Canonization of the royal family- glorification as Orthodox saints of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II, his wife and five children, shot in the basement of Ipatiev’s house in Yekaterinburg on the night of July 16-17, 1918.

In 1981, they were canonized as martyrs by the Russian Orthodox Church abroad, and in 2000, after lengthy disputes that caused significant resonance in Russia, they were canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church, and are currently revered by it as "Royal Passion-Bearers."

Key dates

• 1918 - execution of the royal family.
• In 1928 they were canonized by the Catacomb Church.
• In 1938 they were canonized by the Serbian Orthodox Church (this fact is disputed by Professor A.I. Osipov). The first news of believers appealing to the Synod of the Serbian Church with a request for the canonization of Nicholas II dates back to 1930.
• In 1981 they were glorified by the Russian Church Abroad.
• October 1996 - The ROC Commission on the glorification of the Royal Martyrs presented its report
• On August 20, 2000, the Russian Orthodox Church canonized the holy new martyrs and confessors of Russia, revealed and unrevealed.

Day of Remembrance: July 4 (17) (day of execution), as well as among the Council of New Martyrs - January 25 (February 7), if this day coincides with a Sunday, and if it does not coincide, then on the nearest Sunday after January 25 (February 7).

Background

Execution

On the night of July 16-17, 1918, the Romanovs and their servants were shot in the basement of the Ipatiev House by order of the “Ural Council of Workers’, Peasants’ and Soldiers’ Deputies,” headed by the Bolsheviks.

Almost immediately after the announcement of the execution of the Tsar and his family, sentiments began to arise in the religious layers of Russian society, which ultimately led to canonization.

Three days after the execution, on July 8 (21), 1918, during a service in the Kazan Cathedral in Moscow, Patriarch Tikhon gave a sermon in which he outlined the “essence of the spiritual feat” of the tsar and the attitude of the church to the issue of execution: “The other day a terrible thing happened: the former Sovereign Nikolai Alexandrovich was shot... We must, obeying the teachings of the word of God, condemn this thing, otherwise the blood of the shot will fall on us, and not just on those who committed it. We know that he, having abdicated the throne, did so with the good of Russia in mind and out of love for her. After his abdication, he could have found security and a relatively quiet life abroad, but he did not do this, wanting to suffer with Russia. He did nothing to improve his situation and resignedly resigned himself to fate.” In addition, Patriarch Tikhon blessed the archpastors and pastors to perform memorial services for the Romanovs.

The almost mystical respect for the anointed saint characteristic of the people, the tragic circumstances of his death at the hands of enemies and the pity that the death of innocent children evoked - all these became components from which the attitude towards the royal family gradually grew not as victims of a political struggle, but as to Christian martyrs. As the Russian Orthodox Church notes, “the veneration of the Royal Family, begun by Tikhon, continued - despite the prevailing ideology - throughout several decades of the Soviet period of our history. Clergy and laity offered prayers to God for the repose of the murdered sufferers, members of the Royal Family. In the houses in the red corner one could see photographs of the Royal Family.” There are no statistics on how widespread this veneration was.

In the emigrant circle, these sentiments were even more obvious. For example, reports appeared in the emigrant press about miracles performed by the royal martyrs (1947, see below: Announced miracles of the royal martyrs). Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, in his 1991 interview characterizing the situation among Russian emigrants, points out that “many abroad consider them saints. Those who belong to the patriarchal church or other churches perform funeral services in their memory, and even prayer services. And in private they consider themselves free to pray to them,” which, in his opinion, is already local veneration. In 1981, the royal family was glorified by the Church Abroad.

In the 1980s, voices began to be heard in Russia about the official canonization of at least the executed children (unlike Nikolai and Alexandra, their innocence does not raise any doubts). Mention is made of icons painted without a church blessing, in which only they were depicted, without their parents. In 1992, the Empress's sister, Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna, another victim of the Bolsheviks, was canonized. However, there were many opponents of canonization.

Arguments against canonization

• The death of Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family was not a martyrdom for Christ, but only political repression.
• The unsuccessful state and church policies of the emperor, including such events as Khodynka, Bloody Sunday and the Lena massacre and the extremely controversial activities of Grigory Rasputin.
• The abdication of the anointed king from the throne should be considered as a church-canonical crime, similar to the refusal of a representative of the church hierarchy from the priesthood.
• “The religiosity of the royal couple, for all its outwardly traditional Orthodoxy, bore a clearly expressed character of interconfessional mysticism.”
• The active movement for the canonization of the royal family in the 1990s was not spiritual, but political.
• “neither the holy Patriarch Tikhon, nor the holy Metropolitan Benjamin of Petrograd, nor the holy Metropolitan Peter of Krutitsa, nor the holy Metropolitan Seraphim (Chichagov), nor the holy Archbishop Thaddeus, nor Archbishop Hilarion (Troitsky), who, without a doubt, will soon be canonized, nor the other hierarchs now glorified by our Church, the new martyrs, who knew much more and better than we do now, the personality of the former Tsar - none of them ever expressed thoughts about him as a holy passion-bearer (and at that time this could still be stated in whole voice)"
• The responsibility for “the gravest sin of regicide, which weighs on all the peoples of Russia,” as advocated by supporters of canonization, also causes deep bewilderment.

Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia

The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad canonized Nicholas and the entire royal family in 1981. At the same time, the Russian new martyrs and ascetics of that time were canonized, including the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Tikhon (Bellavin).

ROC

The official church of the latter raised the issue of canonization of the executed monarchs (which, of course, was related to the political situation in the country). When considering this issue, she was faced with the example of other Orthodox churches, the reputation that those who perished had long ago begun to enjoy in the eyes of believers, as well as the fact that they had already been glorified as locally revered saints in the Yekaterinburg, Lugansk, Bryansk, Odessa and Tulchin dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church .

In 1992, by the determination of the Council of Bishops from March 31 - April 4, the Synodal Commission for the Canonization of Saints was entrusted “when studying the exploits of the Russian new martyrs, begin researching materials related to the martyrdom of the Royal Family”. From 1992 to 1997, the Commission, headed by Metropolitan Juvenaly, devoted 19 meetings to the consideration of this topic, in between which members of the commission carried out in-depth research work to study various aspects of the life of the Royal Family. At the Council of Bishops in 1994, the report of the chairman of the commission outlined the position on a number of studies completed by that time.

The results of the Commission’s work were reported to the Holy Synod at a meeting on October 10, 1996. A report was published in which the position of the Russian Orthodox Church on this issue was announced. Based on this positive report, further steps became possible.

Main points of the report:

• Canonization should not provide reasons or arguments in political struggles or worldly confrontations. Its purpose, on the contrary, is to promote the unification of the people of God in faith and piety.
• In connection with the particularly active activities of modern monarchists, the Commission especially emphasized its position: “the canonization of the Monarch is in no way connected with monarchical ideology and, moreover, does not mean the “canonization” of the monarchical form of government... Glorifying the saint, the Church does not pursue political goals... but testifies to the people of God who already honor the righteous man, that the ascetic whom she canonizes really pleased God and stands before the Throne of God for us, regardless of what position he occupied in his earthly life.”
• The commission notes that in the life of Nicholas II there were two periods of unequal duration and spiritual significance - the time of his reign and the time of his imprisonment. In the first period (being in power) the Commission did not find sufficient grounds for canonization; the second period (spiritual and physical suffering) is more important for the Church, and therefore it focused its attention on it.

Based on the arguments taken into account by the Russian Orthodox Church (see below), as well as thanks to petitions and miracles, the Commission voiced the following conclusion:

In 2000, at the Council of Bishops of the Russian Church, the royal family was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church as part of the Council of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, revealed and not revealed (totaling 860 people). The final decision was made on August 14 at a meeting in the hall of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, and until the very last moment it was not known whether canonization would take place or not. They voted by standing, and the decision was made unanimously. The only church hierarch who spoke out against the canonization of the royal family was Metropolitan Nikolai (Kutepov) of Nizhny Novgorod: “ When all the bishops signed the act of canonization, I noted next to my painting that I was signing everything except the third paragraph. The third point was the Tsar-Father, and I did not sign up for his canonization. ...he is a state traitor. ... he, one might say, sanctioned the collapse of the country. And no one will convince me otherwise."The canonization ceremony took place on August 20, 2000.

From the “Act of the Conciliar Glorification of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian 20th Century”:

Arguments for canonization, taken into account by the Russian Orthodox Church

• Circumstances of death- physical, moral suffering and death at the hands of political opponents.
• Widespread popular veneration the royal passion-bearers served as one of the main reasons for their glorification as saints.
• “appeals from individual clergy and laity, as well as groups of believers from different dioceses, supporting the canonization of the Royal Family. Some of them bear the signatures of several thousand people. Among the authors of such appeals are Russian emigrants, as well as clergy and laity of the fraternal Orthodox Churches. Many of those who contacted the Commission spoke out in favor of the speedy, urgent canonization of the Royal Martyrs. The idea of ​​the need for the speedy glorification of the Tsar and the Royal Martyrs was expressed by a number of church and public organizations.” Over three years, 22,873 requests were received for the glorification of the royal family, according to Metropolitan Juvenaly.
• « Testimonies of miracles and grace-filled help through prayers to the Royal Martyrs. They are talking about healings, uniting separated families, protecting church property from schismatics. There is especially abundant evidence of the streaming of myrrh from icons with images of Emperor Nicholas II and the Royal Martyrs, of the fragrance and the miraculous appearance of blood-colored stains on the icon faces of the Royal Martyrs.”
• Personal piety of the Sovereign: the Emperor paid great attention to the needs of the Orthodox Church, donated generously for the construction of new churches, including outside Russia. Their deep religiosity distinguished the Imperial couple from the representatives of the then aristocracy. All its members lived in accordance with the traditions of Orthodox piety. During the years of his reign, more saints were canonized than in the previous two centuries (in particular, Theodosius of Chernigov, Seraphim of Sarov, Anna Kashinskaya, Joasaph of Belgorod, Hermogenes of Moscow, Pitirim of Tambov, John of Tobolsk).
• “The Emperor’s church policy did not go beyond the traditional synodal system of governing the Church. However, it was during the reign of Emperor Nicholas II that the church hierarchy, which had until then been officially silent for two centuries on the issue of convening a Council, had the opportunity not only to widely discuss, but also to practically prepare for the convening of a Local Council.”
• The activities of the empress and led. princesses as sisters of mercy during the war.
• “Emperor Nikolai Alexandrovich often compared his life to the trials of the sufferer Job, on whose church memorial day he was born. Having accepted his cross in the same way as the biblical righteous man, he endured all the trials sent down to him firmly, meekly and without a shadow of a murmur. It is this long-suffering that is revealed with particular clarity in the last days of the Emperor’s life. From the moment of abdication, it is not so much external events as the internal spiritual state of the Sovereign that attracts our attention.” Most witnesses to the last period of the life of the Royal Martyrs speak of the prisoners of the Tobolsk Governor's House and the Yekaterinburg Ipatiev House as people who suffered and, despite all the mockery and insults, led a pious life. “Their true greatness stemmed not from their royal dignity, but from the amazing moral height to which they gradually rose.”

