Edward the Confessor King Henry II and Pope Alexander III He was called 'Confessor' as the name for someone who was believed to have lived a saintly life but was not a martyr. In the 1230s King Henry III became attached to the cult of Saint Edward, and he commissioned a new life by Matthew Paris. Henry also constructed a grand new tomb for Edward in a rebuilt Westminster Abbey in 1269. He named his eldest son after him. Until about 1350, Edmund the Martyr, Gregory the Great and Edward the Confessor were regarded as English national saints, but Edward III preferred the
Blessed Be the Host of the King of Heaven Blessed Be the Host of the King of Heaven Blessed Be the Host of the Heavenly Tsar (Благословенно воинство Небесного Царя), also known as the Ecclesia militans ("The Church Militant"), is a grand Russian Orthodox icon commemorating the conquest of Kazan by Ivan IV of Russia (1552). Measuring almost four meters in width, "Ecclesia militans" is one of the largest icons ever produced in medieval Russia. It has been attributed to Ivan's confessor Andrew (later known as Athanasius, Metropolitan of Moscow). The icon shows Ivan the Terrible as he follows the Archangel Michael in leading the triumphant Russian troops away