Romanov sainthood
Encyclopedia
Tsar Nicholas II of Russia
, his wife Tsarina Alexandra
, and their five children Olga
, Tatiana
, Maria, Anastasia
, and Alexei
are saint
s of the Orthodox Church (variously designated as new martyr
s by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and as passion bearer
s elsewhere in the Russian Orthodox Church
). The family was murdered
on in Yekaterinburg
, Russia
by the Bolsheviks.
The family was canonized in 1981 as new martyr
s by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad
. They were canonized along with their servants, who had been killed along with them. The canonized servants were their court physician, Yevgeny Botkin
; their footman Alexei Trupp; their cook, Ivan Kharitonov
; and Alexandra's maid, Anna Demidova
. Also canonized were two servants killed in September 1918, lady in waiting
Anastasia Hendrikova
and tutor Catherine Adolphovna Schneider
. All were canonized as victims of oppression by the Bolsheviks. The Russian Orthodox Church did not canonize the servants, two of whom were not Russian Orthodox: Alexei Trupp was Roman Catholic and Catherine Adolphovna Schneider
was Lutheran.
Alexandra's sister, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna
, who was murdered by the Bolsheviks on , was canonized as New-Martyr Elizabeth by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, along with Prince Ioann Konstantinovich of Russia
, Prince Igor Konstantinovich of Russia
, Prince Konstantine Konstantinovich of Russia
, Grand Duke Sergey Mikhaylovich of Russia, and Prince Vladimir Pavlovich Paley
, Fyodor Remez, Grand Duke Sergei's personal secretary, and Elizabeth's faithful companion, Sister Varvara Yakovleva
, who were all killed with her. They were declared martyrs of oppression by the Bolsheviks.
In 1992, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna
and Varvara Yakovleva
were canonized as New-Martyr Elizabeth and New-Martyr Barbara by the Moscow Patriarchate (the Orthodox Church inside Russia)
. The princes and others killed with them were not canonized.
In 2000, after much debate, the Romanov family was canonized
as passion bearer
s by the Moscow Patriarchate
.
There were those who rejected the family's classification as martyrs because they were not killed because of their religious faith. There was no proof that the execution was a ritual murder. Religious leaders in both churches also had objections to canonizing the Tsar's family because they perceived him as a weak emperor whose incompetence led to the revolution, the suffering of his people and made him at least partially responsible for his own murder and the murders of his wife and children. For these opponents, the fact that the Tsar was, in private life, a kind man and a good husband and father did not override his poor governance of Russia.
The Moscow Patriarchate
ultimately canonized the family as passion bearers: people who face death with resignation, in a Christ-like manner, as distinguished from martyrs, the latter killed explicitly for their faith. Proponents cited previous Tsars and Tsareviches who had been canonized as passion bearers, such as Tsarevich Dimitri
, murdered at the end of the sixteenth century, as setting a precedent for the canonization of the Romanov family. They noted the piety
of the family and reports that the Tsarina and her eldest daughter Olga prayed
and attempted to make the sign of the cross
immediately before they died.
Despite their official designation as "passion-bearers" by the August 2000 Council, they are nevertheless spoken of as "martyrs" in Church publications, icons, and in popular veneration by the people.
The bodies of Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra, and three of their daughters were finally interred at St. Peter and Paul Cathedral
in St. Petersburg on , eighty years after they were murdered. The bodies of Alexei and one of his sisters were at the time missing. On , a Russian archaeologist announced the discovery of two burned, partial skeletons at a bonfire site at Ganina Yama
near Yekaterinburg that appeared to match the site described in assassin Yakov Yurovsky
's memoirs. The archaeologists said the bones are from a boy who was roughly between the ages of ten and thirteen years at the time of his death and of a young woman who was roughly between the ages of eighteen and twenty-three years old. Anastasia was seventeen years, one month old at the time of the assassination, while her sister Maria was nineteen years, one month old and her brother Alexei was two weeks shy of his fourteenth birthday. Anastasia's elder sisters Olga and Tatiana were twenty-two and twenty-one years old at the time of the assassination. Along with the remains of the two bodies, archaeologists found "shards of a container of sulfuric acid, nails, metal strips from a wooden box, and bullets of various caliber." The bones were found using metal detectors and metal rods as probes.