Refuting the arguments of opponents of canonization

• The blame for the events of Bloody Sunday cannot be placed on the Emperor: “The order to the troops to open fire was given not by the Emperor, but by the Commander of the St. Petersburg Military District. Historical data does not allow us to detect in the actions of the Sovereign in the January days of 1905 a conscious evil will directed against the people and embodied in specific sinful decisions and actions.”
• Nicholas’ guilt as an unsuccessful statesman should not be considered: “we must evaluate not this or that form of government, but the place that a specific person occupies in the state mechanism. The extent to which a person was able to embody Christian ideals in his activities is subject to assessment. It should be noted that Nicholas II treated the duties of a monarch as his sacred duty.”
• Abdication of the tsar's rank is not a crime against the church: “The desire, characteristic of some opponents of the canonization of Emperor Nicholas II, to present his abdication of the Throne as a church-canonical crime, similar to the refusal of a representative of the church hierarchy from the priesthood, cannot be recognized as having any serious grounds . The canonical status of the Orthodox sovereign anointed to the Kingdom was not defined in the church canons. Therefore, attempts to discover the elements of a certain church-canonical crime in the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II from power seem untenable.” On the contrary, “The spiritual motives for which the last Russian Sovereign, who did not want to shed the blood of his subjects, decided to abdicate the Throne in the name of internal peace in Russia, gives his action a truly moral character.”
• “There is no reason to see in the relations of the Royal Family with Rasputin signs of spiritual delusion, and even more so of insufficient church involvement.”

Aspects of canonization

Question about the face of holiness

In Orthodoxy, there is a very developed and carefully worked out hierarchy of the faces of holiness - categories into which it is customary to divide saints depending on their works during life. The question of which saints the royal family should be ranked among causes a lot of controversy among various movements of the Orthodox Church, which have different assessments of the life and death of the family.

• Passion-bearers- the option chosen by the Russian Orthodox Church, which did not find grounds for canonization as martyrs. In the tradition (hagiography and liturgical) of the Russian Church, the concept of “passion-bearer” is used in relation to those Russian saints who, “imitating Christ, patiently endured physical, moral suffering and death at the hands of political opponents. In the history of the Russian Church, such passion-bearers were the holy noble princes Boris and Gleb (+1015), Igor Chernigovsky (+1147), Andrei Bogolyubsky (+1174), Mikhail Tverskoy (+1319), Tsarevich Dimitri (+1591). All of them, with their feat of passion-bearers, showed a high example of Christian morality and patience.”
• Martyrs- despite the classification of the death of the royal family as martyrdom (see above the definition of the Council of Bishops), in order to be included in this rank of holiness it is necessary to suffer precisely for testifying to one’s faith in Christ. Despite this, the ROCOR in 1981 glorified the royal family in this very image of holiness. The reason for this was the reworking of the traditional principles of canonization in the guise of martyrs by Archpriest Mikhail Polsky, who fled from the USSR, who, based on the recognition of the “Soviet power” in the USSR as essentially anti-Christian, considered “new Russian martyrs” all Orthodox Christians killed by government officials in Soviet Russia. Moreover, in his interpretation, Christian martyrdom washes away all previous sins from a person.

• The faithful- the most common face of holiness for monarchs. In Russia, this epithet even became part of the official title of the Grand Dukes and the first Tsars. However, it is not traditionally used for saints canonized as martyrs or passion-bearers. Another important detail is that persons who had the status of a monarch at the time of death are glorified in the ranks of the faithful. Nicholas II, having abdicated the throne, on the instructions of the professor of the Moscow Theological Academy A.I. Osipov, created a temptation for believers, without enduring, according to the word of the Gospel, to the end (Matthew 10:22). Osipov also believes that during the abdication of the throne, there was also a renunciation of the grace received, according to the teachings of the church, during the creation of the world at the moment of the crowning of the kingdom. Despite this, in radical monarchist circles, Nicholas II is revered among the faithful.
• Also in radical monarchist and pseudo-Orthodox circles, the epithet “ redeemer" This is manifested both in written appeals sent to the Moscow Patriarchate when considering the issue of canonization of the royal family, and in non-canonical akathists and prayers: “ O most wonderful and glorious Tsar-Redeemer Nicholas" However, at a meeting of the Moscow clergy, Patriarch Alexy II unequivocally spoke out about the inadmissibility of this, saying that “ if he sees books in some temple in which Nicholas II is called the Redeemer, he will consider the rector of this temple as a preacher of heresy. We have one Redeemer - Christ».

Metropolitan Sergius (Fomin) in 2006 spoke disapprovingly of the campaign of nationwide conciliar repentance for the sin of regicide, carried out by a number of near-Orthodox circles: “ The canonization of Nicholas II and his family as passion-bearers does not satisfy the newly minted zealots of the monarchy", and called such monarchical predilections " heresy of reign" (The reason is that the face of the passion-bearers does not seem “solid” enough for monarchists).

Canonization of servants

Along with the Romanovs, four of their servants, who followed their masters into exile, were also shot. The Russian Orthodox Church canonized them together with the royal family. And the Russian Orthodox Church points out a formal error committed by the Church Abroad during canonization against custom: “It should be noted that the decision, which has no historical analogies in the Orthodox Church, to include among the canonized, who accepted martyrdom together with the Royal Family, the royal servant of the Roman Catholic Aloysius Yegorovich Trupp and the Lutheran goblettress Ekaterina Adolfovna Schneider”.

The position of the Russian Orthodox Church itself regarding the canonization of servants is as follows: “Due to the fact that they voluntarily remained with the Royal Family and accepted martyrdom, it would be legitimate to raise the question of their canonization.”. In addition to the four shot in the basement, the Commission mentions that this list should have included those “killed” in various places and in different months of 1918: Adjutant General I. L. Tatishchev, Marshal Prince V. A. Dolgorukov, “uncle” of the Heir K. G. Nagorny, children's footman I. D. Sednev, maid of honor of the Empress A. V. Gendrikova and goflektress E. A. Schneider. However, the Commission concluded that it “does not seem possible to make a final decision on the existence of grounds for the canonization of this group of laity, who accompanied the Royal Family as part of their court service,” since there is no information about the wide-ranging prayerful commemoration of these servants by believers; moreover, , there is no information about their religious life and personal piety. The final conclusion was: “The commission came to the conclusion that the most appropriate form of honoring the Christian feat of the faithful servants of the Royal Family, who shared its tragic fate, today can be the perpetuation of this feat in the lives of the Royal Martyrs.”.

In addition, there is another problem. While the royal family is canonized as passion-bearers, it is not possible to include the servants who suffered in the same rank, since, as one of the members of the Commission stated in an interview, “the rank of passion-bearers has been applied since ancient times only to representatives of the grand ducal and royal families.” .

Society's reaction to canonization

Positive

• The canonization of the royal family eliminated one of the contradictions between the Russian and Russian Churches Abroad (which canonized them 20 years earlier), noted in 2000 the chairman of the department of external church relations, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad. The same point of view was expressed by Prince Nikolai Romanovich Romanov (chairman of the Association of the House of Romanov), who, however, refused to participate in the act of canonization in Moscow, citing that he was present at the canonization ceremony, which was held in 1981 in New York by the ROCOR.
• Andrei Kuraev: “it was not the image of the reign of Nicholas II that was canonized, but the image of his death... The 20th was a terrible century for Russian Christianity. And you can’t leave it without drawing some conclusions. Since this was the age of martyrs, one could go in two ways in canonization: try to glorify all the new martyrs (...) Or canonize a certain Unknown Soldier, honor one innocently executed Cossack family, and with it millions of others. But this path for church consciousness would probably be too radical. Moreover, in Russia there has always been a certain “tsar-people” identity.”

Modern veneration of the royal family by believers

Churches

• The chapel-monument to the deceased Russian emigrants, Nicholas II and his august family was erected at the cemetery in Zagreb (1935)
• Chapel in memory of Emperor Nicholas II and Serbian King Alexander I in Harbin (1936)
• Church of St. Tsar-Martyr and St. New Martyrs and Confessors in Villemoisson, France (1980s)
• Temple of the Sovereign Icon of the Mother of God, Zhukovsky
• Church of St. Tsar Martyr Nicholas in Nikolskoye
• Church of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers Nicholas and Alexandra, village. Sertolovo
• Monastery in honor of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers near Yekaterinburg.

Icons

• Myrrh-streaming icons
• Myrrh-streaming icon in Butovo
• Myrrh-streaming icon in the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Biryulyovo
• The myrrh-streaming icon of Oleg Belchenko (the first report of myrrh-streaming in the house of the writer A.V. Dyakova on November 7, 1998, that is, before the canonization of the royal family), is located in the Church of St. Nicholas in Pyzhi
• Bleeding icon
• Fragrant icon

Iconography

There is both a collective image of the whole family and each member individually. In the icons of the “foreign” model, the Romanovs are joined by canonized servants. Passion-bearers can be depicted both in contemporary clothing from the early twentieth century, and in robes stylized as Ancient Rus', reminiscent in style of royal robes with parsuns.

Figures of the Romanov saints are also found in the multi-figure icons “Cathedral of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia” and “Cathedral of the Patron Saints of Hunters and Fishers.”

Relics

Patriarch Alexy, on the eve of the sessions of the Council of Bishops in 2000, which performed an act of glorification of the royal family, spoke about the remains found near Yekaterinburg: “We have doubts about the authenticity of the remains, and we cannot encourage believers to venerate false relics if they are recognized as such in the future.” Metropolitan Yuvenaly (Poyarkov), referring to the judgment of the Holy Synod of February 26, 1998 (“Assessing the reliability of scientific and investigative conclusions, as well as evidence of their inviolability or irrefutability, is not within the competence of the Church. Scientific and historical responsibility for those accepted during the investigation "and studying the conclusions regarding the "Ekaterinburg remains" falls entirely on the Republican Center for Forensic Medical Research and the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation. The decision of the State Commission to identify the remains found near Yekaterinburg as belonging to the Family of Emperor Nicholas II caused serious doubts and even confrontations in the Church and society." ), reported to the Council of Bishops in August 2000: “The “Ekaterinburg remains” buried on July 17, 1998 in St. Petersburg cannot today be recognized by us as belonging to the Royal Family.”

In view of this position of the Moscow Patriarchate, which has not undergone changes since then, the remains identified by the government commission as belonging to members of the royal family and buried in July 1998 in the Peter and Paul Cathedral are not venerated by the church as holy relics.

Relics with a clearer origin are revered as relics, for example, Nicholas’s hair, cut at the age of three.

Announced miracles of the royal martyrs

The miraculous deliverance of hundreds of Cossacks. A story about this event appeared in 1947 in the Russian emigrant press. The story contained in it dates back to the time of the Civil War, when a detachment of White Cossacks, surrounded and driven by the Reds into impassable swamps, called for help to the not yet officially glorified Tsarevich Alexei, since, according to the regimental priest, Fr. Elijah, in trouble, one should have prayed to the prince, as to the ataman of the Cossack troops. To the soldiers’ objection that the royal family had not been officially glorified, the priest allegedly replied that the glorification was taking place by the will of “God’s people,” and swore to the others that their prayer would not remain unanswered, and indeed, the Cossacks managed to get out through the swamps that were considered impassable. The numbers of those saved by the intercession of the prince are called - “ 43 women, 14 children, 7 wounded, 11 old people and disabled people, 1 priest, 22 Cossacks, a total of 98 people and 31 horses».

