| Romanov House hopes dispute over Tsar " s family remains authenticity to be settled Moscow, July 13, 2015 Russia " s Royal Romanov House said they hope that an inter-agency working group set up by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev " s decree will put an end to a long-lasting dispute over the authenticity of the last Tsar " s family remains, including the remains of the children of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II - Crown Prince Alexey and Grand Duchess Maria, which are being kept at the State Archives. Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, who lives in Spain, currently heads the House of Romanov. " Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna hopes that the research of the Yekaterinburg remains will be thorough, unbiased and all-embracing, " lawyer of the Romanov House German Lukyanov told Interfax on Monday. " The House of Romanov hopes for a scientific approach to research and that the opinions of all authoritative experts will be heard. Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna hopes that the position of the Russian Orthodox Church will be taken into account in the research, the historical truth and the details of the death of the royal family will be found, " Lukyanov said. " This is important to take into consideration a resolution adopted by the Presidium of the Russian Supreme Court on October 1, 2008, which was signed by Chief Justice of the Russian Supreme Court Vyacheslav Lebedev on the recognition of Nicholas II and his family as victims of political repressions, " Lukyanov said. In the past week Medvedev signed a decree setting up an inter-agency working group on the research and reburial of the remains of Crown Prince Alexey and Grand Duchess Maria. The working group includes chiefs, deputy heads of the specific ministries and agencies, officials of federal executive authorities and the government " s staff, officials of the St. Petersburg government, representatives of public and religious organizations. Deputy Prime Minister and head of the government " s staff Sergey Prikhodko is appointed as chief of the inter-agency working group. |
| Conclusion Russia was brought down by the 5% of population, its ‘intelligentsia’ who, even after murdering Rasputin, continued to slander the Royal Family most atrociously. Little wonder that those who managed to emigrate mostly quit the Russian Church as soon as possible, unable even to remain faithful to this; it was ‘treason, cowardice and deceit’, as the Tsar-Martyr had said. The Westernised aristocrats were anti-Russian. This is also why it took the free Russian Orthodox Church 63 years to canonise the Imperial Family – because there were too many laypeople, who were opposed to the canonisation and therefore to the righting of the historic injustices committed by their parents and grandparents. Only after that canonisation, in fact an act of repentance, had taken place, could the Soviet regime, ultimately brought to power by a degenerate aristocracy, fall. As the senior US economist and political activist, Paul Craig Roberts, put it recently in his essay, ‘Does the West have a future?’: ‘If you believe in murdering your opponents, not debating with them, dispossessing the powerless, creating a fictional world based on lies and paying the corporate media to uphold the lies and fictional world, you are part of what the rest of the world perceives as ‘The West’…. People without valid information are helpless, and that is where Western peoples are. The new tyranny is arising in the West, not in Russia and China’. Source: Orthodox England Tweet Donate Share Code for blog Tsar Nicholas II: Myth and Reality Archpriest Andrew Phillips The still free West is very far from real Christianity and the future of the world may well be determined by what will happen in Russia...If Russia succumbs, the world may well be lost, but if Russia emerges renewed and spiritually strengthened from the red cocoon, then the world may be saved. The ... Since you are here… …we do have a small request. More and more people visit Orthodoxy and the World website. However, resources for editorial are scarce. In comparison to some mass media, we do not make paid subscription. It is our deepest belief that preaching Christ for money is wrong. |