Preliminary testing indicated a "high degree of probability" that the remains belong to the Tsarevich Alexei and to one of his sisters, Russian forensic scientists announced on . The Yekaterinburg region's chief forensic expert Nikolai Nevolin indicated the results would be compared against those obtained by foreign experts. On April 30, 2008, Russian forensic scientists announced that DNA testing proves that the remains belong to the Tsarevich Alexei and to one of his sisters. With this result, all of the Tsar's family are accounted for.
Since the late 20th century, believers have attributed healing from illnesses or conversion to the Orthodox Church to their prayers to Maria and Alexei, as well as to the rest of the family.
Nicholas II of Russia
Nicholas II was the last Emperor of Russia, Grand Prince of Finland, and titular King of Poland. His official short title was Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias and he is known as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church.Nicholas II ruled from 1894 until...
, his wife Tsarina Alexandra
Alexandra Fyodorovna of Hesse
Alix of Hesse and by Rhine later Alexandra Feodorovna Romanova , was Empress consort of Russia as spouse of Nicholas II, the last Emperor of the Russian Empire...
, and their five children Olga
Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia
Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia ; , November 16 after 1900 – July 17, 1918) was the eldest daughter of the last autocratic ruler of the Russian Empire, Emperor Nicholas II, and of Empress Alexandra of Russia....
, Tatiana
Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia
Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia , , was the second daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last monarch of Russia, and of Tsarina Alexandra...
, Maria, Anastasia
Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia
Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, the last sovereign of Imperial Russia, and his wife Alexandra Fyodorovna....
, and Alexei
Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich of Russia
Alexei Nikolaevich of the House of Romanov, was the Tsesarevich and heir apparent to the throne of the Russian Empire. In English, his title is usually given as Tsarevich, a title that has a separate meaning in Russia. Alexei was the youngest child and only son of Emperor Nicholas II and Empress...
are saint
Saint
A saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...
s of the Orthodox Church (variously designated 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...
s by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and as passion bearer
Passion bearer
In Orthodox Christianity, a passion bearer is a person who faces his or her death in a Christ-like manner. Unlike martyrs, passion-bearers are not explicitly killed for their faith, though they hold to that faith with piety and true love of God...
s elsewhere in the Russian Orthodox Church
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...
). The family was murdered
Shooting of the Romanov family
The shooting of the Romanov family, of the Russian Imperial House of Romanov, and those who chose to accompany them into exile, Dr. Eugene Botkin, Anna Demidova, Alexei Trupp, and Ivan Kharitonov, took place in Yekaterinburg on July 17, 1918 on the orders of Vladimir Lenin, Yakov Sverdlov, and the...
on in 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...
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
by the Bolsheviks.
The family was canonized in 1981 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...
s by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad
Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia
The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia , also called the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, ROCA, or ROCOR) is a semi-autonomous part of the Russian Orthodox Church....
. They were canonized along with their servants, who had been killed along with them. The canonized servants were their court physician, Yevgeny Botkin
Eugene Botkin
Yevgeny Sergeyevich Botkin was the court physician for Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra and, while in exile with the family, sometimes treated the hemophilia-related complications of the Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich of Russia.Botkin went into exile with the Romanovs following the Russian...
; their footman Alexei Trupp; their cook, Ivan Kharitonov
Ivan Kharitonov
Ivan Mikhailovich Kharitonov, , was a cook at the court of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. He followed the Romanov family into internal exile following the Russian Revolution of 1917 and was executed with them by the Bolsheviks on July 17, 1918 at Ekaterinburg.Like the Romanovs, Kharitonov was...
; and Alexandra's maid, Anna Demidova
Anna Demidova
Anna Stepanovna Demidova was a maid in the service of Tsarina Alexandra of Russia. She acquired posthumous fame because she was murdered alongside her employer in 1918....
. Also canonized were two servants killed in September 1918, lady in waiting
Lady in Waiting
Lady in Waiting is the 2nd album by American southern rock band Outlaws, released in 1976. -Track listing:#"Breaker-Breaker" – 2:59#"South Carolina" – 3:05#"Ain't So Bad" – 3:48...