The miracle of dry branches. One of the latest miracles recognized by the official church authorities occurred on January 7, 2007 in the Church of the Transfiguration of the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery in Zvenigorod, which was once a place of pilgrimage for the last tsar and his family. Boys from the monastery orphanage, who came to the temple to rehearse the traditional Christmas performance, allegedly noticed that the long-withered branches lying under the glass of the icons of the royal martyrs had sprouted seven shoots (according to the number of faces depicted on the icon) and produced green flowers with a diameter of 1-2 cm resembling roses, and the flowers and the mother branch belonged to different plant species. According to publications referring to this event, the service during which the branches were placed on the icon was held on Pokrov, that is, three months earlier.

The miraculously grown flowers, four in number, were placed in an icon case, where by the time of Easter “they had not changed at all,” but by the beginning of Holy Week of Great Lent, green shoots up to 3 cm long suddenly erupted. Another flower broke off and was planted in the ground , where it turned into a small plant. What happened to the other two is unknown.

With the blessing of Fr. Savva, the icon was transferred to the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, to the Savvin chapel, where it apparently remains to this day.

The descent of the miraculous fire. Allegedly, this miracle occurred in the Cathedral of the Holy Iveron Monastery in Odessa, when during a service on February 15, 2000, a tongue of snow-white flame appeared on the altar of the temple. According to the testimony of Hieromonk Peter (Golubenkov):

A miraculous image. In July 2001, in the monastery cathedral of the village of Bogolyubskoye, in the upper hemisphere of the ceiling, an image with a crown on his head gradually began to appear, in which they recognized the last king of the Romanov dynasty. According to witnesses, it is not possible to create something like this artificially, since the village is relatively small in size, and everyone here knows each other; moreover, it would be impossible to conceal such work by building scaffolding up to the ceiling at night, and at the same time leaving unnoticed would be impossible . It is also added that the image did not appear instantly, but appeared constantly, as if on photographic film. According to the parishioners of the Holy Bogolyubsky Church, the process did not end there, but on the right side of the iconostasis the image of Queen Alexandra Feodorovna and her son gradually began to appear.

Skeptical perception of miracles

MDA Professor A.I. Osipov writes that when assessing reports of miracles associated with the royal family, it should be taken into account that such “ facts in themselves do not at all confirm the holiness of those (person, confession, religion) through whom and where they occur, and that such phenomena can also occur by virtue of faith - “according to your faith be it done to you” (Matthew 9:29 ), and by the action of another spirit (Acts 16:16-18), “to deceive, if possible, even the elect” (Matthew 24:24), and, perhaps, for other reasons still unknown to us».

Osipov also notes the following aspects of canonical norms regarding miracles:

• For church recognition of a miracle, the testimony of the ruling bishop is necessary. Only after it can we talk about the nature of this phenomenon - whether it is a divine miracle or a phenomenon of another order. For most of the described miracles associated with the royal martyrs, such evidence is absent.
• Declaring someone a saint without the blessing of the ruling bishop and a council decision is a non-canonical act and therefore all references to the miracles of royal martyrs before their canonization should be viewed with skepticism.
• The icon is an image of an ascetic canonized by the church, therefore miracles from those painted before the official canonization of the icons are doubtful.

“The rite of repentance for the sins of the Russian people” and more

Since the late 1990s, annually, on the days dedicated to the anniversaries of the birth of the “Tsar-Martyr Nicholas” by some representatives of the clergy (in particular, Archimandrite Peter (Kucher)), in Taininsky (Moscow region), at the monument to Nicholas II by the sculptor Vyacheslav Klykov, a special “Rite of repentance for the sins of the Russian people” is performed; the holding of the event was condemned by the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church (Patriarch Alexy II in 2007).

Among some Orthodox Christians, the concept of the “Tsar Redeemer” is in circulation, according to which Nicholas II is revered as “the redeemer of the sin of infidelity of his people”; the concept is called by some the “royal redemptive heresy”

HOLY ROYAL PASSION-BEARERS (†1918)

July 17 is the day of remembrance of the holy Royal Passion-Bearers of the Most Pious Autocratic Sovereign Emperor Nikolai Alexandrovich, the Wife of His Most Pious Empress Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, the Heir of the Blessed Tsarevich Alexy Nikolaevich, the Blessed Grand Duchesses Olga Nikolaevna, Tatiana Nikolaevna, Maria Nikolaevna and Anastasia Nikolaev us.

On the night of July 16-17, 1918, a terrible crime was committed - in Yekaterinburg, in the basement of the Ipatiev House, the Sovereign Emperor Nikolai Alexandrovich, His Family and faithful people who voluntarily remained with the Royal prisoners and shared Their fate were shot.

The Day of Remembrance of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers allows us to see how it is possible for a person to follow Christ and be faithful to Him, despite any sorrows and trials in life. After all, what the holy Royal martyrs endured goes beyond the boundaries of human understanding. The suffering they endured (suffering not only physical, but also moral) exceeds the measure of human strength and capabilities. Only a humble heart, a heart completely devoted to God, was capable of bearing such a heavy cross. It is unlikely that anyone else's name has been so maligned as that of Tsar Nicholas II. But very few endured all these sorrows with such meekness and such complete trust in God, as the Emperor did.

Childhood and adolescence

The last Russian Emperor Nicholas II was the eldest son of Emperor Alexander III and his wife Empress Maria Feodorovna (daughter of the Danish king Christian VII). He born May 6 (19), 1868 on the day of rights Job the Long-Suffering near St. Petersburg, in Tsarskoe Selo.

The upbringing he received under the guidance of his father was strict, almost harsh. "I need normal, healthy Russian children"- this was the demand put forward by the Emperor to the educators of his children. And such an upbringing could only be Orthodox in spirit. Even as a small child, the Heir Tsarevich showed special love for God and His Church. He was deeply touched by every human grief and every need. He began and ended the day with prayer; He knew well the order of church services, during which he loved to sing along with the church choir. Listening to stories about the Passion of the Savior, he felt compassion for Him with all his soul and even pondered how to save Him from the Jews.

He received a very good education at home - he knew several languages, studied Russian and world history, had a deep understanding of military affairs, and was a widely erudite person. The best teachers of that time were assigned to him and he turned out to be a very capable student.

At age 16, he enlisted for active military service. At the age of 19, he was promoted to junior officer, and at 24, to colonel of the Preobrazhensky Life Guards Regiment. And Nicholas II remained in this rank until the end.

A serious test was sent to the Royal Family in the fall of 1888: a terrible crash of the royal train occurred near Kharkov. The carriages fell with a roar from a high embankment down the slope. By the providence of God, the life of Emperor Alexander III and the entire August family was miraculously saved.

A new test followed in 1891 during the Tsarevich’s trip to the Far East: an attempt was made on his life in Japan. Nikolai Alexandrovich almost died from a saber blow from a religious fanatic, but the Greek Prince George knocked down the attacker with a bamboo cane. And again a miracle happened: only a slight wound remained on the head of the Heir to the Throne.

In 1884, in St. Petersburg, the marriage of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich with Princess Elizabeth of Hesse-Darmstadt (now canonized as Saint Martyr Elizabeth, commemorated July 5) was solemnly celebrated. Young Nicholas II was then 16 years old. At the celebrations he saw the bride’s young sister - Alix (Princess Alice of Hesse, granddaughter of Queen Victoria of England). A strong friendship began between the young people, which then turned into deep and growing love. Five years later, when Alix of Hesse visited Russia again, the heir made the final decision to marry her. But Tsar Alexander III did not give his consent. "Everything is in the will of God,- the heir wrote in his diary after a long conversation with his father, “Trusting in His mercy, I look calmly and humbly to the future.”

Princess Alice - the future Russian Empress Alexandra Feodorovna - was born on May 25, 1872 in Darmstadt. Alice's father was Grand Duke Ludwig of Hesse-Darmstadt, and her mother was Princess Alice of England, the third daughter of Queen Victoria. As an infant, Princess Alice—her name at home was Alix—was a cheerful, lively child, earning her the nickname “Sunny” (Sunny). The children of the Hessian couple—there were seven of them—were brought up in deeply patriarchal traditions. Their life passed according to the rules strictly established by their mother; not a single minute should pass without doing anything. The children's clothing and food were very simple. The girls lit the fireplaces themselves and cleaned their rooms. From childhood, their mother tried to instill in them qualities based on a deeply Christian approach to life.

For five years the love of Tsarevich Nicholas and Princess Alice was experienced. Already a real beauty, to whom many crowned suitors wooed, she answered everyone with a decisive refusal. Likewise, the Tsarevich responded with a calm but firm refusal to all his parents’ attempts to arrange his happiness differently. Finally, in the spring of 1894, the august parents of the heir gave their blessing to the marriage.

The only obstacle remained the transition to Orthodoxy - according to Russian laws, the bride of the Heir to the Russian throne must be Orthodox. She perceived this as apostasy. Alix was a sincere believer. But, raised in Lutheranism, her honest and straightforward nature resisted the change of religion. Over the course of several years, the young princess had to undergo the same rethinking of faith as her sister Elizabeth Feodorovna. But the princess’s complete conversion was helped by the sincere, passionate words of the heir to Tsarevich Nicholas, pouring out from his loving heart: “When you learn how beautiful, gracious and humble our Orthodox religion is, how magnificent our churches and monasteries are and how solemn and majestic our services are, you will love them and nothing will separate us.”

The days of their engagement coincided with the dying illness of Emperor Alexander III. 10 days before his death they arrived in Livadia. Alexander III, wanting to pay attention to his son’s bride, despite all the prohibitions of doctors and family, got out of bed, put on his dress uniform and, sitting in a chair, blessed the future spouses who fell at his feet. He showed great affection and attention to the princess, which the queen later remembered with excitement all her life.

Accession to the throne and beginning of reign

The joy of mutual love was overshadowed by a sharp deterioration in the health of his father, Emperor Alexander III.

Emperor Nikolai Alexandrovich ascended the throne after the death of his father - Emperor Alexander III - October 20 (old style) 1894 . That day, in deep sorrow, Nikolai Alexandrovich said that he did not want the Royal crown, but accepted it, fearing to disobey the will of the Almighty and his father’s will.

The next day, amid deep sadness, a ray of joy flashed: Princess Alix accepted Orthodoxy. The ceremony of joining it to the Orthodox Church was performed by the All-Russian Shepherd John of Kronstadt. During Confirmation, she was named Alexandra in honor of the holy Martyr Queen.

In three weeks, November 14, 1894 took place in the Great Church of the Winter Palace wedding Emperor Nicholas Alexandrovich and Princess Alexandra.

The honeymoon took place in an atmosphere of funeral services and mourning visits. "Our wedding," the empress later recalled, was like a continuation of these funeral services, they just dressed me in a white dress.”

