Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia (Elizabeth Feodorovna Romanova) canonized as St. Elizabeth Romanova (1 November 1864 – 18 July 1918) was a German princess of the House of Hesse

House of Hesse

The House of Hesse is a European royal dynasty from the region of Hesse, originally and still formally the House of Brabant.-History:The origins of the House of Hesse begin with the marriage of Sophie of Thuringia, daughter of Louis IV, Landgrave of Thuringia and Elizabeth of Hungary with Henry...

, and the wife of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia

Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia

Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia was a son of Emperor Alexander II of Russia...

, fifth son of Emperor Alexander II of Russia

Alexander II of Russia

Alexander II , also known as Alexander the Liberator was the Emperor of the Russian Empire from 3 March 1855 until his assassination in 1881...

and Princess Marie of Hesse and the Rhine

Maria Alexandrovna of Hesse

Marie of Hesse and by Rhine was a princess of the Grand Duchy of Hesse and, as Maria Alexandrovna , Empress consort of Alexander II of Russia. She was born at Darmstadt, the capital of the Grand Duchy, and died at Saint Petersburg...

. An older sister of Alexandra, the last Russian Empress, Elizabeth became famous in Russian society for her beauty and charitable works among the poor. After the Socialist Revolutionary Party's Combat Organization murdered her husband with a dynamite bomb in 1905, Elizabeth publicly forgave Sergei's murderer and campaigned without success for him to be pardoned. She then departed the Imperial Court and became a nun, founding the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent

Marfo-Mariinsky Convent

Marfo-Mariinsky Convent, or Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy in the Possession of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna is a female cloister in Moscow....

dedicated to helping the downtrodden of Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

. In 1918 she was arrested and ultimately buried alive by the Bolsheviks. In 1981 Elizabeth was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, and in 1992 by the Moscow Patriarchate.

Princess of Hesse

Grand Duchess Elisabeth was born Her Grand Ducal Highness Princess Elisabeth Alexandra Louise Alice of Hesse and by Rhine on 1 November 1864. She was the second child of Grand Duke Ludwig IV of Hesse and by Rhine and British Princess Alice

Princess Alice of the United Kingdom

The Princess Alice was a member of the British royal family, the third child and second daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.Alice's education was devised by Albert's close friend and adviser, Baron Stockmar...

. Through her mother, she was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Princess Alice chose the name "Elisabeth" for her daughter after visiting the shrine

Elisabeth Church (Marburg)

St. Elisabeth's Church is a religious building in Marburg, Germany, built by the Order of the Teutonic Knights in honour of Elisabeth of Hungary...

of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, ancestress of the House of Hesse, in Marburg

Elisabeth Church (Marburg)

St. Elisabeth's Church is a religious building in Marburg, Germany, built by the Order of the Teutonic Knights in honour of Elisabeth of Hungary...

. Alice so admired St. Elizabeth that she decided to name her new daughter after her. Elizabeth was known as "Ella" within her family.

Though she came from one of the oldest and noblest houses in Germany, Elisabeth and her family lived a rather modest life by Royal standards. The children swept the floors and cleaned their own rooms, while their mother sewed dresses herself for the children. During the Austro-Prussian War

Austro-Prussian War

The Austro-Prussian War was a war fought in 1866 between the German Confederation under the leadership of the Austrian Empire and its German allies on one side and the Kingdom of Prussia with its German allies and Italy on the...

, Princess Alice often took Elisabeth with her while visiting wounded soldiers in a nearby hospital. In this relatively happy and secure environment, Elisabeth grew up surrounded by English domestic habits, and English became her first language. Later in life, she would tell a friend that, within her family, she and her siblings spoke English to their mother and German to their father.

In the autumn of 1878, diphtheria

Diphtheria

Diphtheria is an upper respiratory tract illness caused by Corynebacterium diphtheriae, a facultative anaerobic, Gram-positive bacterium. It is characterized by sore throat, low fever, and an adherent membrane on the tonsils, pharynx, and/or nasal cavity...

swept through the Hesse household, killing Elizabeth's youngest sister, Marie

Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine

Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine , , was the youngest daughter of Princess Alice of the United Kingdom and Ludwig IV, the Grand Duke of Hesse. Her mother was the second daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha...

on 16 November, as well as her mother Alice on 14 December. Elizabeth had been sent away to her paternal grandmother

Princess Elizabeth of Prussia

Princess Elizabeth of Prussia was the second daughter of Prince Wilhelm of Prussia and Landgravine Marie Anna of Hesse-Homburg, granddaughter of Frederick William II of Prussia...