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| Let us avoid politics and keep to facts: We know that Tsar Nicholas and his family were very pious. He was probably the most pious of all the Russian Emperors since the seventeenth century. Certainly it was he who ordered the glorification of St Seraphim of Sarov and several other saints, despite the opposition of even some bishops. We know that he loved peace. Hence his moves in 1898-1899 to convene the Hague Peace Conference in Holland, establishing conventions whereby nations which were in dispute could negotiate, avoiding bloodshed. This Conference was at the root of the League of Nations and later the United Nations. Finally, we know that when the Austrians, pushed by Berlin, which was very anxious to conquer France according to long-held plans, finally began World War I, Tsar Nicholas’ motives in responding were noble. First of all, he sought to protect the Serbs, the Galicians and the Carpatho-Russsians from Austro-Hungarian persecution. Secondly, he sought to push the Turks out of the territory that they occupied, and still occupy, in Eastern Europe and in the Holy Land. The aims of the Crimean War, which had, ironically, been frustrated sixty years before by the new Russian Allies, the British and the French, would now be realized. Thus, after over 450 years, Russia would at last free Constantinople and the Greeks of Asia Minor, allowing the restoration of the East Roman Empire and also freeing Jerusalem. Finally, Tsar Nicholas hoped to relieve the Armenians from Turkish oppression, opening up the Middle East for its Christian peoples. None of this happened and, as we know, Russia fell. Russian military reverses began only a few months after the war had broken out in August 1914. The first Non-Russian victims were the Armenians, one million of whom were massacred in the terrible Turkish genocide in 1915, which broke out exactly ninety years ago. However, all the nations who conspired in bringing about the Russian Revolution, directly or indirectly, then suffered. |
| Dominic Lieven writes: “Aged 10, Nicholas was handed over to a military governor, General G.G. Danilovich… Danilovich himself invited specialists to come to the palace to teach the heir a range of subjects including four modern languages (Russian, French, English and German), mathematics, history, geography and chemistry. Of the subjects Nicholas was taught, history was much the closest to his heart. His membership of the Imperial Historical Society from the age of 16 was more than merely honorary. Many years later, in the enforced leisure of his Siberian exile, he returned to reading works of history. He commented to his son’s English teacher, Sydney Gibbes, that ‘his favourite subject was history’ and that he ‘had to read a good deal when he was young, but had no time for it later’. In his youth and adolescence Nicholas had, however, also read fiction in English, French and Russian. Someone capable of mastering four languages and coping with Dostoevsky and the historians Karamzin and Solovyov at this age cannot have been without brains. “Of his tutors, Charles Heath seems to have been closest to the heir… General V.N. Voeykov, the last Commander of the Imperial Palaces in Nicholas’s reign, knew the monarch well. He commented that ‘one of the Emperor’s outstanding qualities was his self-control. Being by nature very quick tempered, he had worked hard on himself from his childhood under the direction of his tutor, the English Mister Heath, and had achieved a tremendous degree of self-possession. Mister Heath frequently reminded his imperial pupil of the English saying that aristocrats are born but gentlemen are made. " ” Above all the creatures of the earth, Nicholas Alexandrovich loved birds. When he heard them singing, he would become so absorbed that his playmates often commented on it. Once, when a young sparrow fell from its nest, little Nika, as his friends called him, said: “It is necessary to pray for the little sparrows; may Dearest God not take it – He has enough sparrows.” |
| This association of “Russian” with “bright” remained inherent in the Russian language for a long time. Both Russians and Europeans called the Kingdom of Muscovy “White Russia.” Foreigners continued to use this term until the beginning of the 18th century. You can even find it on some European maps. “The White Tsar” is praised often in Russian folk songs. Other European names for the Russian Tsar included “illustrissimus” (most illustrious, or bright) or even “albus” (white). From the 16th century on, he was called “the White Tsar” in the East as well. Tibetan monks named Nicholas II “the White Tsar.” (They believed he was a bodhisattva of the White Tara.) Holiness as responsibility Mikhail Nesterov. Elder. Servant of God Abraham. 1914-1916 At the same time, by the 16th century, “Holy Russia” as a term began to acquire a distinctly religious connotation, much of which was tied up with apocalyptic fears concerning the 7,000th year after creation (1492). Elder Filofei, in his famous letter, wrote to Tsar Vasilli III as “ the all-bright and highly-enthroned lord, the Grand Christian Prince who shines brightly in Orthodoxy, the lord of all, the rein-holder of all holy and great Russia .” The elder reminded the Grand Prince that after the fall of the first and second Rome, only the Russian Church “shines in its Orthodox Christian faith over the entire firmament more brightly than the sun.” He then insisted: Let Your Mightiness know this: all Orthodox Christian kingdoms have united under a single ruler, and you alone under the heavens are known as the all-holy and pious Tsar.” The elder, for the first time, insisted on Russia’s high calling, and on the responsibility of its rulers to uphold that calling. After this usage, “Holy Russia” stopped being an ethnic indicator. It’s not by accident that Prince Andrei Kurbskii, in his letters to Ivan the Terrible, spoke of the Russian state as “The Holy Russian Empire.” In the 17th century, the historical epic “The Tale of the Siege of Azov” recalled the times of the epic heroes, the “bogatyrs of Holy Rus’.” But now, the bogatyrs have obtained an explicitly religious significance: |