On May 14 (27), 1896, the coronation took place Emperor Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra Feodorovna in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin.

Coronation of Emperor Nicholas II Alexandrovich and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna

By a fateful coincidence, the days of the coronation celebrations were overshadowed tragedy on the Khodynka field , where about half a million people gathered. On the occasion of the coronation May 18 (31) folk festivities were scheduled on Khodynskoye Field. In the morning, people (often families) began to arrive on the field from all over Moscow and the surrounding area, attracted by rumors of gifts and the distribution of valuable coins. At the time of distribution of gifts, a terrible stampede occurred, which claimed the lives of more than a thousand people. The next day, the Tsar and Empress attended the memorial service for the victims and provided assistance to the families of the victims.

Tragedy on Khodynka May 18, 1896

The tragedy on Khodynka was considered a gloomy omen for the reign of Nicholas II, and at the end of the 20th century it was cited by some as one of the arguments against his canonization (2000).

Royal family

The first 20 years of the royal couple's marriage were the happiest in their personal family life.The Royal Couple exemplified a truly Christian family life. The relationship between the August Spouses was characterized by sincere love, cordial understanding and deep fidelity.

Born in the fall of 1895 first daughter- Great Princess Olga . She had a very lively mind and prudence. It is not surprising that her father often consulted with her, even on the most important issues. Holy Princess Olga loved Russia very much and, just like her father, she loved the simple Russian people. When it came to the fact that she could marry one of the foreign princes, she did not want to hear about it, saying: “I don’t want to leave Russia. I am Russian and I want to remain Russian.”

Two years later, a second girl was born, named in Holy Baptism Tatiana, two years later - Maria, and two years later - Anastasia .

With the advent of the children, Alexandra Feodorovna gave them all her attention: she fed them, bathed herself every day, was constantly in the nursery, not trusting her children to anyone. The Empress did not like to remain idle for a minute, and she taught her children to work. The two eldest daughters, Olga and Tatyana, worked with their mother in the infirmary during the war, performing the duties of surgical nurses.

Empress Alexandra Feodorovna presents instruments during an operation. Vel is standing behind. Princesses Olga and Tatiana.

NThe cherished desire of the Royal couple was the birth of an Heir. The long-awaited event has happened August 12, 1904 , a year after the pilgrimage of the Royal Family to Sarov, for the celebrations of the glorification of St. Seraphim. But just a few weeks after birth Tsarevich Alexy It turned out that he had hemophilia. The child's life hung in the balance all the time: the slightest bleeding could cost him his life. Those close to him noted the nobility of the Tsarevich’s character, the kindness and responsiveness of his heart. "When I am King, there will be no poor and unhappy,- he said. - I want everyone to be happy."

The Tsar and Queen raised their children in devotion to the Russian people and carefully prepared them for the upcoming work and feat. “Children must learn self-denial, learn to give up their own desires for the sake of other people,” the Empress believed. The Tsarevich and the Grand Duchesses slept on hard camp beds without pillows; dressed simply; dresses and shoes were passed down from older to younger. The food was very simple. Tsarevich Alexei's favorite food was cabbage soup, porridge and black bread, "which,- as he said, - all my soldiers eat."

The Tsar's surprisingly sincere gaze always shone with genuine kindness. One day the Tsar visited the cruiser Rurik, where there was a revolutionary who had sworn an oath to kill him. The sailor did not fulfill his vow. "I couldn't do it," he explained. “Those eyes looked at me so meekly, so affectionately.”

Persons standing close to the court noted the lively mind of Nicholas II - he always quickly grasped the essence of the issues presented to him, his excellent memory, especially for faces, and the nobility of his way of thinking. But Nikolai Alexandrovich, with his gentleness, tact in his manners, and modest manners, gave many the impression of a man who had not inherited the strong will of his father.

The Emperor was unmercenary. He generously helped those in need from his own funds, without thinking about the size of the requested amount. "He will soon give away everything he has"- said the manager of His Majesty’s office. He did not like extravagance and luxury, and his dresses were often mended.

Religiosity and view of one's power. Church politics

The Emperor paid great attention to the needs of the Orthodox Church and generously donated for the construction of new churches, including outside Russia. During the years of his reign, the number of parish churches in Russia increased by more than 10 thousand, and more than 250 new monasteries were opened. The emperor personally participated in the laying of new temples and in other church celebrations. During the reign of Emperor Nicholas II, the church hierarchy had the opportunity to prepare for the convening of a Local Council, which had not been convened for two centuries.

The personal piety of the Sovereign was manifested in the canonization of saints. During the years of his reign, Saint Theodosius of Chernigov (1896), Saint Seraphim of Sarov (1903), Holy Princess Anna Kashinskaya (restoration of veneration in 1909), Saint Joasaph of Belgorod (1911), Saint Hermogen of Moscow (1913) were canonized as saints. year), Saint Pitirim of Tambov (1914), Saint John of Tobolsk (1916). The Emperor was forced to show special persistence in seeking the canonization of St. Seraphim of Sarov, Saints Joasaph of Belgorod and John of Tobolsk. Nicholas II highly revered the holy righteous father John of Kronstadt. After his blessed death, the Tsar ordered a nationwide prayerful commemoration of the deceased on the day of his repose.

The imperial couple were distinguished by their deep religiosity. The Empress did not like social interaction or balls. The education of the children of the Imperial Family was imbued with a religious spirit. Brief services in court churches did not satisfy the Emperor and Empress. Services are held especially for them in the Tsarskoye Selo Feodorovsky Cathedral, built in the Old Russian style. Empress Alexandra prayed here in front of a lectern with open liturgical books, carefully watching the service.

Economic policy

The Emperor celebrated the beginning of his reign with deeds of love and mercy: prisoners in prisons received relief; there was a lot of debt forgiveness; Significant assistance was provided to needy scientists, writers and students.

The reign of Nicholas II was a period of economic growth: in 1885-1913, the growth rate of agricultural production averaged 2%, and the growth rate of industrial production was 4.5-5% per year. Coal production in the Donbass increased from 4.8 million tons in 1894 to 24 million tons in 1913. Coal mining began in the Kuznetsk coal basin.
The construction of railways continued, the total length of which, amounting to 44 thousand kilometers in 1898, by 1913 exceeded 70 thousand kilometers. In terms of the total length of railways, Russia surpassed any other European country and was second only to the United States.

In January 1887, a monetary reform was carried out, establishing a gold standard for the ruble.

In 1913, all of Russia solemnly celebrated the three-hundredth anniversary of the House of Romanov. Russia was at that time at the pinnacle of glory and power: industry was developing at an unprecedented pace, the army and navy were becoming more and more powerful, agrarian reform was being successfully implemented, and the country's population was rapidly increasing. It seemed that all internal problems would be successfully resolved in the near future.

Foreign policy and the Russo-Japanese War

Nicholas II treated the duties of the monarch as his sacred duty. For him, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was a model politician - at the same time a reformer and a careful guardian of national traditions and faith. He inspired the first world conference on the prevention of war, which took place in the capital of Holland in 1899, and was the first among rulers to defend universal peace. During his entire reign, the Tsar did not sign a single death sentence, not a single request for pardon that reached the Tsar was rejected by him.

In October 1900, Russian troops, as part of the suppression of the uprising in China by the troops of the Eight Power Alliance (Russian Empire, USA, German Empire, Great Britain, France, Japanese Empire, Austria-Hungary and Italy), occupied Manchuria.

Russia's lease of the Liaodong Peninsula, the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway and the establishment of a naval base in Port Arthur, and Russia's growing influence in Manchuria clashed with the aspirations of Japan, which also laid claim to Manchuria.

On January 24, 1904, the Japanese ambassador presented the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs V.N. Lamzdorf with a note, which announced the termination of negotiations, which Japan considered “useless,” and the severance of diplomatic relations with Russia; Japan recalled its diplomatic mission from St. Petersburg and reserved the right to resort to “independent actions” as it deemed necessary to protect its interests. On the evening of January 26, the Japanese fleet attacked the Port Arthur squadron without declaring war. On January 27, 1904, Russia declared war on Japan. The Russian-Japanese War began (1904-1905). The Russian Empire, having an almost threefold advantage in population, could field a proportionately larger army. At the same time, the number of Russian armed forces directly in the Far East (beyond Lake Baikal) was no more than 150 thousand people, and, taking into account the fact that most of these troops were involved in guarding the Trans-Siberian Railway/state border/fortresses, it was directly available for active operations about 60 thousand people. On the Japanese side, 180 thousand soldiers were deployed. The main theater of military operations was the Yellow Sea.

The attitude of the leading world powers to the outbreak of war between Russia and Japan split them into two camps. England and the USA immediately and definitely took the side of Japan: an illustrated chronicle of the war that began to be published in London even received the name “Japan’s Struggle for Freedom”; and American President Roosevelt openly warned France against its possible action against Japan, saying that in this case he would “immediately take her side and go as far as necessary.”

The outcome of the war was decided by the naval battle of Tsushima in May 1905, which ended in the complete defeat of the Russian fleet. On May 23, 1905, the Emperor received, through the US Ambassador in St. Petersburg, a proposal from President T. Roosevelt for mediation to conclude peace. Under the terms of the peace treaty, Russia recognized Korea as Japan's sphere of influence, ceded Southern Sakhalin and the rights to the Liaodong Peninsula with the cities of Port Arthur and Dalniy to Japan.

Defeat in the Russo-Japanese War (the first in half a century) and the subsequent suppression of the unrest of 1905-1907. (subsequently aggravated by the emergence of rumors about Rasputin’s influence) led to a decline in the authority of the emperor in ruling and intellectual circles.

Revolution of 1905-1907

At the end of 1904, the political struggle in the country intensified. The impetus for the start of mass protests under political slogans was the shooting by imperial troops in St. Petersburg of a peaceful demonstration of workers led by priest Georgy Gapon January 9 (22), 1905 . During this period, the strike movement took on a particularly wide scale; unrest and uprisings occurred in the army and navy, which resulted in mass protests against the monarchy.

On the morning of January 9, columns of workers totaling up to 150,000 people moved from different areas to the city center. At the head of one of the columns, priest Gapon walked with a cross in his hand. As the columns approached military outposts, the officers demanded that the workers stop, but they continued to move forward. Electrified by fanatical propaganda, the workers stubbornly strove for the Winter Palace, ignoring warnings and even cavalry attacks. To prevent a crowd of 150,000 from gathering in the city center, the troops were forced to fire rifle salvos. In other parts of the city, crowds of workers were dispersed with sabers, swords and whips. According to official data, in just one day on January 9, 96 people were killed and 333 wounded. The dispersal of the unarmed march of workers made a shocking impression on society. Reports of the shooting of the procession, which repeatedly overestimated the number of victims, were spread by illegal publications, party proclamations, and passed on by word of mouth. The opposition placed full responsibility for what happened on Emperor Nicholas II and the autocratic regime. Priest Gapon, who had escaped from the police, called for an armed uprising and the overthrow of the dynasty. Revolutionary parties called for the overthrow of the autocracy. A wave of strikes took place under political slogans across the country. The traditional faith of the working masses in the Tsar was shaken, and the influence of the revolutionary parties began to grow. The slogan “Down with autocracy!” has gained popularity. According to many contemporaries, the tsarist government made a mistake by deciding to use force against unarmed workers. The danger of rebellion was averted, but the prestige of the royal power was irreparably damaged.

