Why was Nicholas II canonized? Do you approve of the canonization of Nicholas II?

The vigorous activity to protect the good name of Emperor Nicholas II from director Alexei Uchitel with his film “Matilda”, which was developed by Orthodox activists, part of the clergy and even State Duma deputies led by Natalia Poklonskaya, created the illusion among the public that being Orthodox means being Orthodox. It is impossible for the Russian emperor to live without trepidation. However, in the Russian Orthodox Church there were before and remain different opinions about his holiness.

Let us remember that Nicholas II, his wife, four daughters, a son and ten servants were canonized in 1981 by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia as martyrs, and then, in 2000, royal family was recognized by the holy passion-bearers and the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. The Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church made this decision only on the second attempt.

The first time this could have happened at the council in 1997, but then it turned out that several bishops, as well as some of the clergy and laity, were against the recognition of Nicholas II.

Last Judgment

After the fall of the USSR, church life in Russia was on the rise, and in addition to restoring churches and opening monasteries, the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate was faced with the task of “healing” the schism with the White emigrants and their descendants by uniting with the ROCOR.

The future Patriarch Kirill, who then headed the department of external church relations, stated that by canonizing the royal family and other victims of the Bolsheviks in 2000, one of the contradictions between the two Churches was eliminated. And indeed, six years later the Churches were reunited.

“We glorified the royal family precisely as passion-bearers: the basis for this canonization was the innocent death accepted by Nicholas II with Christian humility, and not political activity, which was quite controversial. By the way, this cautious decision did not suit many, because some did not want this canonization at all, and some demanded the canonization of the sovereign as a great martyr, “ritually martyred by the Jews,” said many years later, a member of the Synodal Commission for Canonization Saints Archpriest Georgy Mitrofanov.

And he added: “We must keep in mind that someone in our calendar, as it will become clear at the Last Judgment, is not a saint.”

"Traitor to the State"

The highest-ranking opponents of the emperor's canonization in church hierarchy in the 1990s there were Metropolitans of St. Petersburg and Ladoga Ioann (Snychev) and Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas Nikolai (Kutepov).

For Bishop John, the tsar’s worst offense was abdicating the throne at a critical moment for the country.

“Let’s say he felt that he had lost the trust of the people. Let's say there was treason - treason by the intelligentsia, military treason. But you are the king! And if the commander cheats on you, remove him. We must be firm in the fight for Russian state! Unacceptable weakness. If you are going to suffer to the end, then on the throne. And he stepped down from power and handed it over, in essence, to the Provisional Government. And who composed it? Masons, enemies. This is how the door to revolution opened,” he was indignant in one of his interviews.

However, Metropolitan John died in 1995 and was unable to influence the decisions of other bishops.

Metropolitan Nikolai of Nizhny Novgorod - veteran of the Great Patriotic War who fought at Stalingrad Patriotic War- until the very end, he denied Nicholas II sainthood, calling him a “state traitor.” Shortly after the 2000 council, he gave an interview in which he explicitly stated that he voted against the decision to canonize.

“You see, I didn’t take any steps, because if the icon had already been created, where, so to speak, the Tsar-Father sits, what’s the point of speaking out? So the issue is resolved. It was decided without me, decided without you. 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. He had to use force, even taking his life, because everything was handed to him, but he considered it necessary to escape under Alexandra Fedorovna’s skirt,” the hierarch was convinced.

As for the Orthodox “abroad”, Bishop Nicholas spoke very harshly about them. “It doesn’t take much intelligence to run away and bark from there,” he said.

Royal sins

Among the critics of the emperor’s canonization was Alexey Osipov, a professor of theology at the Moscow Theological Academy, who, despite the lack of holy orders, has great authority among some Orthodox believers and bishops: dozens of the current bishops are simply his students. The professor wrote and published an entire article with arguments against canonization.

Thus, Osipov directly pointed out that the tsar and his relatives were canonized by the ROCOR “mainly for political reasons” and after the collapse of the USSR the same motives prevailed in Russia, and admirers of Nicholas II, without any reason, attribute to the emperor the greatest personal holiness and the role of a redeemer sins of the Russian people, which from theological point of view is heresy.

Professor Osipov also recalled how Rasputin disgraced royal family and interfered in the work of the Holy Synod, and that the tsar did not abolish “the anti-canonical leadership and administration of the Church by a layman, introduced according to the Protestant model.”

Separately, he focused on the religiosity of Nicholas II, which, according to Osipov, “had a clearly expressed character of interconfessional mysticism.”

