow, Russia

B. Yu. Volkov, E. P. Ryazantsev & V. V. Yakovlev

Machine Building Plant (MSZ), Elektrostal, Moscow Oblast, Russia

A. K. Panyushkin, A. V. Ivanov & O. V. Kryukov

TVEL Company, Moscow, Russia

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Translated from Atomnaya Énergiya, Vol. 111, No. 6, pp. 342–348, December, 2011.

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Volkov, B.Y., Ryazantsev, E.P., Yakovlev, V.V. et al. Study of the behavior of vver and pwr fuel irradiated in the hbwr reactor (halden, norway). At Energy 111 , 413–421 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10512-012-9512-y

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VLADIMIR SOLOVIEV prophet of Russia’s conversion

T HE conversion of Russia will not be the work of man, no matter how gifted he may be, but that of the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin Mary, the Mediatrix of all graces, because this is God’s wish, which he revealed to the world in 1917. The life and works of Vladimir Soloviev are a perfect illustration of this truth of Fatima. He whom our Father regards as « the greatest Russian genius of the 19th century », was in his own way a prophet of the “ conversion ” of his beloved Country, announcing the necessity of her returning to the bosom of the Roman Church. «  Rome or chaos  », such was his catchphrase, Rome whose anagram is not a matter of chance, but a providential sign, a definition: ROMA , AMOR . Led by this incomparable guide, we would like « to anticipate in our thoughts, our hearts and our prayers this consecration, this long-awaited conversion, which must mark the beginning of a time of sacred peace throughout the world, the beginning of the universal reign of the Most Blessed and Immaculate Heart of Mary, and through Her, of God’s Kingdom » (English CRC, December 1982, p. 23).

A PERSONAL CONVERSION

Through the example of his life, Soloviev recalls the indispensable means of this immense work: self-renunciation, personal and collective sacrifice, in Russian the podwig , the only way in which the Church, nations, saints and heroes can become the instruments of God’s designs. If he managed to surpass his master Dostoyevsky by his « truly universal Catholicism and far superior mystical vision », this was not without without a conversion of mind and heart on his part.

Our Father summarises the principal stages of his life as follows: « Born of an honourable Muscovite family, of part Kievian ancestry, Vladimir Soloviev began, in a world where only Germany counted, by being a victim of all the poisons of the West. He himself relates how he was a zealous materialist at the age of thirteen, had read Renan’s Life of Jesus at fifteen, and had become an evolutionist and therefore (!) an atheist and a nihilist at eighteen, in « It was Spinoza and then Schopenhauer who pulled him out of this bottomless void. Whereupon in 1872 a mysterious encounter with “  Wisdom  ” suddenly shook him out of the scientific naturalism in which he had been vegetating and made him aware, as he says, of invisible Beauty, the “  Sophia tou théou  ”, the daughter of God. He thus became the fervent witness of Wisdom’s indwelling in the world and of Her desire for total incarnation and universal queenship. His quest for wisdom, scientific, aesthetic and mystical, had commenced. He was nineteen years old. The quest would never end for this new style Russian pilgrim ; it would be of an unparalleled fruitfulness despite its touching brevity. He died of exhaustion in 1900, at the age ! » (English CRC, December 1982, p. 35)

We will limit ourselves in this article to his prophetic insights on the Union of the Churches. In his Lessons on Theandry (1878) – he was then twenty-five ! – our philosopher applies himself to contemplating the Wisdom of God at work in history, perfectly incarnated in Jesus and His virginal Mother, as well as in the Church as she awaits her eschatological transfiguration. The most serious sin, throughout this history, has been that of schism. Who is responsible for this vast Vladimir Soloviev began by throwing all responsibility for it on the Catholic Church, so much so that he provided the inspiration for Dostoyevsky’s famous “ myth of the Grand Inquisitor ” in The Brothers Karamazov . But, at the beginning of the 1880’s, through studying the question more closely, he understood that the sin of schism was in fact that of the East. This was a stroke of genius on his part for which our Father commends him greatly:

« I must beg pardon of my master Msgr. Jean Rupp, of Solzhenitsyn, Volkoff and so many others, but it seems obvious to to me, as it did to Soloviev in the end, that the schism of Moscow in setting itself up as the third Rome was the beginning of all the ills suffered by these admirable Christian peoples of European Russia . And I must say so because this rupture still weighs heavily on the world of today and because it is precisely of this rupture that Our Lady of Fatima speaks when She foretells “  the conversion of Russia  ”. (English CRC, December 1982, p. 24)

Let us follow Soloviev in his commendable mystical conversion which has opened up a path of light for his people, allowing a spring of grace and mercy to gush forth.

