Olga
by flammeusgladius
Olga
You had dynastic reasons to convert,
They tell us. You were cold and calculating,
They tell us. Gutlessly pontificating,
They tell us to be endlessly alert
To these your faults. I trust you are not hurt—
You who look down on those still vaguely waiting
For elevation when the elevating
Comes easily, whose hearts are near inert.
You chose your zeal – but then you burned with zeal.
Christ rose indeed – and proved victorious
In you and in your heirs. The bloodless deal
We make with sin in you was ended thus.
You were, though nowadays the pigs still squeal,
Quite as sincere as any one of us.
–Tom Riley
(St. Olga, Equal to the Apostles, pray for us, that the Lord may grant us strength!)
Flammeus Gladius 
Why and how “equal to the apostles?”
It’s a title bestowed in Russian Orthodoxy. I think the idea is that Olga and her grandson, Vladimir I, converted the Rus from paganism, and were therefore apostles to the greatest of Slavic nations. I include these things to piss off some of my fellow Christians — not you Prods, with whom, as you know, I have more and more in common, at least in practical terms, but the comfy Catholics, who think everything’s okay in Vaticanland. Of course, being a regular reader, you know that irony is almost my middle name. Dante represented the apostles as mountains.
I’m pretty sure that I could justify the title in Protestant terms, arguing from the priesthood of all believers.
Finally, the sonnet is only tangentially about St. Olga. Look at the tags and you’ll grasp the point.