's home at the beginning of the outbreak and she was the only member of her family to remain unaffected. When she was finally allowed to return home, she described the meeting as "terribly sad" and said that everything was "like a horrible dream".

Admirers and suitors

Charming and with a very accommodating personality, Elizabeth was considered by many historians and contemporaries to be one of the most beautiful women in Europe at that time. As a young woman, she caught the eye of her elder cousin, the future German Emperor William II

William II, German Emperor

Wilhelm II was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia, ruling the German Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia from 15 June 1888 to 9 November 1918. He was a grandson of the British Queen Victoria and related to many monarchs and princes of Europe...

. He was a student then at Bonn

Bonn

Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....

University, and on weekends he often visited his Aunt Alice and his Hessian relatives. During these frequent visits, he fell in love with Elizabeth, writing numerous love poems and regularly sending them to her. Flattered as she may have been by his attentions, Elizabeth was not attracted to William. She politely declined him, and the resulting heartbreak caused him to give up his studies and return to Prussia

Prussia

Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

.
Besides William II, she had many other admirers, among them Lord Charles Montagu, the second son of the 7th Duke of Manchester

William Montagu, 7th Duke of Manchester

William Drogo Montagu, 7th Duke of Manchester, KP , known as Lord Kimbolton from 1823 to 1843 and as Viscount Mandeville from 1843 to 1855, was a British peer and Conservative Member of Parliament.William Montagu was the eldest son of George Montagu, 6th Duke of Manchester...

, and Henry Wilson

Henry Wilson

Henry Wilson was the 18th Vice President of the United States and a Senator from Massachusetts...

, later a distinguished soldier.

Yet another of Elizabeth's suitors was the future Frederick II, Grand Duke of Baden, William's first cousin. Queen Victoria described him as "so good and steady", with "such a safe and happy position," that when Elizabeth declined to marry him the Queen "deeply regretted it". Frederick's grandmother, the Empress Augusta

Augusta of Saxe-Weimar

Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach was the Queen of Prussia and the first German Empress as the consort of William I, German Emperor.-Early life:...

, was so furious at Elizabeth's rejection of Frederick that it took some time for her to forgive Elizabeth.

Other admirers included:

Elizabeth's husband's cousin, Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich
Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich of Russia
Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich of Russia was a grandson of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia, and a poet and playwright of some renown...

(the poet KR). He wrote a poem about her first arrival in Russia, and the general impression she made to all the people present at the time.
Prince Felix Yussupov considered her a second mother, and stated in his memoirs that she helped him greatly during the most difficult moments of his life.
As a young girl, Queen Marie of Romania was very fascinated with her Cousin Ella, and would later describe her beauty and sweetness in her memoirs as "a thing of dreams".
The French Ambassador to the Russian court, Maurice Paleologue
Maurice Paléologue
Maurice Paléologue was a French diplomat, historian, and essayist.-Biography:Paléologue was born in Paris as the son of Alexandru Paleologu, a Wallachian Romanian revolutionary who had fled to France after attempting to assassinate Prince Gheorghe Bibescu during the 1848 Wallachian revolution;...

, wrote in his memoirs how Elizabeth was capable of arousing what he described as "profane passions".

But it was a Russian Grand Duke who ultimately won Elizabeth's heart. Elizabeth’s great-aunt, Empress Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, was a frequent visitor to Hesse. During these visits, she was usually accompanied by her youngest sons, Sergei

Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia

Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia was a son of Emperor Alexander II of Russia...

and Paul

Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia

Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia was the eighth child of Tsar Alexander II of Russia by his first wife Empress Maria Alexandrovna. His birth was commemorated by the naming of the city of Pavlodar in Kazakhstan...