Bloody Sunday is undoubtedly a dark day in history, but the role of the Tsar in this event is much lower than the role of the organizers of the demonstration. For by that time the government had already been under a real siege for more than a month. After all, “Bloody Sunday” itself would not have happened if it were not for the atmosphere of political crisis that liberals and socialists created in the country.(author's note - an analogy with today's events involuntarily suggests itself). In addition, the police became aware of plans to shoot the sovereign as he came out to the people.

In October, a strike began in Moscow, which spread throughout the country and grew into the All-Russian October political strike. From October 12 to 18, over 2 million people went on strike in various industries.

This general strike and, above all, the strike of railway workers, forced the emperor to make concessions. On August 6, 1905, the Manifesto of Nicholas II established the State Duma as “a special legislative advisory institution, which is given the preliminary development and discussion of legislative proposals.” The Manifesto of October 17, 1905 granted civil liberties: personal inviolability, freedom of conscience, speech, assembly and union. Trade unions and professional-political unions, Councils of Workers' Deputies arose, the Social Democratic Party and the Socialist Revolutionary Party were strengthened, the Constitutional Democratic Party, the "Union of October 17", "The Union of the Russian People" and others were created.

Thus, the liberals' demands were fulfilled. The autocracy went to the creation of parliamentary representation and the beginning of reform (Stolypin agrarian reform).

World War I

The World War began on the morning of August 1, 1914, on the day of remembrance of St. Seraphim of Sarov. Blessed Pasha of Sarov of Diveyevo said that the war was started by the enemies of the Fatherland in order to overthrow the Tsar and tear Russia apart. “He will be higher than all the kings,” she said, praying for portraits of the Tsar and the Royal Family along with icons.

On July 19 (August 1), 1914, Germany declared war on Russia: Russia entered the world war, which for it ended in the collapse of the empire and dynasty. Nicholas II made efforts to prevent war in all the pre-war years, and in the last days before its outbreak, when (July 15, 1914) Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia and began bombing Belgrade. On July 16 (29), 1914, Nicholas II sent a telegram to Wilhelm II with a proposal to “transfer the Austro-Serbian issue to the Hague Conference” (to the International Court of Arbitration in The Hague). Wilhelm II did not respond to this telegram.

Emperor Nicholas II at headquarters

The First World War, which began with two heroic exploits of Russia - the salvation of Serbia from Austria-Hungary and France from Germany, pulled the best people's forces to fight the enemy. Since August 1915, the sovereign himself spent most of his time at headquarters, away from the capital and the palace. And so, when victory was so close that both the Council of Ministers and the Synod were already openly discussing the question of how the Church and the state should behave in relation to Constantinople liberated from Muslims, the rear, having finally succumbed to the flattering propaganda of the atheists, betrayed its To the Emperor. An armed uprising began in Petrograd, the tsar's connection with the capital and family was deliberately interrupted. Treason surrounded the sovereign on all sides; his orders to the commanders of all fronts to send military units to suppress the rebellion were not carried out.

Abdication

Intending to personally find out the situation in the capital, Nikolai Alexandrovich left headquarters and went to Petrograd. In Pskov, a delegation from the State Duma came to him, completely cut off from the whole world. The delegates began to ask the sovereign to abdicate the throne to calm the rebellion. The generals of the Northern Front also joined them. They were soon joined by the commanders of other fronts.

The Tsar and his closest relatives made this request on their knees. Without violating the oath of the Anointed One of God and without abolishing the Autocratic Monarchy, Emperor Nicholas II transferred Royal power to the eldest of the family - brother Mikhail. According to recent studies, the so-called. The “manifesto” of abdication (signed in pencil!), drawn up contrary to the laws of the Russian Empire, was a telegram from which it followed that the Tsar had been betrayed into the hands of his enemies. Let him who reads understand!

Deprived of the opportunity to contact headquarters, his family, and those he still trusted, the Tsar hoped that this telegram would be perceived by the troops as a call to action - the release of God’s Anointed. To the greatest regret, the Russian people were unable to unite in the sacred impulse: “For the Faith, the Tsar and the Fatherland.” Something terrible has happened...

How correctly the Emperor assessed the situation and the people around Him is evidenced by a short entry, which became historical, made by Him in his diary on this day: “There is treason, cowardice, and deceit all around.” Grand Duke Michael refused to accept the crown, and the monarchy in Russia fell.

Icon of the Mother of God "Sovereign"

It was on that fateful day March 15, 1917 In the village of Kolomenskoye, near Moscow, a miraculous appearance of the icon of the Mother of God, called “Sovereign”, took place. The Queen of Heaven is depicted on it in royal purple, with a crown on her head, with a Scepter and Orb in her hands. The Most Pure One took upon herself the burden of Tsarist power over the people of Russia.

During the abdication of the sovereign, the empress did not receive news from him for several days. Her torment in these days of mortal anxiety, without news and at the bedsides of five seriously ill children, surpassed everything that one could imagine. Having suppressed in herself the weakness of women and all her bodily ailments, heroically, selflessly, she devoted herself to caring for the sick, with complete trust in the help of the Queen of Heaven.

Arrest and execution of the royal family

The Provisional Government announced the arrest of Emperor Nicholas II and his August wife and their detention in Tsarskoye Selo. The arrest of the Emperor and Empress did not have the slightest legal basis or reason. The commission of inquiry appointed by the Provisional Government tormented the Tsar and Tsarina with searches and interrogations, but did not find a single fact convicting them of treason. When one of the commission members asked why their correspondence had not yet been published, he was told: “If we publish it, the people will worship them as saints.”

The life of the prisoners was subjected to petty restrictions - A. F. Kerensky announced to the Emperor that he should live separately and see the Empress only at table, and speak only in Russian. The guard soldiers made rude comments to him; access to the palace for persons close to the Royal Family was prohibited. One day, soldiers even took away a toy gun from the Heir under the pretext of a ban on carrying weapons.

July 31 the royal family and a retinue of devoted servants were sent under escort to Tobolsk. At the sight of the August Family, ordinary people took off their hats, crossed themselves, many fell to their knees: not only women, but also men cried. The sisters of the Ioannovsky Monastery brought spiritual literature and helped with food, since all means of subsistence were taken away from the Royal Family. Restrictions in the life of the Prisoners intensified. Mental anxieties and moral suffering greatly affected the Emperor and Empress. They both looked exhausted, gray hair appeared, but their spiritual strength still remained in them. Bishop Hermogenes of Tobolsk, who at one time spread slander against the Empress, now openly admitted the mistake. In 1918, before his martyrdom, he wrote a letter in which he called the Royal Family the “long-suffering Holy Family.”

All the royal passion-bearers were undoubtedly aware of the approaching end and were preparing for it. Even the youngest, the holy Tsarevich Alexy, did not close his eyes to reality, as can be seen from the words that accidentally escaped from him: “If they kill, they just don’t torture”. The sovereign’s devoted servants, who courageously followed the royal family into exile, also understood this. “I know that I will not come out of this alive. I pray only for one thing - that I not be separated from the sovereign and allowed to die with him,”- said Adjutant General I.L. Tatishchev.

The royal family on the eve of the arrest and virtual collapse of the Russian Empire. Anxiety, excitement, grief for a once great country

The news of the October coup reached Tobolsk on November 15. In Tobolsk, a “soldiers’ committee” was formed, which, in every possible way striving for self-affirmation, demonstrated its power over the Tsar - they either forced him to take off his shoulder straps, or destroyed the ice slide built for the Tsar’s children. On March 1, 1918, “Nikolai Romanov and his family were transferred to soldiers’ rations.”

Their next place of imprisonment was Ekaterinburg . There is much less evidence left about the Yekaterinburg period of imprisonment of the Royal Family. Almost no letters. Living conditions in the “special purpose house” were much more difficult than in Tobolsk. The royal family lived here for two and a half months among a gang of arrogant, unbridled people - their new guards - and were subjected to bullying. Guards were posted in all corners of the house and monitored every movement of the prisoners. They covered the walls with indecent drawings, mocking the Empress and the Grand Duchesses. They were even on duty near the door to the toilet, and they did not allow us to lock the doors. A guardhouse was set up in the lower floor of the house. The dirt there was terrible. Drunken voices were constantly bawling revolutionary or obscene songs, to the accompaniment of fists pounding on the piano keys.

Uncomplaining submission to the will of God, gentleness and humility gave the royal passion-bearers the strength to firmly endure all suffering. They already felt themselves on the other side of existence and with prayer in their souls and on their lips they were preparing for their transition to eternal life. IN Ipatiev House a poem was found written by the hand of Grand Duchess Olga, which is called “Prayer”, its last two quatrains speak of the same thing:

Lord of the world, God of the universe,
Bless us with your prayer
And give rest to the humble soul
At an unbearably terrible hour.
And at the threshold of the grave
Breathe into the mouths of Your servants
Superhuman powers
Pray meekly for your enemies.

When the Royal Family was captured by the godless authorities, the commissioners were forced to change their guards all the time. Because under the miraculous influence of the holy prisoners, being in constant contact with them, these people unwittingly became different, more humane. Captivated by the royal simplicity, humility and philanthropy of the crowned passion-bearers, the jailers softened their attitude towards them. However, as soon as the Ural Cheka felt that the guards of the royal family were beginning to be imbued with good feelings towards the prisoners, they immediately replaced them with a new one - from the Chekists themselves. At the head of this guard stood Yankel Yurovsky . He was constantly in touch with Trotsky, Lenin, Sverdlov and other organizers of the atrocity. It was Yurovsky, in the basement of the Ipatiev House, who read the order of the Yekaterinburg Executive Committee and was the first to shoot directly in the heart of our holy Tsar-Martyr. He shot at children and finished them off with a bayonet.

Three days before the murder of the royal martyrs, a priest was invited to them for the last time to perform a service. Father served as a liturgist; according to the order of the service, it was necessary to read the kontakion “Rest with the saints...” in a certain place. For some reason, this time the deacon, instead of reading this kontakion, sang it, and the priest also sang. The royal martyrs, moved by some unknown feeling, knelt down...

On the night of July 16-17 the prisoners were lowered into the basement under the pretext of a quick move, then soldiers with rifles suddenly appeared, the “verdict” was hastily read out, and then the guards opened fire. The shooting was indiscriminate - the soldiers had been given vodka beforehand - so the holy martyrs were finished off with bayonets. Together with the Royal Family, the servants died: the doctor Evgeny Botkin, the maid of honor Anna Demidova, the cook Ivan Kharitonov and the footman Trupp, who remained faithful to them to the end. The picture was terrible: eleven bodies lay on the floor in streams of blood. After making sure that their victims were dead, the killers began to remove their jewelry.