It is known that Empress Alexandra Feodorovna despised the Russian clergy, calling the members of the Synod “animals,” but she was welcomed at court various kinds magicians who conducted seances for the imperial couple, and other charlatans.

“This mysticism left a heavy stamp on the entire spiritual mood of the emperor, making him, in the words of Protopresbyter George Shavelsky, “a fatalist and a slave of his wife.” Christianity and fatalism are incompatible,” the professor notes.

Like Metropolitans John and Nicholas, Osipov insisted that the emperor, with his abdication, “abolished autocracy in Russia and thereby opened a direct path to the establishment of a revolutionary dictatorship.”

“None of the currently canonized holy new martyrs of Russia - Patriarch Tikhon, Metropolitan Benjamin of St. Petersburg, Archbishop Thaddeus (Uspensky), Metropolitan Peter (Polyansky), Metropolitan Seraphim (Chichagov), the same Hilarion of the Trinity - none of them called the king a holy passion-bearer. But they could. Moreover, the decision of the Holy Synod regarding the abdication of the sovereign did not express the slightest regret,” concludes Alexei Osipov.

"A wise decision"

There were opponents of canonization not only in Russia, but also abroad. Among them is the former prince, Archbishop of San Francisco John (Shakhovskoy). The very first Primate of the ROCOR, Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), a member of the Holy Synod, a witness of the revolution and one of the most respected hierarchs of his time, did not even think about canonizing the tsar, considering his tragic death as retribution for the “sins of the dynasty,” whose representatives “insanely proclaimed themselves the head Churches". However, hatred of the Bolsheviks and the desire to emphasize their cruelty turned out to be more important for the followers of Metropolitan Anthony.

Bishop Maximilian of Vologda later told reporters how Metropolitan Nicholas and other opponents of the tsar’s canonization found themselves in the minority at the 2000 council.

“Let's remember the Council of Bishops in 1997, at which the issue of canonization was discussed royal martyrs. Then the materials were already collected and carefully studied. Some bishops said that the sovereign-emperor should be glorified, others called for the opposite, while most bishops took a neutral position. At that time, the decision on the issue of canonization of the royal martyrs could probably lead to division. And His Holiness [Patriarch Alexy II] made a very wise decision. He said that glorification should take place at the Jubilee Council. Three years passed, and when I talked with those bishops who were against canonization, I saw that their opinion had changed. Those who wavered stood for canonization,” the bishop testified.

One way or another, opponents of the emperor’s canonization remained in the minority, and their arguments were consigned to oblivion. Although conciliar decisions are binding on all believers and now they cannot afford to openly disagree with the holiness of Nicholas II, judging by the discussions on the RuNet around “Matilda,” complete unanimity on this issue was not achieved among the Orthodox.

Dissenters in the Russian Orthodox Church

Those who are not ready to admire the last tsar, following the example of Natalya Poklonskaya, point to the special rank of holiness in which he was glorified - “passion-bearer.” Among them is Protodeacon Andrei Kuraev, who told SNEG.TV about the mythologization of the figure of Nicholas II.

“The special rank of holiness in which Nicholas II was glorified - “passion-bearer” - is not a martyr, not a second version of Christ, who allegedly took upon himself the sins of the entire Russian people, but a person who was able to not become embittered in a situation of arrest and act like a Christian accept all the sorrows that befell him. I can accept this version, but, unfortunately, our Russian maximalism begins to work further: huge layers of mythology are already beginning to be added to this basis. In my opinion, we will soon have a dogma about the immaculate conception of Nicholas II,” he said.

“The scandals surrounding Matilda show the popular demand that he was a saint not only at the moment of his death, but always. However, at the 2000 council it was emphasized that his glorification as a passion-bearer does not mean either the canonization of the monarchical type of government as such, or specifically the type of government of Nicholas II as a tsar. That is, holiness is not in the king, but in a man named Nikolai Romanov. This is completely forgotten today,” the clergyman added.

Also, Protodeacon Andrey Kuraev answered the question in the affirmative
SNEG.TV, whether the canonization of the royal family was a condition for the reunification of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. “Yes, it was, and in many ways, of course, this canonization was political,” Kuraev noted.

Holiness Commission

To understand more clearly who is called passion-bearers in the Church, one should turn to official clarifications from the Synodal Commission for the Canonization of Saints. From 1989 to 2011, it was headed by Metropolitan Yuvenaly of Krutitsky and Kolomna, during which time 1,866 ascetics of piety were canonized, including 1,776 new martyrs and confessors who suffered during the Soviet power.