AN EVANGELICAL DISCOURSE

In 1881, Soloviev published a long article, still very antipapist, entitled Spiritual power in Russia . There the pope was presented as Antichrist institutionalised ! Our theorist placed all his hope in the regenerative mission of Holy Russia and in the Tsar who was to be her « divine figure, religious guide and animating wisdom ». But were the Russian people still capable of accomplishing such One particular event was to shake Soloviev’s patriotic faith. On March 1, 1881, Alexander II was assassinated by revolutionaries. A few days later, Soloviev gave a Discourse in which he recommended that his successor, Alexander III, show mercy to the regicides. Certainly not as a matter of weakness or abdication before the Revolution, even less out of the spirit of non-violence that a certain Tolstoy was already preaching, but « as an example of Russian piety », that famous podwig « which lies at the heart of the Russian people’s evangelical soul, of which the tsar is the living icon ». Alas, Soloviev was not understood... This was a painful stage in his life, the first step he had taken beyond his master Dostoyevsky.

The following year, he published another article entitled “  Schism in the Russian people and society  ”. Delving deep into the past, he accused Metropolitan Nikon of having broken, at the time of Peter the Great, the communion, the Sobornost , so beloved of the Russian people, by excommunicating Raskol, the fierce guardian of traditional popular religion... Ever since then, the Orthodox hierarchy, enslaved to the imperial power, had proved powerless to govern and sanctify Orthodoxy. It was nothing now but a shrunken, secularized “ local Church ” which, if it were to be restored and revived, would need to open itself up to “ the universal Church ”.

In the spring of 1882, Soloviev was powerfully affected by an unusual dream. In his dream he met a high-ranking Catholic ecclesiastic and entreated him to give him his blessing. The priest refused, so Soloviev insisted, declaring, « The separation of the Churches is the most disastrous thing possible. » Finally, the ecclesiastic agreed to give him his blessing.

This premonitory dream was to awaken in Vladimir Soloviev a burning desire for reconciliation with Catholicism, and to stimulate him to write a series of articles to be published every month in his friend Aksakov’s slavophile newspaper Rouss and then to be collected together in a work with the resonant title: The Great Controversy and Christian Politics . One particular maxim constantly reappeared under the Russian writer’s pen:

«  FIRST AND FOREMOST WE MUST WORK TO RESTORE THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH, AND TO MAKE THE FIRE OF LOVE BURN IN THE HEART OF CHRIST’S SPOUSE . »

By an irony of fate, the term “ Controversy ”, which for Soloviev referred to the conflict between Rome and the East, was going to give place to a bitter controversy between himself and his Orthodox and slavophile friends.

A MARVELLOUS AND ADORABLE WISDOM

T HE world’s beauty appeared to Soloviev as a living figure, a real existence, changing and yet immortal. He saw her and held her as the queen of his spiritual universe under her venerable name of Sancta Sophia . At the end of his life, in 1898, he celebrated the Three Encounters he had had with this Beauty which for him was Wisdom.

“ Three times in his life he had been overwhelmed by the radiant visit of Wisdom who appeared to him in the form of an absolutely heavenly female being, dazzling him and enlightening him profoundly. Not without reason certain authors think that all his religious and even philosophical works derive from this illumination. ”

And let us immediately point out, in order to acclimatize the Western reader who is highly likely to be disconcerted by these accounts, that trustworthy interpreters of Soloviev have attributed a marian character to these visions. For them, the whole of the Philosopher’s work derives from the AVE MARIA GRATIA PLENA . “ It is a marvellous perspective ”, adds Msgr. Rupp. “ Wisdom is closely allied to the Immaculate who is its seat. ” ( Le message ecclésial de Soloviev , p. 340)...

What I am going to say next will perhaps surprise my reader. Nothing is more biblical than this vision, and I am astonished at the astonishment of theologians and their impatient criticisms. This Sophia was already well known, hymned and even boldly adored by the scribes of the Old Testament under this very name of Wisdom. Far from being “ pantheist ”, this idea, this vision touches the essence of created beings, and is clearly poles apart from the Platonic idea and far more profound than Aristotle’s substance; it lies at the very heart of being, there where nothing exists except relationship to God, the term of a will and a wisdom that are infinite, there where exists a pure reflection, a fragment of the image of God’s beauty.

George de Nantes , A mysticism for our time , French CRC no. 133, p. 7.

THE GREAT CONTROVERSY

In January 1883, he fired the opening shots with an open letter to Aksakov: « As I reflected on the means of curing this interior disease (of Christianity), I became convinced that the origin of all these evils lies in the general weakening of the earthly organisation of the visible Church, following her division into two disunited parts. » He demonstrated that, in order to establish herself on earth and to endure throughout history, the Christian religion had need of a higher authority, and he explained that it was therefore essential to restore « the union of all Christian and ecclesiastical forces under the standard and under the power of one central ecclesiastical authority ».

On February 19, Soloviev gave a talk in homage to his master Dostoyevsky. It was almost a panegyric of the Roman Church ! He declared his ardent hope for the reconciliation of the two Churches, for the two parts of the universal Church which should never have been separated and whose centre lay in... Rome . As a result of this speech, he saw himself banned from speaking in public. The newspapers made no mention of his speech. For the first time, and it would not be the last, Soloviev was the victim of the censure of Constantin Petrowitch Pobiedonostev, Russia’s Grand Inquisitor and the Tsar’s adviser on religious matters. Pobiedonostev championed a sacral conception of political power, akin to that of the French legitimists of the time, but he was fiercely Orthodox, and any opening towards the Catholic religion was pitilessly censured.