Pavel Ryzhenko. In Ipatiev's house after the execution of the royal family

After the execution, the bodies were taken outside the city to an abandoned mine in the tract Ganina pit, where they were destroyed for a long time using sulfuric acid, gasoline and grenades. There is an opinion that the murder was ritual, as evidenced by the inscriptions on the walls of the room where the martyrs died. One of them consisted of four cabalistic signs. It was deciphered like this: " Here, on the orders of satanic forces. The Tsar was sacrificed to destroy the State. All nations are informed of this." Ipatiev's house was blown up in the 70s.

Archpriest Alexander Shargunov in the magazine "Russian House" for 2003. writes: “We know that the majority among the top of the Bolshevik government, as well as the bodies of repression, such as the sinister Cheka, were Jews. Here is a prophetic indication of the appearance from this environment of the “man of lawlessness,” the Antichrist. For the Antichrist, as the holy fathers teach, will be by origin a Jew from the tribe of Dan. And his appearance will be prepared by the sins of all mankind, when dark mysticism, debauchery and criminality become the norm and law of life. We are far from thinking of condemning any people for their nationality. In the end, Christ Himself according to the flesh he came from this people, His apostles and the first Christian martyrs were Jews. It’s not a matter of nationality..."

The date of the savage murder itself - July 17 - is no coincidence. On this day, the Russian Orthodox Church honors the memory of the holy noble prince Andrei Bogolyubsky, who consecrated the autocracy of Rus' with his martyrdom. According to the chroniclers, the conspirators killed him in the most brutal manner. Holy Prince Andrei was the first to proclaim the idea of ​​Orthodoxy and Autocracy as the basis of the statehood of Holy Rus' and was, in fact, the first Russian Tsar.

About the significance of the feat of the royal family

The veneration of the Royal Family, begun by His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon in the funeral prayer and word at the memorial service in the Kazan Cathedral in Moscow for the murdered Emperor three days after the Yekaterinburg murder, continued throughout several decades of the Soviet period of our history. During the entire period of Soviet power, frantic blasphemy was poured out against the memory of the holy Tsar Nicholas, nevertheless, many people, especially in emigration, revered the martyr Tsar from the very moment of his death.

Countless testimonies of miraculous help through prayers to the Family of the last Russian Autocrat; popular veneration of the royal martyrs in the last years of the 20th century became so widespread that in 2000 Russian Orthodox Church, the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and their children Alexei, Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia canonized as holy passion-bearers . Their memory is celebrated on the day of their martyrdom - July 17th .

Why was the royal family canonized?

Archpriest Georgy Mitrofanov

Historical facts do not allow us to speak of members of the royal family as Christian martyrs. Martyrdom presupposes the opportunity for a person to save his life through renunciation of Christ. The sovereign's family was killed precisely as the sovereign's family: the people who killed them were quite secularized in their worldview and perceived them primarily as a symbol of the imperial Russia they hated.

In historical notes about Nicholas II, and in his life, a rather restrained and sometimes critical assessment of his state activities is given. Bloody Sunday on January 9, 1905, the problem of the attitude of the sovereign and empress to Rasputin, the problem of the abdication of the emperor - all this is assessed from the point of view of whether this prevents canonization or not.

If we consider the events of January 9, then, firstly, we must take into account that we are dealing with mass riots that took place in the city. They were unprofessionally suppressed, but it was truly a massive illegal demonstration. Secondly, the sovereign did not give any criminal orders that day - he was in Tsarskoe Selo and was largely misinformed by the Minister of Internal Affairs and the mayor of St. Petersburg. Nicholas II considered himself responsible for what happened, hence the tragic entry in his diary, which he left on the evening of that day after learning about what had happened: "Hard day! Serious riots occurred in St. Petersburg as a result of the workers’ desire to reach the Winter Palace. The troops had to shoot in different places in the city, there were many killed and wounded. Lord, how painful and difficult!”

As for the renunciation, it was definitely a politically erroneous act. Nevertheless, the sovereign’s guilt is to some extent redeemed by the motives that guided him. The desire of the emperor to prevent civil strife through abdication is justified from a moral point of view, but not from a political point of view... If Nicholas II had suppressed the revolutionary uprising by force, he would have gone down in history as an outstanding statesman, but it is unlikely that he would have become a saint.

All this allows us to take a slightly different look at the figure of the last king. However, the Church is in no hurry to justify Nicholas II in everything. A canonized saint is not sinless.

Five reports devoted to the study of the state and church activities of the last Russian sovereign were submitted to the Synodal Commission for the Canonization of Saints. The commission decided that the activities of Emperor Nicholas II in themselves do not provide sufficient grounds for both his canonization and the canonization of his family members. However, the reports that determined the final - positive - decision of the Commission were the sixth and seventh: “The Last Days of the Royal Family” and “The Church’s Attitude to Passion.”

It is the last period of the life of the members of the royal family, spent in captivity, and the circumstances of their death that provide serious grounds for glorifying them as passion-bearers. They realized more and more that death was inevitable, but they managed to preserve spiritual peace in their hearts and at the moment of martyrdom they acquired the ability to forgive their executioners.

The family of Nicholas II is glorified in the rite of passion-bearing , characteristic specifically for the Russian Church. The drama of passion-suffering, “non-resistance to death” lies precisely in the fact that it is precisely weak people, who have often sinned a lot, who find the strength to overcome weak human nature and die with the name of Christ on their lips. This rank is traditionally used to canonize Russian princes and sovereigns who, imitating Christ, patiently endured physical and moral suffering or death at the hands of political opponents. By the way, in the history of the Russian Church there are not many canonized sovereigns. And of the Romanovs, only Nicholas II was canonized as a saint - this is the only case in the 300 years of the dynasty.

The famous Moscow archpriest, a deeply convinced monarchist, Father Alexander Shargunov, spoke very accurately about the internal, ideologically-deep, purely spiritual and timeless foundations of the feat of the royal family:

As you know, today’s detractors of the Tsar, both left and right, constantly blame him for his abdication. Unfortunately, for some, even after canonization, this remains a stumbling block and temptation, while this was the greatest manifestation of his holiness.

When speaking about the holiness of Tsar Nicholas Alexandrovich, we usually mean his martyrdom, connected, of course, with his entire pious life. The feat of his renunciation is a feat of confession.

To understand this more clearly, let us remember who sought the abdication of the Emperor. First of all, those who sought a turn in Russian history towards European democracy or, at least, towards a constitutional monarchy. The Socialists and Bolsheviks were already a consequence and extreme manifestation of the materialist understanding of history.

It is known that many of the then destroyers of Russia acted in the name of its creation. Among them there were many honest, wise people in their own way, who were already thinking about “how to organize Russia.” But it was, as Scripture says, earthly, spiritual, demonic wisdom. The stone that the builders then rejected was Christ and Christ's anointing. The anointing of God means that the earthly power of the Sovereign has a Divine source. The renunciation of the Orthodox monarchy was a renunciation of divine authority. From power on earth, which is called upon to direct the general course of life to spiritual and moral goals - to the creation of conditions most favorable for the salvation of many, power that is “not of this world,” but serves the world precisely in this highest sense.

Most of the participants in the revolution acted as if unconsciously, but it was a conscious rejection of the God-given order of life and the God-established authority in the person of the King, the Anointed of God, just as the conscious rejection of Christ the King by the spiritual leaders of Israel was conscious, as described in the Gospel parable of the evil vinedressers. They killed Him not because they did not know that He was the Messiah, the Christ, but precisely because they knew it. Not because they thought that this was a false messiah who should be eliminated, but precisely because they saw that this was the real Messiah: “Come, let us kill Him, and the inheritance will be ours.” The same secret Sanhedrin, inspired by the devil, directs humanity to have a life free from God and His commandments - so that nothing prevents them from living as they want.

This is the meaning of “treason, cowardice and deception” that surrounded the Emperor. For this reason, Saint John Maksimovich compares the suffering of the Emperor in Pskov during his abdication with the suffering of Christ Himself in Gethsemane. In the same way, the devil himself was present here, tempting the Tsar and all the people with him (and all humanity, according to the exact words of P. Gilliard), as he once tempted Christ Himself in the desert with the kingdom of this world.

For centuries, Russia has been approaching the Ekaterinburg Golgotha. And here the ancient temptation was revealed in full. Just as the devil sought to catch Christ through the Sadducees and Pharisees, setting Him nets unbreakable by any human tricks, so through the socialists and cadets the devil puts Tsar Nicholas before a hopeless choice: either apostasy or death.

The king did not retreat from the purity of God’s anointing, did not sell his divine birthright for the lentil stew of earthly power. The very rejection of the Tsar occurred precisely because he appeared as a confessor of the truth, and this was nothing other than the rejection of Christ in the person of Christ’s Anointed. The meaning of the abdication of the Sovereign is the salvation of the idea of ​​​​Christian power.

It is unlikely that the Tsar could have foreseen what terrible events would follow his abdication, because purely outwardly he abdicated the throne in order to avoid the senseless shedding of blood. However, by the depth of the terrible events that were revealed after his renunciation, we can measure the depth of suffering in his Gethsemane. The king was clearly aware that by his renunciation he was betraying himself, his family and his people, whom he dearly loved, into the hands of enemies. But the most important thing for him was fidelity to the grace of God, which he received in the Sacrament of Confirmation for the sake of the salvation of the people entrusted to him. For all the most terrible troubles that are possible on earth: hunger, disease, pestilence, from which, of course, the human heart cannot help but tremble, cannot be compared with the eternal “crying and gnashing of teeth” where there is no repentance. And as the prophet of the events of Russian history, the Venerable Seraphim of Sarov, said, if a person knew that there is eternal life, which God gives for faithfulness to Him, he would agree to endure any torment for a thousand years (that is, until the end of history, together with all the suffering people). And about the sorrowful events that followed the abdication of the Sovereign, the Monk Seraphim said that the angels would not have time to receive souls - and we can say that after the abdication of the Sovereign, millions of new martyrs received crowns in the Kingdom of Heaven.

You can do any kind of historical, philosophical, political analysis, but the spiritual vision is always more important. We know this vision in the prophecies of the holy righteous John of Kronstadt, saints Theophan the Recluse and Ignatius Brianchaninov and other saints of God, who understood that no emergency, external government measures, no repression, the most skillful policy can change the course of events if there is no repentance among the Russian people. The truly humble mind of Saint Tsar Nicholas was given the opportunity to see that this repentance would, perhaps, be bought at a very high price.

After the renunciation of the Tsar, in which the people took part through their indifference, hitherto unprecedented persecution of the Church and mass apostasy from God could not but follow. The Lord showed very clearly what we lose when we lose the Anointed One of God, and what we gain. Russia immediately found satanic anointed ones.

The sin of regicide played a major role in the terrible events of the 20th century for the Russian Church and for the whole world. We are faced with only one question: is there atonement for this sin and how can it be realized? The Church always calls us to repentance. This means realizing what happened and how it continues in today's life. If we really love the Martyr Tsar and pray to him, if we truly seek the moral and spiritual revival of our Fatherland, we must spare no effort in order to overcome the terrible consequences of mass apostasy (apostasy from the faith of our fathers and trampling on morality) in our people .