Anastasia Hendrikova
Anastasia Hendrikova
Countess Anastasia Vasilyevna Hendrikova, , was a lady in waiting at the court of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra...
and tutor Catherine Adolphovna Schneider
Catherine Schneider
Catherine Adolphovna Schneider was a tutor at the court of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra. She taught Alexandra Russian before her marriage, just as she had some years earlier taught Russian to the Tsarina's sister, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna before her marriage to Grand Duke...
. All were canonized as victims of oppression by the Bolsheviks. The Russian Orthodox Church did not canonize the servants, two of whom were not Russian Orthodox: Alexei Trupp was Roman Catholic and Catherine Adolphovna Schneider
Catherine Schneider
Catherine Adolphovna Schneider was a tutor at the court of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra. She taught Alexandra Russian before her marriage, just as she had some years earlier taught Russian to the Tsarina's sister, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna before her marriage to Grand Duke...
was Lutheran.
Alexandra's sister, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna
Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna
Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia canonized as St. Elizabeth Romanova was a German princess of the House of Hesse, and the wife of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia, fifth son of Emperor Alexander II of Russia and Princess Marie of Hesse and the Rhine...
, who was murdered by the Bolsheviks on , was canonized as New-Martyr Elizabeth by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, along with Prince Ioann Konstantinovich of Russia
Prince Ioann Konstantinovich of Russia
Prince John Constantinovich of Russia , sometimes also known as Prince Ioann, Prince Ivan or Prince Johan, was the eldest son of Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich of Russia by his wife Elisaveta Mavrikievna, née Princess Elisabeth of Saxe-Altenburg...
, Prince Igor Konstantinovich of Russia
Prince Igor Konstantinovich of Russia
Prince Igor Constantinovich of Russia , was the sixth child of HIH Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich of Russia by his wife Elisaveta Mavrikievna née HH Princess Elisabeth of Saxe-Altenburg....
, Prince Konstantine Konstantinovich of Russia
Prince Konstantine Konstantinovich of Russia
Prince Constantine Constantinovich of Russia , nicknamed Kostia by the family, was the fourth child of Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich of Russia by his wife Elisbeth Mavrikievna née HH Princess Elisabeth of Saxe-Altenburg.The Prince was a silent, shy person who fancied theatre and was...
, Grand Duke Sergey Mikhaylovich of Russia, and Prince Vladimir Pavlovich Paley
Vladimir Pavlovich Paley
HSH Prince Vladimir Pavlovich Paley was a Russian poet.Prince Vladimir was born Vladimir von Pistohlkors in Saint Petersburg, Russia...
, Fyodor Remez, Grand Duke Sergei's personal secretary, and Elizabeth's faithful companion, Sister 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...
, who were all killed with her. They were declared martyrs of oppression by the Bolsheviks.
In 1992, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna
Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna
Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia canonized as St. Elizabeth Romanova was a German princess of the House of Hesse, and the wife of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia, fifth son of Emperor Alexander II of Russia and Princess Marie of Hesse and the Rhine...
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...
were canonized as New-Martyr Elizabeth and New-Martyr Barbara by the Moscow Patriarchate (the Orthodox Church inside Russia)
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...
. The princes and others killed with them were not canonized.
In 2000, after much debate, the Romanov family 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...
as passion bearer
Passion bearer
In Orthodox Christianity, a passion bearer is a person who faces his or her death in a Christ-like manner. Unlike martyrs, passion-bearers are not explicitly killed for their faith, though they hold to that faith with piety and true love of God...
s by the Moscow Patriarchate
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...
.
Controversy
The canonizations were controversial for both branches of the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1981, opponents noted Nicholas II's perceived weaknesses as a ruler and felt his actions led to the resulting Bolshevik Revolution. One priest of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad noted that martyrdom in the Russian Orthodox Church has nothing to do with the martyr's personal actions but is instead related to why he or she was killed. Other critics noted that the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad appeared to be blaming Jewish revolutionaries for the deaths and equating the political assassination with a ritual murder.There were those who rejected the family's classification as martyrs because they were not killed because of their religious faith. There was no proof that the execution was a ritual murder. Religious leaders in both churches also had objections to canonizing the Tsar's family because they perceived him as a weak emperor whose incompetence led to the revolution, the suffering of his people and made him at least partially responsible for his own murder and the murders of his wife and children. For these opponents, the fact that the Tsar was, in private life, a kind man and a good husband and father did not override his poor governance of Russia.
