Irina Posnova

Irina Posnova (9 August 1914, Kiev – 18 December 1997, Brussels) - Russian publisher, founder of the Catholic publishing house "Life with God" and the ecumenical journal of the same name, was a prominent Russian Catholic of the 20th century in exile.

Born in 1914 in Kiev, in the family of Mikhail Emmanuilovich Posnov, an Orthodox church historian and professor of Kiev Theological Academy of Moscow. Irina Posnova moved to Bulgaria and studied at the Russian school in Sofia. Then she moved to Belgium, graduated from the Catholic University of Louvain, defended her doctoral thesis on classical philology. During this period, she was engaged in historical and theological issues. As a result of theological studies she converted to the Catholic Church. After graduation, she taught the Greek language in some schools.

During World War II, Irina Posnova dedicated herself to help the Soviet prisoners of war and displaced persons who worked in the mines in Limburg, and after the war helped refugees from the Soviet Union in Belgium.

Posnova founded publishing house "Life with God", which published Christian books in Russian language. The main goal of the publishing house was publishing of the Orthodox and Catholic literature for the needs of the Russian emigration, as well as for illegal distribution on the territory of the USSR. Posnova she took an active part in organizing the illegal importation of religious literature in the USSR in diplomatic baggage and its subsequent dissemination. The activities of the publishing house was held in a spirit of Christian ecumenism.

In 1945 she began publishing a magazine with the same name "Life with God.", with the Orthodox priest Valent Romensky. Since 1951, she edited the magazine "Russian Catholic Herald", later renamed the "Russia and the Universal Church," and in 1971 bore the name of the "Logos."

In 1954 Catholic parish of the Byzantine rite was organized in Brussels. In 1958 World Fair took place in Brussels, where the Soviet pavilion was close to the Vatican pavillon. At the suggestion of Irina Posnova in the pavilion was set up a special department, where Soviet tourists were given the Gospel and the Orthodox prayer book. Since 1967 Posnova led religious programs in Russian on Radio Monte Carlo. Since 1969, the publishing house, "Life with God" actively published work of the priest Alexander Men.

In December 1997, after a long illness Posnova Irina died in Belgium.