There are only two options for what awaits Russia. Or, through the miracle of the intercession of the Royal Martyrs and all the new Russian martyrs, the Lord will grant our people to be reborn for the salvation of many. But this will happen only with our participation - despite natural weakness, sinfulness, powerlessness and lack of faith. Or, according to the Apocalypse, the Church of Christ will face new, even more formidable shocks, in the center of which the Cross of Christ will always be. Through the prayers of the Royal Passion-Bearers, who lead the host of new Russian martyrs and confessors, may it be given to us to withstand these trials and become partakers of their feat.

With his feat of confession, the Tsar disgraced democracy - “the great lie of our time,” when everything is determined by the majority of votes, and, in the end, by those who shout louder: We do not want Him, but Barabbas, not Christ, but the Antichrist.

Until the end of time, and especially in the last times. The Church will be tempted by the devil, like Christ in Gethsemane and on Calvary: “Come down, come down from the Cross.” “Give up from those demands for the greatness of man that Your Gospel speaks of, become more accessible to everyone, and we will believe in You. There are circumstances when this needs to be done. Come down from the cross, and the affairs of the Church will go better.” The main spiritual meaning of today's events is the result of the 20th century - the increasingly successful efforts of the enemy so that “salt loses its strength”, so that the highest values ​​of humanity turn into empty, beautiful words.

(Alexander Shargunov, Russian House magazine, No. 7, 2003)

Troparion, tone 4
Today, people of good faith will brightly honor the honorable Seven of the Royal Passion-Bearers of Christ, the One Home Church: Nicholas and Alexandra, Alexy, Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia. Because of these bonds and many different sufferings, you did not fear, you accepted death and desecration of bodies from those who fought against God, and you improved your boldness towards the Lord in prayer. For this reason, let us cry out to them with love: O holy passion-bearers, listen to the voice of peace and groaning of our people, strengthen the Russian land in love for Orthodoxy, save from internecine warfare, ask God for peace and great mercy to our souls.

Kontakion, tone 8
In the election of the Tsar of the Reigning and the Lord of the Lord from the line of the Tsars of Russia, the blessed martyrs, who accepted mental torment and bodily death for Christ, and were crowned with heavenly crowns, cry out to you as our merciful patron with loving gratitude: Rejoice, Royal passion-bearers, for holy Rus' before God with zeal in prayer. .

Prayer to the holy passion-bearer Tsar-martyr Nicholas II
O holy great Russian Tsar and passion-bearer Nicholas! Listen to the voice of our prayer and lift up to the Throne of the all-seeing Lord the groaning and sighing of the Russian people, once chosen and blessed by God, but now fallen and departed from God. Resolve the perjury that hitherto weighs heavily on the Russian people. We have sinned grievously by apostasy from the Heavenly King, leaving the Orthodox faith to be trampled upon by the wicked, breaking the conciliar oath and not forbidding the murder of yours, your family and your faithful servants.

Not because we obeyed the commandment of the Lord: “Touch not my anointed,” but to David who said: “Whoever stretches out his hand against the Lord’s Anointed, will not the Lord strike him?” And now, worthy of our deeds, we are acceptable, for even to this day the sin of shedding the royal blood weighs on us.

To this day our holy places are being desecrated. Fornication and lawlessness do not diminish from us. Our children are given over to reproach. Innocent blood cries to heaven, shed every hour in our land.

But see the tears and contrition of our hearts, we repent, just as the people of Kiev once did before Prince Igor, who was martyred by them; like the people of Vladimir before Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky, who was killed by them, we ask: pray to the Lord, may he not turn away from us completely, may he not deprive the Russian people of His great chosenness, but may he give us the wisdom of salvation, so that we can rise from the depths of this fall.

Imashi, Tsar Nicholas, have great boldness, for you shed your blood for your people, and you laid down your soul not only for your friends, but also for your enemies. For this reason, stand now in the Everlasting Light of the King of Glory, as His faithful servant. Be our intercessor, protector, and protector. Do not turn away from us, and do not leave us to be trampled underfoot by the wicked. Grant us the strength to repent, and incline God’s justice to mercy, so that the Lord will not destroy us completely, but may He forgive us all and mercifully have mercy on us, and save the Russian land and its people. May our Fatherland be delivered from the troubles and misfortunes that have befallen us, may it revive faith and piety, and may it restore the throne of the Orthodox Kings, so that the prophecies of the saints of God may come true. And may the Russian people throughout the entire universe glorify the all-praised name of the Lord and serve Him faithfully until the end of the age, singing the glory of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit now and ever and unto the ages of ages. A min.

Currently, historians and public figures are discussing the question: Is Emperor Nicholas 2 worthy to wear the vesture of a holy royal martyr? This issue is controversial, because during the reign of Nicholas 2 there were, of course, many disadvantages. For example, Khodynka, the senseless Russian-Japanese War, Bloody Sunday (for which the emperor received the nickname Bloody), the Lena execution, the First World War and then the February Revolution. All these events took the lives of millions of people. But there were also advantages during his reign. The population of the Russian Empire grew from 125 million to 170, before the First World War there were good rates of economic growth, etc. The emperor himself was weak-willed, but he was a kind man, deeply religious, and a good family man. During his reign, the especially revered saint of the Russian Orthodox Church, St. Seraphim of Sarov, was canonized. His wife Alexandra Feodorovna, together with her daughters, helped sick and wounded soldiers during the First World War and worked in the Tsarskoye Selo military hospital.
After abdicating the throne, as is known, the royal family was exiled first to Tobolsk, and after the October Revolution to Yekaterinburg, where they met their martyrdom.
Some historians and public figures believe that the emperor and the royal family are not worthy of canonization: 1. The death of Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family was not a martyrdom for Christ, but only political repression. 2. The unsuccessful state and church policies of the emperor, including such events as Khodynka, Bloody Sunday and the Lena massacre and the extremely controversial activities of Grigory Rasputin.
3. “The religiosity of the royal couple, with all its outwardly traditional Orthodoxy, bore a clearly expressed character of interconfessional mysticism”
4.The active movement for the canonization of the royal family in the 1990s was not spiritual, but political in nature.
5. The responsibility for “the most serious sin of regicide, which weighs on all the peoples of Russia,” is also deeply bewildering, promoted by some supporters of canonization.

Others believe that the emperor is worthy of being called the Holy Royal Passion-Bearer and there are arguments for this: 1. The circumstances of his death - physical, moral suffering and death at the hands of political opponents. 2. Widespread popular veneration of the royal passion-bearers served as one of the main reasons for their glorification as saints.
3. Testimonies of miracles and gracious help through prayers to the Royal Martyrs. They are talking about healings, uniting separated families, protecting church property from schismatics. There is especially abundant evidence of the streaming of myrrh from icons with images of Emperor Nicholas II and the Royal Martyrs, of the fragrance and the miraculous appearance of blood-colored stains on the icon faces of the Royal Martyrs.
4. Personal piety of the Emperor: the Emperor paid great attention to the needs of the Orthodox Church, donated generously for the construction of new churches, including outside Russia. Their deep religiosity distinguished the Imperial couple from the representatives of the then aristocracy. All its members lived in accordance with the traditions of Orthodox piety. During the years of his reign, more saints were canonized than in the previous two centuries (in particular, Theodosius of Chernigov, Seraphim of Sarov, Anna Kashinskaya, Joasaph of Belgorod, Hermogenes of Moscow, Pitirim of Tambov, John of Tobolsk).
5. Emperor Nikolai Alexandrovich often compared his life to the trials of the sufferer Job, on whose church memorial day he was born. Having accepted his cross in the same way as the biblical righteous man, he endured all the trials sent down to him firmly, meekly and without a shadow of a murmur. It is this long-suffering that is revealed with particular clarity in the last days of the Emperor’s life. From the moment of abdication, it is not so much external events as the internal spiritual state of the Sovereign that attracts our attention.” Most witnesses to the last period of the life of the Royal Martyrs speak of the prisoners of the Tobolsk Governor's House and the Yekaterinburg Ipatiev House as people who suffered and, despite all the mockery and insults, led a pious life. “Their true greatness stemmed not from their royal dignity, but from the amazing moral height to which they gradually rose.”
I believe that the emperor and his family are worthy of the title of saint. Because the blame for the Events of January 9, 1905 cannot be placed on the emperor. The petition about workers' needs, with which the workers went to the tsar, had the nature of a revolutionary ultimatum, which excluded the possibility of its acceptance or discussion. The decision to prevent workers from entering the Winter Palace square was made not by the emperor, but by the government headed by the Minister of Internal Affairs P. D. Svyatopolk-Mirsky. Minister Svyatopolk-Mirsky did not provide the emperor with sufficient information about the events taking place, and his messages were reassuring in nature. The order for the troops to open fire was also given not by the emperor, but by the commander of the St. Petersburg Military District, Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich. Thus, “historical data does not allow us to detect in the actions of the Sovereign in the January days of 1905 a conscious evil will turned against the people and embodied in specific sinful decisions and actions.” Nevertheless, Emperor Nicholas II did not see reprehensible actions in the actions of the commander in shooting demonstrations: he was neither convicted nor removed from office. But he saw guilt in the actions of Minister Svyatopolk-Mirsky and mayor I. A. Fullon, who were dismissed immediately after the January events. Nicholas’s guilt as an unsuccessful statesman should not be considered: “we should not evaluate this or that form of government, but the place that a specific person occupies in the state mechanism. The extent to which a person was able to embody Christian ideals in his activities is subject to assessment. It should be noted that Nicholas II treated the duties of the monarch as his sacred duty. Abdication of the tsar's rank is not a crime against the church: “Characteristic of some opponents of the canonization of Emperor Nicholas II is the desire to present his abdication of the Throne as a church-canonical crime similar to refusal a representative of the church hierarchy from the priesthood cannot be recognized as having any serious grounds. The canonical status of the Orthodox sovereign anointed to the Kingdom was not defined in the church canons. Therefore, attempts to discover the elements of a certain church-canonical crime in the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II from power seem untenable.” On the contrary, “The spiritual motives for which the last Russian Sovereign, who did not want to shed the blood of his subjects, decided to abdicate the Throne in the name of internal peace in Russia, gives his action a truly moral character.” There is no reason to see in the relations of the Royal Family with Rasputin signs of spiritual delusion, and even more so of insufficient church involvement.
Based on all these arguments, I want to say that the emperor is worthy to bear the title of passion-bearer who gave his life for Christ.

In Russia, many people at the end of the 19th century. They believed that for a long time in the history of the country a simple principle (or, as they would say now, an algorithm) operated: a good ruler was replaced by a bad one, but the next one was good. Let's remember: Peter III was bad and very unpopular, Catherine II went down in history as the Great, Paul I was killed, Alexander I defeated Napoleon and was very popular, Nicholas I was feared, Alexander II carried out great reforms, and Alexander III carried out counter-reforms. Nicholas II ascended the throne in 1894, at the age of 26, and received a good education. They expected him to continue the reforms, especially the completion of political reforms.

Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna in costumes from the era of Mikhail Romanov

Nicholas II was born in 1868 and as a teenager was present at the death of his grandfather, Alexander the Liberator. In 1894, after the death of his father, he found himself on the throne. In 1917 he was overthrown from the throne, and in 1918 he and his family were shot without trial in Yekaterinburg.

