The most curious and famous of these was that which represented the casting of the Three Holy Children into the Fiery Furnace, and their miraculous rescue from the flames by an angel.

This was enacted on the Wednesday before Christmas, during Matins, in Moscow and other towns, the first performance, so far as is known, having been in the beginning of the sixteenth century, it being mentioned, in the year 1548, in the finance-books of the archiepiscopal residence of St.Sophia at Novgorod.

The "furnace" was a circular structure of wood, on architectural lines, gayly painted with the figures of appropriate holy men; specimens have been preserved, one being in the Archeological Museum in St.Petersburg.
The second famous "Act" (for such was their title) was known under the name of "The Riding on the Foal of an Ass," and took place (beginning with the end of the sixteenth century) in Moscow and other towns, generally on Palm Sunday.

It represented the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem, and in Moscow it was performed in accordance with a special ritual by the Patriarch, in the presence of the Tzar himself; the Patriarch represented Christ, the Tzar led the ass upon which he was mounted.

In other towns it was acted by the archbishops and the Voevodas.