. Elizabeth had known the boys since they were children, and she initially viewed them as haughty and reserved. Sergei, especially, was a very serious young man, intensely religious, and he found himself attracted to Elizabeth after seeing her as a young woman for the first time in several years.

At first, Sergei made little impression on Elizabeth. But after the death of both of Sergei’s parents within the same year, the shock of his loss caused Elizabeth to gradually see Sergei “in a new light”. She had felt this same grief after the death of her mother, and their other similarities (both were artistic and religious) began to draw them closer together. It was said that Sergei was especially attached to Elizabeth because she had the same character as his beloved mother. So when Sergei proposed to her for the second time, she accepted—much to the chagrin of her grandmother Queen Victoria.

Grand Duchess of Russia

Sergei and Elizabeth married on 15 (3) June 1884, at the Chapel

Grand Church of the Winter Palace

The Grand Church of the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, sometimes referred to as the Winter Palace's cathedral, was consecrated in 1763. It is located on the piano nobile in the eastern wing of the Winter Palace, and is the larger, and principal, of two churches within the Palace...

of the Winter Palace

Winter Palace

The Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia, was, from 1732 to 1917, the official residence of the Russian monarchs. Situated between the Palace Embankment and the Palace Square, adjacent to the site of Peter the Great's original Winter Palace, the present and fourth Winter Palace was built and...

in St. Petersburg. She became Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna. The new Grand Duchess made a good first impression on her husband’s family and the Russian people. “Everyone fell in love with her from the moment she came to Russia from her beloved Darmstadt”, wrote one of Sergei's cousins. The couple settled in the Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace

Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace

Belosselsky-Belozersky Palace is a Neo-Baroque palace at the intersection of the Fontanka River and Nevsky Prospekt in Saint Petersburg, Russia...

in St. Petersburg; after Sergei was appointed Governor-General of Moscow in 1892, they resided in one of the Kremlin

Kremlin

A kremlin , same root as in kremen is a major fortified central complex found in historic Russian cities. This word is often used to refer to the best-known one, the Moscow Kremlin, or metonymically to the government that is based there...

palaces. During the summer, they stayed at Il’yinskoe, an estate outside Moscow that Sergei had inherited from his mother.

The couple never had children of their own, but their Il’yinskoye estate was usually filled with parties that Elizabeth organized especially for children. They eventually became the foster parents of Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich

Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia

Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia was a Russian imperial dynast. He is known for being involved in the murder of the mystic peasant faith healer Grigori Rasputin, who he felt held undue sway over Tsar Nicholas II.-Early life:Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich was born at Ilinskoe near Moscow, the...

and Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna

Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia (1890-1958)

Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia, known as "Maria Pavlovna the Younger" was the daughter of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich and Alexandra Georgievna of Greece by marriage Princess of Sweden...

, Sergei’s niece and nephew.

Although Elizabeth was not legally required to convert to Russian Orthodoxy

Russian Orthodox Church

The Russian Orthodox Church or, alternatively, the Moscow Patriarchate The ROC is often said to be the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world; including all the autocephalous churches under its umbrella, its adherents number over 150 million worldwide—about half of the 300 million...

from her native Lutheran religion, she voluntarily chose to do so in 1891. Although some members of her family questioned her motives, her conversion appears to have been sincere.

On 18 February 1905, Sergei was assassinated in the Kremlin

Kremlin

by the Socialist-Revolutionary, Ivan Kalyayev

Ivan Kalyayev

Ivan Platonovich Kalyayev was a Russian poet, a member of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. He is best known for his role in the assassination of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, which was an operation of the SR Combat Organization...

. The event came as a terrible shock to Elizabeth, but she never lost her calm. Her niece Marie later recalled that her aunt’s face was “pale and stricken rigid” and she would never forget her expression of infinite sadness. In her rooms, said Marie, Elizabeth “let herself fall weakly into an armchair...her eyes dry and with the same peculiar fixity of gaze, she looked straight into space, and said nothing.” As visitors came and went, she looked without ever seeming to see them. Throughout the day of her husband's murder, Elizabeth refused to cry. But Marie recalled how her aunt slowly abandoned her rigid self-control, finally breaking down into sobs. Many of her family and friends feared that she would suffer a nervous breakdown, but she quickly recovered her equanimity.