| Tweet Нравится The Tsar " s Photographer and His Amazing Contribution to the Preservation of Russian History Source: Russia Insider Russian Chemist and Photographer Sergei Mikhaelovich Prokudin-Gorsky Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky was a Russian chemist and photographer famous for his pioneering work in color photography in the early twentieth century. In 1905 Gorsky set himself to the task of photographically documenting the Russian Empire with the primary aim of educating Russian schoolchildren on the diverse history and culture of the realm. After his famous color photograph of renowned author Leo Tolstoy in 1908, Gorsky received an invitation to present his work to Tsar Nicholas II and his family. So impressed was the Tsar that he commissioned Gorsky’s plan and provided him with funding and a specially-outfitted dark room rail car for his work. From 1909 to 1915 Gorsky tirelessly traversed the Russian empire capturing thousands of shots of virtually every walk of Russian life. In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the completion of his historic mission, we are publishing 100 of his best shots, giving a vivid glimpse into Tsarist Russia on the eve of the Communist Revolution. ‘War and Peace’ author Leo Tolstoy - 1908 84-year-old Pinkhus Karlinsky was the supervisor of the Chernigov floodgate over the course of 66 years - 1909 Dagestani couple - between 1909-1915 Assumption Cathedral in the Dalmatov Monastery - 1912 Assumption Cathedral in Tobolsk, rampart and part of fence - 1912 Austrian prisoners of war at a barracks near Kiappeselga - 1915 Young boy standing next to a gatepost - 1910 Bukharan bureaucrat - between 1909-1915 Cathedral in Shadrinsk - 1912 Cathedral of the Nativity of the Mother of God at the Ipatevsky Monastery - 1910 Cathedral of the Transfigured Savior and Church of the Entry to Jerusalem in Torzhok - 1910 Foreman of the Chakva tea factory, Lau Dzhen Dzhau - between 1909-1915 Chapel from the time of Peter the Great near the Kivach Waterfall near the river Suna - 1915 |
| In his own lifetime, the tsar was to his detractors Nicholas “the Bloody,” a reference to the hundreds of protesters slain when guards opened fire on a peaceful march on the Winter Palace in January 1905. Today, however, the image of the hapless but sainted tsar is everything the stereotypical Russian leader isn’t meant to be: Nicholas’s doe-like eyes project a benign docility that is light-years from Putin’s steely glare, his silken mantle in perfect counterpoint to Putin’s trademark bomber jacket. Nicholas’ official church-authorized “Life” supports this contrast too. According to it, Nicholas (who was born in 1868 “on the day of the long-suffering Blessed Job,” the Old Testament prophet) was from childhood distinguished by his “gentleness, tact and mild manners.” Not a tyrant, Russia’s last anointed autocrat was a devoted family man and Russian patriot who fulfilled his duties before God and church, state and family, and who, after his abdication and subsequent arrest in March 1917, displayed a meekness towards his captors that truly reenacted Christ’s humility and submission. The Life tells us that after his arrest, “the sovereign took up his cross like the righteous [Job] of the Bible, steadfastly enduring all the trials sent down upon him, gently and without a shadow of grumbling” as he made his “way to the Russian Golgotha”—the family’s place of execution in what the Bolsheviks called Ekaterinburg’s “house of special purpose.” Cited as evidence is the following extract from the diary of the Tsar’s confessor, Father Afanasii, during the family’s captivity: As meek as a lamb, well-disposed towards all his enemies, not remembering any insults, diligently praying on bended knee for Russia’s well-being, believing deeply in her glorious future, looking ardently upon the Cross and the Gospel, Nicholas the humble slave of God […] expressed unto the Heavenly Father the hidden secrets of his long-suffering life and, casting himself down on the ground before the Great King of Heaven, tearfully begged forgiveness for both his voluntary and involuntary sins . |