In his report at the Council of Bishops in 2000 - the same one where the issue of the royal family was decided - Bishop Juvenaly stated the following: “One of the main arguments of opponents of the canonization of the royal family is the assertion that the death of Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family cannot be recognized martyrdom for Christ. The commission, based on a careful consideration of the circumstances of the death of the royal family, proposes to carry out its canonization as holy passion-bearers. In the liturgical and hagiographic literature of the Russian Orthodox Church, the word “passion-bearer” began to be 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,” he noted.

The proposal was accepted, and the council decided to recognize the emperor, his wife and children as holy passion-bearers, despite the fact that the Council of Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad in 1981 had already recognized the entire royal family and even its servants as “full-fledged” martyrs, among whom was the Catholic valet Aloysius Troupe and Lutheran goflektress Ekaterina Schneider. The latter died not with the royal family in Yekaterinburg, but two months later in Perm. History knows no other examples of the canonization of Catholics and Protestants by the Orthodox Church.

Unholy Saints

Meanwhile, the canonization of a Christian to the rank of martyr or passion-bearer in no way whitens his entire biography as a whole. Yes, holy passion-bearer Grand Duke In 1169, Andrei Bogolyubsky ordered the storming of Kyiv, “the mother of Russian cities,” after which houses, churches and monasteries were mercilessly plundered and destroyed, which made a terrible impression on his contemporaries.

In the list of holy martyrs you can also find people like Barbarian of Lukan, who for the first part of his life was engaged in robbery, robbery and murder, and then suddenly believed in God, repented and died as a result of an accident - passing merchants accepted him as a tall grass for being a dangerous animal and was shot. And according to the Gospel, the one who was crucified was the first to enter heaven. right hand from Christ, a robber who himself recognized the justice of the sentence imposed on him, but managed to repent a few hours before his death.

The stubborn fact that most of The life and entire reign of Emperor Nicholas, right up to his abdication and exile, does not at all represent an example of holiness, it was openly recognized at the council in 2000. “Summarizing the study of the state and church activities of the last Russian emperor, the Commission did not find in this activity alone sufficient grounds for his canonization. It seems necessary to emphasize that the canonization of a monarch is in no way connected with monarchical ideology, and certainly does not mean “canonization.” monarchical form reign,” Metropolitan Yuvenaly concluded then.

Although the sovereign signed the abdication of the throne as a responsibilities for governing the state, this does not mean his renunciation of royal dignity. Until his successor was installed as king, in the minds of all the people he still remained the king, and his family remained the royal family. They themselves understood themselves this way, and the Bolsheviks perceived them the same way. If the sovereign, as a result of abdication, would lose his royal dignity and become an ordinary person, then why and who would need to pursue and kill him? When, for example, the presidential term ends, who will pursue former president? The king did not seek the throne, did not conduct election campaigns, but was destined for this from birth. The whole country prayed for their king, and the liturgical rite of anointing him with holy myrrh for the kingdom was performed over him. The pious Emperor Nicholas II could not refuse this anointing, which manifested God’s blessing for the most difficult service to the Orthodox people and Orthodoxy in general, without having a successor, and everyone understood this perfectly well.

The sovereign, transferring power to his brother, stepped away from fulfilling his managerial duties not out of fear, but at the request of his subordinates (almost all front commanders were generals and admirals) and because he was a humble man, and the very idea of ​​a struggle for power was completely alien to him. He hoped that the transfer of the throne in favor of his brother Michael (subject to his anointing as king) would calm the unrest and thereby benefit Russia. This example of renouncing the struggle for power in the name of the well-being of one’s country and one’s people is very edifying for modern world.

The Tsar's train, in which Nicholas II signed his abdication of the throne

- Did he somehow mention these views in his diaries and letters?

Yes, but this is clear from his very actions. He could strive to emigrate, go to safe place, organize reliable security, protect the family. But he did not take any measures, he wanted to act not according to his own will, not according to his own understanding, he was afraid to insist on his own. In 1906, during the Kronstadt rebellion, the sovereign, after the report of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, said the following: “If you see me so calm, it is because I have an unshakable belief that the fate of Russia, my own fate and the fate of my family is in my hands.” Gentlemen. Whatever happens, I bow to His will.” Already shortly before his suffering The sovereign said: “I would not like to leave Russia. I love her too much, I’d rather go to the farthest end of Siberia.” At the end of April 1918, already in Yekaterinburg, the Emperor wrote down: “Perhaps a redemptive sacrifice is necessary to save Russia: I will be this sacrifice - may God’s will be done!”

