In the remote Ukrainian steppe, a devout farming family refuses to fight back. When Orthodox authorities arrive to seize their children and remake them in the state faith, Alexis Ivanoff faces the ultimate test of his beliefs: will he resist, or hold fast to the radical non-resistance that defines his soul? His young daughter Velia and son Michael watch as their world fractures - not with violence, but with the quiet devastation of a system that breaks families through love itself. A compassionate priest torn between duty and conscience, a village that turns cold, hidden meetings in moonlit forests - this is a novel about what happens when faith becomes illegal and tenderness is treated as subversion. Written in 1875, it pulses with urgent relevance: how do you保持你的信仰 when the state demands your children? For readers who believe the best historical fiction doesn't just show us the past, but holds a mirror to the present.