| The last Emperor: 20 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union July 16, 2013 Participants of meeting and public prayer commemorating murder of Tsar’s family in Kiev, 2002. Source: Alexander Polyakov/RIA Novosti Russia has been marking the 400 th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty , whose rule ended dramatically and tragically after the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. How do modern Russians view the royal legacy and what are their perceptions of the last Tsar, Nicholas II ? Public attitudes towards him have undergone several shifts since the collapse of the Soviet Union two decades ago, with the most recent studies showing an increase in appreciation of the monarch. A survey of 1,600 Russians by Moscow’s Levada Center polling organization found that 48 percent viewed Nicholas II positively. He still trailed Soviet-era leader Leonid Brezhnev as Russia’s most popular 20 th Century head of state, and even marginally behind Lenin and Stalin, but polled far more highly than either Boris Yeltsin , independent Russia’s first president, or Mikhail Gorbachev , the last Soviet leader, who polled 22 percent and 21 percent respectively. Nicholas also had the lowest negative rating among those questioned. President Vladimir Putin recently asked Russian historians to develop a cohesive – or as he put it “consistent” – history of Russia for use in school textbooks. How Nicholas’s rule will be judged is not yet clear. Consequently, the 400th anniversary of the House of Romanov house is being celebrated quietly this year, without a major cultural or official program. At the same time, the Kremlin has opted for prominent commemorations of another jubilee, the approaching centenary of the beginning of World War I, since military issues and the “prowess of Russian weaponry” is easier to fit into the present ideological requirements. Russia has yet to reconcile fully with its past and its history is not so much a “home” as a “battlefield”. Perceptions of the last Tsar already look different when compared with a survey in 1994 that asked which past leader could be regarded as a true Russian patriot. Only 5 percent of respondents chose Nicholas II, who did not even make the top ten. |
| After the dissolution of the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs and Education (1824), Philaret proposed organizing the Russian Church into nine metropolitan districts to correspond to Alexander I’s organization of provinces into nine large administrative districts. These metropolitan districts, as in the ancient church, would be self-governing and outside governmental control, limiting the sphere of influence of the Holy Synod. Philaret hoped to create an institution from these metropolitan districts that would have authority over the (Regulation’s) Synod. Under Tsar Nicholas I, Protasov’s power grew and the question of the decentralization of ecclesiastical administration could not be raised. But with the passage of the liberal reforms of Tsar Alexander II (1855–1881) the proposal was revived. Although in the second half of the 19th c. none of the proposals for the reform of the Spiritual Regulation’s Holy Synod got beyond the point of theoretical discussion, an impressive assortment of supporters came forward. Aside from Philaret, these included an aide to the ober-procurator, A. N. Muraviev, who engaged in extensive correspondence encouraging reform. The Slavophiles (q.v.) championed the cause of sobornost or conciliarity, and saw a parallel between freedom (q.v.) of the human spirit and freedom of Church life-both without government interference. The secular press also entered the fray and published articles-and even a short novel-wherein the question of freedom within the Church was broached. Other principal voices of the time, Vladimir Soloviev, Feodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, and Nikolai Gogol (qq.v.), were not actively involved in the resolution of this particular problem, though all involved themselves in contemporary questions regarding the Church. Near the end of the 19th c. the necessity for changes in the Church’s relationship to the state was better recognized. Tsar Alexander III and Ober-Procurator C. Pobedonostsev entrusted elementary education to parish schools (1884), and the number of schools grew rapidly, though the quality of education was inferior. But Pobedonostsev was the chief architect of ultraconservative reactionary policy in the administrations of Alexander III and Nicholas II and proved himself no friend of Church freedom (q.v.). He began persecutions of Doukhobors (q.v.), Jews, Christian denominations, and sectarians, along with a forced Russification policy. The favored “state Church” was supposed to fare better-but it did not. The next round of reforms in 1905 were accomplished in spite of Pobedonostsev’s strong opposition. From clergy who favored labor unions and religious toleration to those who tried to implement Orthodox Church reforms, which had been discussed for almost a century-all had to do business with the censorship of Pobedonostsev’s reactionary philosophy and policies. |
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