Soloviev responded to this censure with a smile. So his speech had been described as « infantile chattering » ? « If we are not converted », he said to his friends, « and become like little children again, we will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. » He went on: « When I was a pretentious little boy [teaching German philosophy: Kant, Hegel, Fichte, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche], people listened with great respect to my “ truly infantile ” prattling. And now it is fitting that the only way I can attain the perfection of humility is by everyone ! »

At the same time, he wrote to Aksakov: « It is necessary to defend Catholicism against the false accusations being brought against it... Consequently, in advocating a reconciliation with Catholicism, I assume that Catholicism is not in principle erroneous, for one cannot be reconciled with error . » Now there we have a true ecumenism ! The life of Soloviev, writes our Father, « was ».

To the charge of “ papism ” levelled against him, Soloviev responded in March 1883 with an admirable profession of faith, already Catholic:

« It seems to to me that you concentrate only on “ papism ” whereas I focus first and foremost on the great, holy and eternal Rome, a fundamental and integral part of the universal Church. I believe in this Rome, I bow before it, I love it with all my heart, and with all the strength of my soul I desire its rehabilitation for the unity and integrality of the universal Church. And may I be accursed as a parricide should I ever utter one word of condemnation against the Holy Church of Rome . »

THE REALISATION OF THE DREAM

In May 1883, on the occasion of the coronation of the Emperor Alexander III, the Moscow press complained that too many concessions were being made to restore diplomatic relations with the Vatican broken in 1866, but Soloviev protested: such an agreement was necessary, were it only to improve relations with the Catholics of Poland. The Pope was represented at the ceremony by his special envoy Msgr. Vincenzo Vanutelli. Had not Alexander III written to Leo XIII shortly beforehand: « Never has unity between all Churches and all States been so necessary, in order to realise the wish expressed by Your Holiness of seeing the peoples abandoning the disastrous errors responsible for the social malaise and returning to the holy laws of the Gospel... »

A few days after the ceremony, Soloviev was crossing Moscow in a hired car. Suddenly, he recognized the route he had followed in his dream the previous year. Soon he came to a stop in front of a house from which a Catholic prelate was just leaving: it was Msgr. Vanutelli in person... There was the same hesitation of this latter to give his blessing to a schismatic, and the same entreaties of Soloviev, who finally !

In the summer of 1883, our author wrote two articles on The Catholic Question . According to Soloviev, it was for Russia to take the first step towards the Catholic Church. Imagine !

His articles were not of the sort to leave his readers indifferent. On the Orthodox side, there was an increasing irritation, while on the Catholic side, surprise soon gave way to enthusiasm. The news crossed the borders, spreading to Poland and even to Croatia, where Msgr. Strossmayer was finally seeing his desires realised. The jurisdiction of his diocese of Djakovo extended into Bosnia and Serbia, that is into Orthodox territory. Endowed with a superior intelligence and animated by great apostolic zeal, this Croatian bishop keenly felt the need for a true, intelligent and benevolent ecumenism. He wrote in 1883 to one of his friends, Father Martynov:

« In my opinion, the principal task of the Catholic Church and of the Holy See this century is to draw as closely as possible to the Slav nation, principally the Russian nation . By winning it over to the divine unity of the Catholic Church, we would at the same time win over everyone in the world who still possess a positive faith. »

IN THE RADIANCE OF THE IMMACULATE

In the summer of 1883, Soloviev wrote five long letters to a Russian Uniate priest on the subject of The Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary . At the same time he translated Petrarch’s “ Praise and prayer to the Most Blessed Virgin ”, wherein he contemplated Her “ clothed in the Sun, crowned with stars... Her glance radiating infinity ! ” It is highly significant that Soloviev was simultaneously attracted by the mystery of the Catholic Church and the mystery of the Immaculate Virgin. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception was the first Catholic dogma which he embraced, and his favourite painting was the Immaculate Conception by Murillo.

In The Foundations of the Spiritual Life (1884), he exalted the « All Holy and Immaculate » Virgin Mary. In Russia and the Church Universal (1889), he would praise Pope Pius IX for having quoted, in support of his dogmatic definition, the Old Testament texts referring to Wisdom, the “  Sophia  ” of his personal intuitions:

« If, by the substantial Wisdom of God, we were exclusively meant to understand the Person of Jesus Christ, how could we apply to the Blessed Virgin all those texts in the Wisdom books which speak of this Wisdom ? However, this application, which has existed from the very earliest times in the offices of both the Latin and Greek Churches, has today received doctrinal confirmation in the bull of Pius IX on the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin. » (quoted by Msgr. Rupp, Le message ecclésial de Soloviev, p. 338)

In September 1883, when the sixth chapter of The Great Controversy was published, a rumour spread through Moscow that Soloviev had “ passed over ” to Catholicism, but there was no truth in it. Moreover, curious though this may seem to us, he was not looking “ to pass over to Catholicism ”, but only to open Orthodoxy up to the universality of the Roman Church.