He received a good education and made a good impression on others with his manners. Nicholas himself and many of those around him believed that at 26 years old he was “not ready to rule.” He was strongly influenced by his relatives, uncles, the Dowager Empress, the most influential Minister of Finance S. Yu. Witte, who “inherited” the Tsar from his father, prominent state dignitaries and the top of the Russian aristocracy. “The tsar was a rag, without a single thought in his head, frail, despised by everyone,” Ernest Featherlein, admiral, head of the decryption service until 1917 in Russia, and after 1917 in England, characterized Nicholas.

During his lifetime, Nicholas was called “bloody.” In 1896 in Moscow, during the coronation celebrations, during the distribution of royal gifts on the Khodynskoye field, a stampede broke out in which more than a thousand people died. On January 9, 1905, a peaceful procession was shot in St. Petersburg. On the day of Bloody Sunday, more than 1,500 people were killed and over 5,000 people were injured. During the mediocre Russian-Japanese war of 1904-1905, to which the tsar was pushed by his closest personal circle, more than 200 thousand Russian soldiers died. More than 30 thousand people became victims of repression by the gendarmerie, police, cartel expeditions, and pogroms inspired by the tsarist police. During the First World War of 1914-1918, in which Russia was drawn in due to the short-sighted, inconsistent and indecisive foreign policy of Nicholas II, Russia had already lost 2 million people killed and 4 million people maimed by the time the tsar was overthrown.

“The people forgave him Khodynka; he was surprised, but did not grumble against the Japanese war, and at the beginning of the war with Germany treated him with touching confidence. But all this was imputed to nothing, and the interests of the Motherland were sacrificed to the shameful bacchanalia of debauchery and the avoidance of family scenes by a power-hungry hysteric. The absence of a heart that would tell him how cruelly and dishonestly he brought Russia to the brink of destruction is also reflected in the lack of self-esteem, thanks to which he, amid the humiliation, abuse and misfortune of all those close to him, continues to drag out his miserable life, unable to die with honor in defending their historical rights or yielding to the legitimate demands of the country,” wrote in his declining years lawyer, writer, senator, member of the State Council, honorary academician of the Pushkin Department of Fine Literature of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences Anatoly Fedorovich Koni (1844-1927).

There was such a joke in Soviet times. When the title of Hero of Socialist Labor was introduced in 1938, Nikolai Aleksandrovich Romanov was one of the first to receive this title (posthumously). With the wording “For creating a revolutionary situation in Russia.”

This anecdote reflects a sad historical reality. Nicholas II inherited from his father a fairly powerful country and an excellent assistant - the outstanding Russian reformer S. Yu. Witte. Witte was dismissed because he opposed Russia's involvement in the war with Japan. The defeat in the Russo-Japanese War accelerated the revolutionary processes - the first Russian revolution took place. Witte was replaced by the strong-willed and decisive P. A. Stolypin. He began reforms that were supposed to turn Russia into a decent bourgeois-monarchist state. Stolypin categorically objected to any actions that could drag Russia into a new war. Stolypin died. A new big war led Russia to a new, big revolution in 1917. It turns out that Nicholas II, with his own hands, contributed to the emergence of two revolutionary situations in Russia.

Nevertheless, in 2000, he and his family were canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church. The attitude towards the personality of Nicholas II in Russian society is polar, although the official media did everything to portray the last Russian Tsar as “white and fluffy.” During the reign of B.N. Yeltsin, the found remains of the royal family were buried in the chapel of the Peter and Paul Cathedral.

Curious what about activities the last Russian Tsar, even biased media can write little about his personal contribution to solving the country’s diverse problems. Everything more or less reasonable, promising and important that appeared during the reign of Nicholas II (parliament, legalization of political parties and trade unions, reduction of the working day, introduction of social insurance, development of cooperation, preparation for the introduction of universal primary education, etc.) did not was the result of it own position, and often occurred despite his active resistance. “Remember one thing: never trust him, he is the most false person in the world,” said I. L. Goremykin, who twice served as chairman of the Council of Ministers under Nicholas II, with knowledge of the matter.

After the revolution of 1917, the elderly Ivan Logginovich Goremykin was killed by peasants from the villages neighboring his estate.

From a purely human perspective, Nikolai Romanov can be understood and pitied. After four daughters, his beloved wife gave birth to a son, who turned out to be sick with hemophilia (incoagulability of the blood). The child suffered terribly. At that time, hemophiliacs rarely lived to adulthood. “The illness of the heir was a terrible blow for the sovereign and empress. I will not exaggerate if I say that grief undermined the empress’s health; she was never able to get rid of the feeling of responsibility for her son’s illness. The sovereign himself grew many years older in a year, and those closely observing could not help but notice that anxious thoughts never left him,” wrote A. A. Vyrubova, a lady-in-waiting very close to the royal family, about the situation.

It seems that the family tragedy pushed all other problems into the background for the royal couple. Can the supreme ruler of a huge state afford this? The answer is clear. “There is cowardice, treason and deceit all around,” Nicholas II wrote in his diary on the day of his abdication. What was he counting on, I wonder, if he didn’t care about anyone or anything? The Tsar realized that the front commanders did not support him. The doctor told him that the prince was unlikely to live another couple of years. And the king signed the Manifesto abdicating the throne. “He did it as easily as if he had surrendered the squadron,” recalled one of the eyewitnesses.

“The fate of Alexei strikes with some kind of gloomy paradox - many years of struggle by parents and doctors to save the life of a seriously ill child ended in an instant, brutal reprisal,” writes the author of the special work, Barbara Berne.

From that moment on, the tsar became a private person, citizen Romanov. His canonization will remain a very controversial decision of the Russian Orthodox Church, since at least the life of Nicholas II was by no means the life of a holy man, and his death was the result of the struggle of many forces. For some, the deceased emperor was more desirable than a prosperous pensioner somewhere in England, where the English royal family did not want to accept the royal family. By the way, not one of the more than 100 clergymen went into exile in Siberia with the imperial family. And the Russian Orthodox Church successfully took advantage of the situation in order to restore the patriarchate in general in the absence of the tsar and strong authorities.

The burial of the Tsar in the Peter and Paul Cathedral also seems to be a clear overkill. According to pre-revolutionary legislation, a private person could not be buried with rulers who died “in the line of duty.”

The only consolation is that the bustle of the members of the Romanov dynasty around the empty throne has almost stopped. They know that according to the Law on Succession to the Throne, one of the most important laws of the Russian Empire, none of the remaining Romanovs have legal rights to the throne. Does Russia need a new dynasty? That's another question.

By rewriting it in an encyclopedic style. Thank you.

Canonization of the royal family - canonization by the Russian Orthodox Church of the last Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family, one of the most controversial acts of the Russian Orthodox Church in its entire history, which caused an extremely negative reaction from a significant part of Orthodox believers, including such prominent figures of the Russian Orthodox Church as Metropolitan John of St. Petersburg and Ladoga, A.I. Osipov and others. Nicholas II and members of his family were glorified as passion-bearers. At the same time, the servants who were shot along with the royal family were not canonized.

History of glorification

In 1928, Nicholas II and his family were canonized as saints of the Catacomb Church.

In 1981, the emperor and his family were glorified by a group of bishops “who call themselves the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, which does not have the recognition of the entire Orthodox Plenitude due to its anti-canonical nature” (From the appeal of the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, 1990), in other words the so-called. Russian Church Abroad.

In the last decade of the 20th century in Russia, a number of clergy who sympathized with the so-called. The “Russian Church Abroad” launched a campaign for the canonization of the now Russian Orthodox Church of the emperor and his family, as well as servants. Many prominent representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church spoke out against canonization, including Metropolitan John (Snychev) of St. Petersburg and Ladoga. As a result, the Council of Bishops in 1997 refused to canonize the former sovereign. According to one of the prominent opponents of the canonization of Nicholas II, professor of the Moscow Theological Academy A.I. Osipov, the moral character and scale of the personality of Nicholas II in no way corresponded to those of the general church holy ascetics.

However, pressure on the Russian Orthodox Church from supporters of canonization increased. In radical monarchist and pseudo-Orthodox circles, even the epithet “redeemer” is used in relation to Nicholas II. This is manifested both in written appeals sent to the Moscow Patriarchate when considering the issue of canonization of the royal family, and in non-canonical akathists and prayers: “O most wonderful and glorious Tsar-Redeemer Nicholas.” However, at a meeting of the Moscow clergy, Patriarch Alexy II unequivocally spoke out about the inadmissibility of this, saying that “if he sees in some church books in which Nicholas II is called the Redeemer, he will consider the rector of this temple as a preacher of heresy. We have one Redeemer - Christ."

In accordance with the next decision of the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church dated August 20, 2000, Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, Tsarevich Alexei, princesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia were canonized as holy new martyrs and confessors of Russia, revealed and unmanifested.

Arguments against canonization

• The death of Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family was not a martyrdom for Christ, but only political repression.
• The emperor's unsuccessful state and church policies, including such events as Khodynka, Bloody Sunday and the Lena shooting.
• The extremely controversial activities of Grigory Rasputin.
• The abdication of the anointed king from the throne should be considered as a church-canonical crime, similar to the refusal of a representative of the church hierarchy from the priesthood.
• “The religiosity of the royal couple, for all its outwardly traditional Orthodoxy, bore a clearly expressed character of interconfessional mysticism.”
• The active movement for the canonization of the royal family in the 1990s was not spiritual, but political.
• MDA Professor A.I. Osipov: “Neither the holy Patriarch Tikhon, nor the holy Metropolitan of Petrograd Benjamin, nor the holy Metropolitan Peter of Krutitsky, nor the holy Metropolitan Seraphim (Chichagov), nor the holy Archbishop Thaddeus, nor the holy Archbishop Hilarion (Troitsky), who, without doubts, he will soon be canonized, neither the other hierarchs now glorified by our Church, the new martyrs, who knew much more and better than we now, the personality of the former Tsar - none of them ever expressed thoughts about him as a holy passion-bearer (and in At that time it was still possible to declare this loudly).”
• The responsibility for “the gravest sin of regicide, which weighs on all the peoples of Russia,” is also deeply bewildering, promoted by some supporters of canonization.

Pressure on the Russian Orthodox Church from supporters of canonization in the period between the first and second bishops’ councils

Question about the canonization of servants

A visual comparison of the personality of Nicholas II with the personalities of some other famous Russian Orthodox Church

Arguments for canonization in a different guise

The Jews are satisfied that the Royal Romanov family has been elevated to the ranks of passion-bearers, not martyrs, please note, but passion-bearers. What is the difference? The rite of martyrdom is the feat of death for Christ at the hands of non-believers. Passion-bearers are those who have suffered torment at the hands of their fellow Christians. According to the passion-bearing rite of canonization, it turns out that the Tsar and his Family were martyred by their own fellow Christians. Now, if the Council of Bishops had recognized the obvious, that the Tsar was tortured to death by the Gentiles, the Jews, then he would not have been a passion-bearer, but a great martyr. This is what the Jews are satisfied with, this is what they mean when they present an ultimatum to the Moscow Patriarchate: “It is very important that the decision on canonization in the form in which it was adopted by the Council becomes known to the widest circle of laity and clergy.”