According to Edvard Radzinsky

Edvard Radzinsky

Edvard Stanislavovich Radzinsky is a Russian playwright, writer, TV personality, and film screenwriter. He is also known as an author of several books on history which were characterized as "folk history" by journalists and academic historians.-Biography:Edvard Stanislavovich Radzinsky was born...

"Elizabeth spent all the days before the burial in ceaseless prayer. On her husband's tombstone she wrote: 'Father, release them, they know not what they do.' She understood the words of the Gospels heart and soul, and on the eve of the funeral she demanded to be taken to the prison where Kalyayev was being held. Brought into his cell, she asked, 'Why did you kill my husband?' 'I killed Sergei Alexandrovich because he was a weapon of tyranny. I was taking revenge for the people.' 'Do not listen to your pride. Repent... and I will beg the Sovereign to give you your life. I will ask him for you. I myself have already forgiven you.' On the eve of revolution, she had already found a way out; forgiveness! Forgive through the impossible pain and blood -- and thereby stop it then, at the beginning, this bloody wheel. By her example, poor Ella appealed to society, calling upon the people to live in Christian faith. 'No!" replied Kalyayev. 'I do not repent. I must die for my deed and I will... My death will be more useful to my cause than Sergei Alexandrovich's death.' Kalyayev was sentenced to death. 'I am pleased with your sentence,' he told the judges. 'I hope that you will carry it out just as openly and publicly as I carried out the sentence of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. Learn to look the advancing revolution right in the face.'"

Kalyayev was hanged on 23 May 1905.

Religious life

After Sergei’s death, Elizabeth wore mourning clothes and became a vegetarian. In 1909, she sold off her magnificent collection of jewels and sold her other luxurious possessions; even her wedding ring was not spared. With the proceeds she opened the Convent of Sts. Martha and Mary

Marfo-Mariinsky Convent

Marfo-Mariinsky Convent, or Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy in the Possession of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna is a female cloister in Moscow....

and became its abbess

Abbess

An abbess is the female superior, or mother superior, of a community of nuns, often an abbey....

. She soon opened a hospital, a chapel, a pharmacy and an orphanage on its grounds. Elizabeth and her nuns worked tirelessly among the poor and the sick of Moscow. She often visited Moscow’s worst slums and did all she could to help alleviate the suffering of the poor.

For many years, Elizabeth's institution helped the poor and the orphans in Moscow by fostering the prayer and charity of devout women. Here, there arose a vision of a renewed diaconate for women, one that combined intercession and action in the heart of a disordered world. Although the Orthodox Church rejected her idea of a female diaconate, it did bless and encourage Elizabeth's many charitable efforts.

Murder

In 1918, Lenin ordered the Cheka

Cheka

Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...

to arrest Elizabeth. They then exiled her first to Perm

Perm

Perm is a city and the administrative center of Perm Krai, Russia, located on the banks of the Kama River, in the European part of Russia near the Ural Mountains. From 1940 to 1957 it was named Molotov ....

, then to Yekaterinburg

Yekaterinburg

Yekaterinburg is a major city in the central part of Russia, the administrative center of Sverdlovsk Oblast. Situated on the eastern side of the Ural mountain range, it is the main industrial and cultural center of the Urals Federal District with a population of 1,350,136 , making it Russia's...

, where she spent a few days and was joined by others: the Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich Romanov; Princes Ioann Konstantinovich, Konstantin Konstantinovich, Igor Konstantinovich and Vladimir Pavlovich Paley; Grand Duke Sergei's secretary, Feodor Remez; and Varvara Yakovleva

Varvara Yakovleva

Sister Varvara Yakovleva, also known as Sister Barbara Yakovleva , or simply Nun Barbara, , was a Russian Orthodox nun in the convent of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna...

, a sister from the Grand Duchess's convent. They were all taken to Alapaevsk on 20 May 1918, where they were housed in the Napolnaya School on the outskirts of the town.