His seventh and final chapter aroused a lively debate, one that is ever topical. The question turned on the attitude of the Byzantine Greeks in conflict with the Crusaders of the West. Soloviev wrote: « On the day that Constantinople fell, seeing the Turkish armies poised to attack, the final spontaneously expressed cry of the Greeks was, “ Better Islamic slavery than any agreement with the Latins. ” I do not mention this as a reproach to the unfortunate Greeks. If, in this cry of implacable hatred, there was nothing Christian, then neither has there been anything especially Christian in all the formal and artificial attempts to reunite the Churches… »

Aksakov, his Orthodox pride deeply irritated by this remark, retorted: « What does he mean, nothing Christian ? May the Greeks be blessed a hundred times over for having preferred a foreign yoke and bodily torture to the abandonment of the purity of their faith in Christ and for having thus preserved us from the distortions of papism at the precise moment [ the beginning of the 13th century ! ] when it had reached the height of its deformity. May they win eternal glory for this ! »

Nonetheless, Soloviev continued his search for truth, surmounting every obstacle. His article “  Nine Questions to Father Ivantsov-Platonov  ” published in December 1883, created a deep stir even in the West. Here he put nine questions to his former master in Orthodoxy on those points of controversy which set the Church of the East against the Church of Rome. Here is the setting:

« How is it that the countries of the East are separated from the Roman Church ? Did the latter proclaim an heretical proposition ? One would be hard pushed to maintain this, for the addition of the Filioque to the Creed, which is put forward to justify the separation, does not have the character of a heresy. Furthermore, it is absurd to say that the Roman Church is in a state of schism with regard to the Eastern Churches. Thus, the latter’s separation from the former has no basis. Let us acknowledge this and, putting aside all human viewpoints, let us work towards Unity or rather let us work so that Unity, which already has a virtual existence, may become a reality. »

THE THREAD OF AN ANCIENT TRADITION

During 1884, the Russian philosopher studied Catholic dogmatics. He read the works of Perrone, the theologian of Gregory XVI and Pius IX, as well as the texts of the Councils. He was particularly interested in Popes Gregory VII and Innocent III, whom he read in the original text.

At the same time he had a great enthusiasm for the Croatian priest George Krijanich who « had come from Zagreb to Moscow in the 17th century to spread the ideal of the Holy Kingdom of God, Roman Catholic and panslavic, gathering together under the sceptre of the tsars and the crook of the Pope all the Slav peoples who would thereby be freed and protected from the twofold burden pressing them on both sides like a vice, the Germanic powers and the Turks. Thus the Croats would work to free themselves from Austrian control and at the same time they would assist the Serbs, their Orthodox brothers, to shake off Moslem domination.

« To realise this grand design, capable at one blow of powerfully advancing the Kingdom of God on earth, Krijanich came to Moscow and preached on the subject of Russia’s reconciliation with Rome . This should not be difficult, he said, because the Russians had only fallen into schism through ignorance and not through heresy or malice. He himself was already preaching that everyone should recognise their own individual faults, be they unconscious or involuntary, and the need for expiation. God’s blessings would follow as a result, immense and eternal blessings. Sergius Mikhailovich Soloviev, our great man’s father, a historian and the author of a monumental history of Russia, admired Krijanich as “ the first of the Slavophiles ” and also, in his eyes, “ the most paradoxical ”, so alien did Catholicism then appear to the Russian consciousness. » (English CRC, December 1982, p. 32)

Soloviev intended to prove the contrary. And it was just at this time that he entered into friendly relations with the Croatian Bishop Strossmayer, thereby resuming the thread of an ancient tradition, one which was apparently marginal but which in reality was pregnant with a splendid future. Early in December 1885, Soloviev for the first time received a letter from the Croatian bishop. He replied to him on December 8, “  the blessed Day of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin  ”:

« On the reunion of the Churches », he wrote, « depends the fate of Russia, the Slavs and the whole world. We Russian Orthodox, and indeed the whole of the East, are incapable of achieving anything before we have expiated the ecclesiastical sin of schism and rendered papal authority its due . » And he ended with these words: « My heart burns with joy at the thought that I have a guide like you. May God long preserve your precious leadership for the good of the Church and the Slav people. » In his pastoral letter of January 1886, the bishop of Djakovo quoted large extracts from this letter.

Encouraged by such support, in 1886 Soloviev undertook a study on Dogmatic development and the question of the reunion of the Churches , which provoked the fury of Orthodoxy. However, at a conference given at the ecclesiastical Academy of Saint Petersburg, Soloviev attempted to justify himself: « I can assure you that I will never pass over to Latinism. » He thereby sought to register his attachment to the Eastern rite. No question for him of adopting the Latin rite ! After that, he set out on a journey to Europe.