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...
ultimately canonized the family as passion bearers: people who face death with resignation, in a Christ-like manner, as distinguished from martyrs, the latter killed explicitly for their faith. Proponents cited previous Tsars and Tsareviches who had been canonized as passion bearers, such as Tsarevich Dimitri
Tsarevich Dimitri
Tsarevich Dmitry Ivanovich, also known as Tsarevich Demetrius, Tsarevich Dimitri, Dmitry of Uglich, and Dmitry of Moscow, was a Russian tsarevich, son of Ivan the Terrible and Maria Nagaya.-Life:...
, murdered at the end of the sixteenth century, as setting a precedent for the canonization of the Romanov family. They noted the piety
Piety
In spiritual terminology, piety is a virtue that can mean religious devotion, spirituality, or a combination of both. A common element in most conceptions of piety is humility.- Etymology :...
of the family and reports that the Tsarina and her eldest daughter Olga prayed
Prayer
Prayer is a form of religious practice that seeks to activate a volitional rapport to a deity through deliberate practice. Prayer may be either individual or communal and take place in public or in private. It may involve the use of words or song. When language is used, prayer may take the form of...
and attempted to make the sign of the cross
Sign of the cross
The Sign of the Cross , or crossing oneself, is a ritual hand motion made by members of many branches of Christianity, often accompanied by spoken or mental recitation of a trinitarian formula....
immediately before they died.
Despite their official designation as "passion-bearers" by the August 2000 Council, they are nevertheless spoken of as "martyrs" in Church publications, icons, and in popular veneration by the people.
The bodies of Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra, and three of their daughters were finally interred at St. Peter and Paul Cathedral
Peter and Paul Cathedral
The Peter and Paul Cathedral is a Russian Orthodox cathedral located inside the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg, Russia. It is the first and oldest landmark in St. Petersburg, built between 1712 and 1733 on Zayachy Island along the Neva River. Both the cathedral and the fortress were...
in St. Petersburg on , eighty years after they were murdered. The bodies of Alexei and one of his sisters were at the time missing. On , a Russian archaeologist announced the discovery of two burned, partial skeletons at a bonfire site at Ganina Yama
Ganina Yama
Ganina Yama was a 9' deep pit in the Four Brothers mine near the village of Koptyaki, 15 km north from Yekaterinburg...
near Yekaterinburg that appeared to match the site described in assassin Yakov Yurovsky
Yakov Yurovsky
Yakov Mikhaylovich Yurovsky was an Old Bolshevik best known as the chief executioner of Russia's last Tsar, Nicholas II and his family in 1918, during the Russian Civil War.- Early life :...
's memoirs. The archaeologists said the bones are from a boy who was roughly between the ages of ten and thirteen years at the time of his death and of a young woman who was roughly between the ages of eighteen and twenty-three years old. Anastasia was seventeen years, one month old at the time of the assassination, while her sister Maria was nineteen years, one month old and her brother Alexei was two weeks shy of his fourteenth birthday. Anastasia's elder sisters Olga and Tatiana were twenty-two and twenty-one years old at the time of the assassination. Along with the remains of the two bodies, archaeologists found "shards of a container of sulfuric acid, nails, metal strips from a wooden box, and bullets of various caliber." The bones were found using metal detectors and metal rods as probes.
Preliminary testing indicated a "high degree of probability" that the remains belong to the Tsarevich Alexei and to one of his sisters, Russian forensic scientists announced on . The Yekaterinburg region's chief forensic expert Nikolai Nevolin indicated the results would be compared against those obtained by foreign experts. On April 30, 2008, Russian forensic scientists announced that DNA testing proves that the remains belong to the Tsarevich Alexei and to one of his sisters. With this result, all of the Tsar's family are accounted for.
Since the late 20th century, believers have attributed healing from illnesses or conversion to the Orthodox Church to their prayers to Maria and Alexei, as well as to the rest of the family.