At noon on 17 July, Cheka Officer Petr Startsev and a few Bolshevik workers came to the school. They took from the prisoners whatever money they had left and announced that they would be transferred that night to the Upper Siniachikhensky factory compound. The Red Army guards were told to leave and Cheka men replaced them. That night the prisoners were awakened and driven in carts on a road leading to the village of Siniachikha, some 18 kilometres from Alapaevsk where there was an abandoned iron mine with a pit, twenty metres deep. Here they halted. The Cheka beat all the prisoners before throwing their victims into this pit, Elizabeth being the first. Hand grenades were then hurled down the shaft, but only one victim, Feodor Remez, died as a result of the grenades.
According to the personal account of Vassili Ryabov, one of their killers, Elizabeth and the others survived the initial fall into the mine, prompting Ryabov to toss in a grenade after them. Following the explosion, he claimed to have heard Elizabeth and the others singing an Orthodox hymn from the bottom of the shaft. Unnerved, Ryabov threw down a second grenade, but the singing continued. Finally a large quantity of brushwood was shoved into the opening and set alight, upon which Ryabov posted a guard over the site and departed.

Early on 18 July 1918, the head of the Alapaevsk Cheka, Abramov, and the head of the Yekaterinburg Regional Soviet, Beloborodov, who had been involved in the murders of the Imperial Family, exchanged a number of telegrams in a pre-arranged plan saying that the school had been attacked by an "unidentified gang". A month later, Alapaevsk fell to the White Army of Admiral

Admiral

Admiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks, of the highest naval officers. It is usually considered a full admiral and above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet . It is usually abbreviated to "Adm" or "ADM"...

Alexander Kolchak.

Legacy

On 8 October 1918, White Army soldiers discovered the remains of Elizabeth and her companions, still within the shaft where they had been murdered. Elizabeth had died of wounds sustained in her fall into the mine, but before her death had still found strength to bandage the head of the dying Prince Ioann. Her remains were removed and ultimately taken to Jerusalem, where they lie today in the Church of Maria Magdalene

Church of Maria Magdalene

The Church of Mary Magdalene is a Russian Orthodox church located on the Mount of Olives, near the Garden of Gethsemane in Jerusalem, Israel.-History:...

.

Elizabeth was canonized

Canonization

Canonization is the act by which a Christian church declares a deceased person to be a saint, upon which declaration the person is included in the canon, or list, of recognized saints. Originally, individuals were recognized as saints without any formal process...

by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia in 1981, and in 1992 by the Moscow Patriarchate as New Martyr

New Martyr

The title of New Martyr or Neomartyr of the Eastern Orthodox Church was originally given to martyrs who died under heretical rulers . Later the Church added to the list those martyred under Islam and various modern regimes, especially Communist ones, which espoused state atheism...

Elizabeth. Her principal shrine

Shrine

A shrine is a holy or sacred place, which is dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, daemon or similar figure of awe and respect, at which they are venerated or worshipped. Shrines often contain idols, relics, or other such objects associated with the figure being venerated....

s are the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent

Marfo-Mariinsky Convent

Marfo-Mariinsky Convent, or Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy in the Possession of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna is a female cloister in Moscow....

she founded in Moscow, and the St. Mary Magdalene Convent on the Mount of Olives

Church of Maria Magdalene

The Church of Mary Magdalene is a Russian Orthodox church located on the Mount of Olives, near the Garden of Gethsemane in Jerusalem, Israel.-History:...

, which she and her husband helped build, and where her relic

Relic

In religion, a relic is a part of the body of a saint or a venerated person, or else another type of ancient religious object, carefully preserved for purposes of veneration or as a tangible memorial...

s (along with the Nun Barbara) are enshrined. She is one of the ten 20th-century martyrs from across the world who are depicted in statues above the Great West Door of Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey

The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...

, London, England.

A statue of Elizabeth was erected in the garden of her convent after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Its inscription reads: "To the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna: With Repentance."

Titles and styles

Her Grand Ducal Highness Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and the Rhine (1864–1884)
Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna of Russia (1884–1918)

Princess of Hesse

Admirers and suitors

Grand Duchess of Russia

Religious life

Murder

Legacy

Titles and styles

Ancestry

Further reading

Orthodox sources

Orthodox hymns to St. Elizabeth

Secular sources