FIRST STAY IN ZAGREB (1886)

At the beginning of July, he was the guest of the honourable Canon Racki, President of the Yugoslav Academy of Zagreb, founded by Msgr. Strossmayer, and a personal friend of the latter. Every morning the Orthodox Soloviev assisted at the Catholic Mass with great enthusiasm. He made the sign of the cross in the Catholic manner, but prayed in the Greek manner, crossing his arms on his chest. He willingly admitted to his host – and this was not due to any desire to please on his part – that Croatian Catholics, like the Ukrainians, were more religious than his Orthodox compatriots !

Following an article published in the Croatian journal Katolicki List , Soloviev for the first time encountered opposition from a Catholic priest.

During his stay in Zagreb, he also published a letter in the Russian newspaper Novoie Vremia , wherein he refuted the widespread opinion in Russia that the Croats were the instruments of the Austro-Hungarian government’s attempt to Latinize the Eastern Slavs.

In August, he joined Msgr. Strossmayer in the Styrian Alps, and spent ten marvellous days with him. These two minds were truly made to get along. The mutual admiration they felt for one another reinforced their spiritual friendship. But Soloviev continued to receive Holy Communion at the hands of the Orthodox priest of the Serb parish of Zagreb... Rising above the inevitable criticisms, he then wrote a letter to Msgr. Strossmayer, summarising their initial conversations:

«  The reunion of the Churches would be advantageous to both sides . Rome would gain a devout people enthusiastic for the religious idea, she would gain a faithful and powerful defender. Russia for her part, she who through the will of God holds in her hands the destinies of the East, would not only rid herself of the involuntary sin of schism but, what is more, she would thereby become free to fulfil her great universal mission of uniting around herself all the Slav nations and of founding a new and truly Christian civilisation, a civilisation uniting the characteristics of the one truth and of religious liberty in the supreme principle of charity, encompassing everything in its unity and distributing to everyone the plenitude of the one unique good. »

Such was his transcription of the well known Catholic principle: «  In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas : unity in essentials, liberty in matters of doubt, and in all things charity . Such must be the Charter of Catholic ecumenism under the crook of the one Shepherd. From the start of this crisis, such has been the invitation we have made to our bishops and to our brothers. Today, it is also the will of the Holy Father », wrote our Father in his editorial for September 1978, dedicated to John Paul I, another Saint Pius X without knowing it (English CRC no. 102, p. 6).

When he informed his friends of Soloviev’s letter, Msgr. Strossmayer presented its author as « a candid and truly holy soul ».

Msgr. Strossmayer and Soloviev had agreed to meet again in Rome for the jubilee pilgrimage of 1888. The Croatian bishop decided to pave the way in Rome by writing to Leo XIII’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Rampolla. He presented his Russian friend as «  toto corde et animo catholicus  ». The Pope at first took a personal interest in the affair: « Here is a sheep », he said, « who will soon be clearing the gate of the sheepfold. » But curiously, there was to be no follow-up. It seems that Leo XIII failed to appreciate Soloviev’s genius... However, things were different in France, where an unassuming and ardent rural parish priest latched on to everything that his apostolic zeal could extract from the lightning advances made by the Russian thinker ( see inset , p. 19).

Soloviev returned to Russia at the beginning of October 1886, rather discouraged by the criticisms directed against him on all sides: there were the Orthodox, some of whom had accused him of bringing Orthodoxy into disrepute abroad... and certain Catholics, like Fr. Guettée in France, a modernist priest with little to commend him, whom he had met in Paris in 1876 and who had recently published an article of rare violence against him !

THE “ RETURN OF THE DISSIDENTS ”

June 18, 1887: a young Capuchin, Leopold Mandic, from Herzeg Novi in Bosnia, under the jurisdiction of Msgr. Strossmayer, and studying at the friary in Padua, heard the voice of God inviting him to pray for and promote the return of the Orthodox to the bosom of the one Church of Christ. «  The goal of my life , he would later say, must be the return of the Eastern dissidents to Catholic unity; I must therefore employ all my energies, as far as my littleness allows, to co-operate in such a task through the sacrifice of my life . » Fifty years later, he would still remember this grace: «  June 18, for the record: 1887-1937. Today, I offered the Holy Sacrifice for the Eastern dissidents, for their return to Catholic unity . » Thus the Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate united, in this one same “ ecumenical ” work, the ardent heart of a young Capuchin destined for the altars, the apostolic wisdom of a bishop and the brilliant intuitions of a great thinker.

In January 1887, from the Monastery of Saint Sergius where he had celebrated Christmas, Soloviev wrote an article in which he provided philosophic justification for the three Catholic dogmas which the Orthodox reject, namely the Filioque, the Immaculate Conception and papal infallibility . Here is a « basis for working towards the reunion of the Churches », he explained. A few months later, he published in Zagreb (on account of the censure directed against him in Russia) his book The History and Future of Theocracy .

There he retraced the vast movement of history towards the establishment of the Kingdom of God. Universal Theocracy, the successor of Jewish Theocracy, cannot be conceived, he explained, without an integrally Christian politics, and he concluded with a splendid anthem to Christ Pantocrator receiving from His Father all power on earth and in Heaven and acting through His emissaries, the Apostles and their successors. Soloviev always believed in the privileged vocation of Russia within the Catholic community of Christian nations, even if he stigmatized what he called “ the sin of Russia ”, which was to oppress and hate all those it dominated, in particular Polish Catholics, Greek Uniates, Ruthenians and Jews !

Like a true prophet, he was vigorous in preaching repentance to his people . In order that they might be faithful to their vocation within the great Slav family, Soloviev asked them to give up their inordinate ambitions, to return to a truer and more Christian conception of their destiny, and to accomplish this within the only international organization which could direct its course, Catholicism, that is to say Roman universalism.

«  One of my theses is that the cause of the Reunion of the Churches in Russia demands a podwig (sacrifice) even heavier to bear than that which, already demanding great self-denial, was needed to ensure Russia’s receptivity to Western culture, an event truly disagreeable to the national sentiment of our ancestors .

«  Well ! this sacrifice consists in drawing closer to Rome and it must be attained at all costs. In this lies the remedy for the Russian sin . »

It goes without saying that Soloviev earned himself new enemies with his book. It cost him great personal suffering, but he could not fail the Truth, which he contemplated with ever greater clarity... What greatness of soul this universal genius possessed !

SAINT VLADIMIR AND THE CHRISTIAN STATE

1888 marked the ninth centenary of the baptism of Saint Vladimir, the first prince of Kiev, whose kingdom after his conversion became « the model of Christian States, with evangelical morals », writes our Father (English CRC, December 1982, p. 23). Soloviev used the occasion to give a conference in Moscow, where he reaffirmed that Russia’s destiny was to turn towards Rome, as King Vladimir had ! However, having hardened itself in its schism, the Muscovite hierarchy was no longer animated by the spirit of St. Vladimir. Hence the fury of the Orthodox hierarchs !

At the same time, Msgr. Strossmayer had gone to Rome for the Jubilee. In vain did he wait for Soloviev there. The latter, fearing perhaps that he had made a definitive break with the Orthodox world which he dreamed on the contrary of winning for the Union, had given up the idea of making this journey. It must also be said that Vatican diplomacy hardly inspired more confidence in him. Leo XIII was revealing himself less and less slavophile, reserving his favours for the Germany of old Bismarck and the young William II ! Msgr. Strossmayer lamented this in a letter to Fr. Martynov: «  The Pope is acting against the Slavs. The Roman prelates are like people insane and think only of temporal power !  »

What a difference between Leo XIII and his successor, St. Pius X, who was, in the words of Msgr. Rupp and our Father, the greatest slavophile pope of our times !

Early in May 1888, Soloviev was on a visit to Paris. To explain his thinking to the French public, he gave a conference on the Russian Idea , « the true national idea eternally fixed in the design of God », who longs to spread His light over the whole world. However, Soloviev remained lucid about his own Church: « If the unity of the universal Church founded by Christ only exists among us in a latent state, it is because the official institution represented by our ecclesiastical government and our theological school is not a living part of the universal Church. »

In passing, he described the destruction of the Greek-Uniate Church by the Orthodox as a «  veritable national sin weighing on Russia and paralysing her moral strength  ». That is still the case today...

In July, Kiev celebrated the feast of the baptism of St. Vladimir. From Zagreb Msgr. Strossmayer sent a telegram in which he exalted Russia’s future role in the manner of his friend Soloviev. Scandal ! His remarks were universally reported by the press. Cardinal Rampolla informed the Croatian bishop that Leo XIII was seriously displeased ! The bishop of Djakovo also earned himself the bitter reproaches of Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria, which is more understandable given the rivalry existing between the two Empires.

In the summer of 1887, Soloviev published in the Universe , the newspaper of Louis Veuillot, three articles on St. Vladimir and the Christian State which caused a great stir. Then he journeyed to Croatia where he remained for one whole month with Msgr. Strossmayer. This meeting was rather sad, for the two friends were increasingly aware that their attempt to reunite the Churches would not succeed, at least in their lifetime.

It was in Djakovo that Soloviev finished the immense prologue to his magisterial book, Russia and the Church Universal , in which one can already glimpse signs of the discouragement that would overwhelm the thinker in the latter part of his life. We know from Fatima that the work of the conversion of Russia, something humanly impossible, has been entrusted to the Immaculate Heart of Mary who has a particular love for this Nation such as to inspire jealousy in others. But this only makes it all the more extraordinary that our prophet should have traced out the course of this conversion, like a true Precursor !

« RUSSIA AND THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL »

Soloviev does not hesitate to delve deep, extremely deep, into the past. To realise its designs in the world, divine Wisdom wished to become incarnate, and the Verb to take flesh like our own. As that was not enough, He also wished to unite to Himself a social and historical body, one that could reach the universality of mankind and communicate to all men His own divine Life. In this magnificent perspective, Soloviev compares the formation of that Body through which God wishes to be united with humanity to that effected in the womb of the Virgin Mary at the time of the Incarnation, and to that which operates every day in the Eucharistic mystery... What was needed for this work was a solid foundation, a Rock:

« This bedrock has been found », he writes, « it is Rome. It is only on the Rock [of Peter and his successors] that the Church is founded. This is not an opinion, it is an imposing historical reality . »

It is also an evangelical truth: «  You are Peter, and on this Rock I will build my Church . » Here Soloviev addresses the Protestants who seek to outbid each other in their attacks against the Primacy of Peter by quoting Jesus’ own words to His Apostle when he was obstructing the Master’s path: «  Get behind me, Satan !  » Soloviev’s response once again shows the clarity of his intelligence and his perfect knowledge of Catholic dogma:

«  There is only one way of harmonising these texts which the inspired Evangelist did not juxtapose without reason. Simon Peter, as supreme pastor and doctor of the universal Church , assisted by God and speaking for all, is, in this capacity, the unshakeable foundation of the House of God and the holder of the keys of the heavenly Kingdom. The same Simon Peter, as a private person, speaking and acting through his own natural forces and an understanding that is purely human , can say and do things that are unworthy, scandalous and even satanic. But personal defects and sins are passing, whereas the social function of the ecclesiastical monarch is permanent. “ Satan ” and the scandal have disappeared, but Peter has remained.  »

Soloviev’s doctrine agrees with that of Vatican Council I and with that of our Father who, at the same time as he makes us venerate Peter’s magisterium, magnificently illustrated by Blessed Pius IX, St. Pius X and John Paul I, accuses John XXIII, Paul VI and John Paul II of being instruments of “ Satan ” for the ruin of the Church.

However, Christ wished that it should be around Peter that the unity of faith and charity should be formed: «  Since the unity of the faith does not presently exist in the totality of believers, seeing that not all of them are unanimous in matters of religion, it must lie in the legal authority of a single head, an authority assured by divine assistance and the trust of all the faithful . This is the ROCK on which Christ founded His Church and against which the gates of hell will never prevail.  »

Why did this ROCK settle in Rome, and not in Jerusalem, Constantinople or Moscow ? Here we have a further brilliant response from Soloviev: historically Rome represented the order, civilization and terrestrial Empire that would best allow the Church to become the universal spiritual Empire desired by Christ. In a mystical view of the history of Salvation – we would say divine “ orthodromy ” – Soloviev shows how God, wishing to extend salvation to the whole world,  decided one day that His Kingdom should leave Israel for Rome, so that the capital of the pagan Empire should become “ the conjoint instrument ” of His designs:

« The universal monarchy was to stay put; the centre of unity was not to move. But central power itself, its character, its source and its sanction were to be renewed... Instead of an Empire of Might, there was to be a Church of Love. » One thinks of Constantine’s conversion and his imposition throughout the Roman Empire of laws favouring Christianity, and of Theodosius declaring the Christian religion the religion of State. What decisive support for the Gospel ! The remarkable Roman civilization, already the heir of Greece, was put at the service of the Cross of Christ !

Soloviev had some wonderful expressions to describe this, as for example the following: «  Jesus unthroned Caesar... By unthroning the false and impious absolutism of the pagan Caesars, Jesus confirmed and immortalised the universal monarchy of Rome and gave it its true theocratic foundation . »

« Let us not think », comments our Father, « that our theosophist loses his way in a contemplation of evangelical love and freedom. Fully aware of the frailty and shortcomings of humanity, he declares that it is essential, for its effective salvation, that supreme divine power be joined to the firmest social structure, to the virile principle , and not as formerly to the female principle of a virginal flesh for the Incarnation. This firm principle is the imperial monarchical institution which is Rome and Caesar. Converted, elevated and unabolished, the Power of Rome continues in the Pope for the service of the universal community.

« It is only this divino-human pontifical paternity that is capable of forming the basis of the universal fraternity of the peoples, not only through its spiritual influence but also through its authority and its supranational organization. In this monarchy, sacred but popular, the Pope, the Universal Emperor, clearly remains the servant of the servants of God and is, for that very reason, the sovereign Head of the Nations. Opposed to any kind of papolatry, antagonistic to all the encroachments of papism, and quite capable of denouncing such a Pope as Satan, Soloviev raised an imperishable monument to the glory of Rome and pointed out – him, a member of the Orthodox Church – the path of the world’s salvation, which lay in one place only, in the universal Christian order of a restored Roman Catholic Church ... » (French CRC no. 131, July 1978, p. 6)

In his lifetime, Soloviev ran up against a wall of hostility and incomprehension: « I am not so naive », he said, « to seek to convince minds whose private interests are greater than their desire for religious truth. In presenting the general evidence for the permanent primacy of Peter as the basis of the universal Church, I have simply wanted to assist those who are opposed to this truth, not because of their interests and passions, but merely because of their unwitting errors and hereditary prejudices. »

The final period of his life might seem to some like a decline and a renunciation of his prophetic insights, but our Father writes: « Soloviev was too great a mind to be discouraged or to modify his ideas in accordance with the fluctuations of his worldly success. What is certainly true is that his bitter experiences gave him a better knowledge of the Evil that was at work in the world, throwing up formidable obstacles to God’s designs and going so far as to erect a kind of caricature of them. This he denounced as the power of the Antichrist, the Prince of this world, announced in the Scriptures. » (French CRC no. 132, August 1978, p. 12)

At the beginning of the 1890’s, relations between Soloviev and the Orthodox Church deteriorated. «  Given the papaphobia reigning among us , he wrote to a friend, sometimes revealing its underhand character and at other times its stupidity, and always in any event unchristian, I considered and I continue to consider that it is necessary to draw people’s attention to the Rock of the Church laid by Christ Himself and to its positive significance . »

As he persisted in his criticisms, even going so far as to compare the Greco-Russian Church with « the Synagogue », the Orthodox hierarchy, in the person of Pobiedonostev, the Holy Synod’s prosecutor, employed the ultimate weapon at its disposal: it deprived him of the sacraments. One day in 1894, being seriously ill, Soloviev asked to receive the sacraments. His Orthodox confessor refused to give him absolution unless he renounced his Catholic views. Soloviev refused to yield, preferring to forego confession and Holy Communion.

AN AUTHENTIC CONVERSION

The moment had come. On February 18, 1896, he went to see Fr. Nicholas Alexeyevich Tolstoy, a Catholic priest of the Eastern rite exercising his ministry in Moscow. This priest, a former officer, owed him his vocation, his formation (Soloviev having been his teacher) and his conversion to Catholicism. That February 18 was the feast day of Pope St. Leo so dear to Soloviev. Before Mass, he read on his knees the Tridentine symbol of the faith containing the Filioque and a formula declaring that the Church of Rome must be regarded as the head of all the particular Churches. Then he received the Body of Christ at the hands of the Catholic priest.

On the following day, Fr. Tolstoy was denounced and arrested. He managed to escape and to reach Rome first, then France. It was only in 1910 that he would give an account in the Universe of the authentic conversion of Soloviev, and in 1917 that the two witnesses present at the scene would confirm the celebrated Russian’s profession of the Catholic faith. Nevertheless, this conversion was disputed not only by the Orthodox but also by Catholics imbued with a false ecumenism like Msgr. d’Herbigny of sinister memory. But in this matter the facts are indubitable. His entry into the Catholic Church did not, however, in Soloviev’s mind, exclude him from what he called « the true and authentic Eastern or Greco-Russian Church ». Never did he embrace the Latin rite. After the exile of Fr. Tolstoy, as there were no longer any Catholic priests in Moscow apart from those belonging to the Latin rite, Soloviev decided to refrain from receiving the sacraments...

In 1897, a census of the whole of Russia was carried out in which a question was asked about religion. «  I am both Catholic and Orthodox; let the police work that out !  » Soloviev answered.

« Self-important people from Rome and Moscow declared themselves scandalized », writes our Father. « The hour had not yet come for the podwig , for self-renunciation and reconciliation in truth and justice ( pravda ), and for the restoration of the wholly divine unity of communion in love ( sobornost ). Msgr. Rupp thinks that we achieved it with Vatican II. Alas, no ! I hope for and expect it to come with Vatican III... but only after the trial, after conversion and expiation... and after Our Lady’s humble requests have been met. » (English CRC, December 1982, p. 36)

UNDER THE SIGN OF MARY

«  This glow from Heaven emanates from Mary, And vain remains the attraction of the serpent’s venom.  »

On July 17, 1900, sensing death approaching, Soloviev sent for a priest. He was most insistent about this: « Will it be morning soon ? When will the priest come ? » The next day, he made his confession and received Holy Communion at the hands of an Orthodox priest. He died peacefully a few days later, on July 31, «  in the communion of Russian Orthodoxy to which he had ever been faithful, without however disowning the Catholicism of his heart, assured by the example of the Fathers of Russian Christianity, Saints Cyril and Methodius, Saint Vladimir, and so many strastoterptsi , innocents who had suffered the passion , and startsi , slavophiles and romanophiles at the same time, without schism or constraint, in the love of Holy Church and Holy Russia, the Kingdom of God to come !  »

But all this is too beautiful for us not to revisit it, so our Father has decided that we will study in more depth the work of this great Russian thinker, in three parts to appear in subsequent editions of Resurrection , Deo volente:

The vocation of Russia in the designs of God and the concert of the Christian nations: up to and including Putin ?

The Immaculate Virgin Mary , throne of Wisdom, essential beauty of the created world, our ultimate recourse !

The Antichrist unmasked by Soloviev . This was the last service the “ inspired prophet ” rendered to his beloved Russia: that of putting her on her guard against the seductions of the Antichrist. In Rome, at the same time, St. Pius X was also announcing his advent in his encyclical E supremi Apostolatus of October 4, 1903: « The Antichrist is present among us. The Evil shaking the world should not affright us, it will only last a short while. What must fall will fall, and the Church will be reborn from the trial, assisted by her Saviour and ready for extraordinary developments. »

Brother Thomas of Our Lady of Perpetual Help He is risen ! n° 8, August 2001, pp. 13-22

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