- Many see renunciation as ordinary weakness...

Yes, some see this as a manifestation of weakness: a powerful person, strong in the usual sense of the word, would not abdicate the throne. But for Emperor Nicholas II, strength lay in something else: in faith, in humility, in the search for a grace-filled path according to the will of God. Therefore, he did not fight for power - and it was unlikely that it could be retained. But the holy humility with which he abdicated the throne and then accepted a martyr’s death even now contributes to the conversion of the entire people with repentance to God. Still, the vast majority of our people - after seventy years of atheism - consider themselves Orthodox. Unfortunately, the majority are not churchgoers, but still not militant atheists. Grand Duchess Olga wrote from her captivity in the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg: “Father asks to tell all those who remained devoted to him, and those on whom they may have influence, that they do not take revenge for him - he has forgiven everyone and is praying for everyone, and that they remember that the evil that is now in the world, will be even stronger, but that it is not evil that will defeat evil, but only love.” And, perhaps, the image of the humble martyr king moved our people to repentance and faith to a greater extent than a strong and powerful politician could have done.

Room of the Grand Duchesses in the Ipatiev House

Revolution: the inevitability of disaster?

- The way they lived, the way they believed the last Romanovs, influenced their canonization?

Undoubtedly. A lot of books have been written about the royal family, a lot of materials have been preserved that indicate a very high spiritual structure of the sovereign himself and his family - diaries, letters, memoirs. Their faith was evidenced by all who knew them and by many of their actions. It is known that Emperor Nicholas II built many churches and monasteries; he, the empress and their children were deeply religious people who regularly partook of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. In conclusion, they constantly prayed and prepared in a Christian manner for their martyrdom, and three days before their death, the guards allowed the priest to perform a liturgy in the Ipatiev House, during which all members of the royal family received communion. There, Grand Duchess Tatiana, in one of her books, emphasized the lines: “Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ went to death as if on a holiday, facing inevitable death, they retained the same wondrous calm of spirit that did not leave them for a minute. They walked calmly towards death because they hoped to enter into a different, spiritual life, which opens up for a person beyond the grave.” And the Emperor wrote: “I firmly believe that the Lord will have mercy on Russia and pacify passions in the end. Let His Holy Will be done." It is also well known what place in their lives occupied works of mercy, which were performed in the spirit of the Gospel: the royal daughters themselves, together with the empress, cared for the wounded in the hospital during the First World War.

Very different attitude to Emperor Nicholas II today: from accusations of lack of will and political insolvency to veneration as a tsar-redeemer. Is it possible to find a middle ground?

I think that the most dangerous sign The difficult state of many of our contemporaries is the lack of any relationship to the martyrs, to the royal family, to everything in general. Unfortunately, many are now in some kind of spiritual hibernation and are not able to accommodate any serious questions in their hearts or look for answers to them. The extremes that you named, it seems to me, are not found in the entire mass of our people, but only in those who are still thinking about something, are still looking for something, are internally striving for something.

How can one answer such a statement: the Tsar’s sacrifice was absolutely necessary, and thanks to it Russia was redeemed?

Such extremes come from the lips of people who are theologically ignorant. Therefore, they begin to reformulate some points of the doctrine of salvation in relation to the king. This, of course, is completely wrong; there is no logic, consistency or necessity in this.

- But they say that the feat of the new martyrs meant a lot for Russia...

Only the feat of the new martyrs was able to withstand the rampant evil to which Russia was subjected. At the head of this martyr's army were great people: Patriarch Tikhon, the greatest saints, such as Metropolitan Peter, Metropolitan Kirill and, of course, Emperor Nicholas II and his family. These are such great images! And the more time passes, the clearer their greatness and their meaning will become.

I think that now, in our time, we can more adequately assess what happened at the beginning of the twentieth century. You know, when you are in the mountains, an absolutely amazing panorama opens up - many mountains, ridges, peaks. And when you move away from these mountains, all the smaller ridges go beyond the horizon, but above this horizon there remains one huge snow cap. And you understand: here is the dominant!

So it is here: time passes, and we are convinced that these new saints of ours were truly giants, heroes of the spirit. I think that the significance of the feat of the royal family will be revealed more and more over time, and it will be clear what great faith and love they showed through their suffering.

In addition, a century later it is clear that no most powerful leader, no Peter I, could have restrained with his human will what was happening then in Russia.

- Why?

Because the cause of the revolution was the state of the entire people, the state of the Church - I mean its human side. We often tend to idealize that time, but in reality everything was far from rosy. Our people received communion once a year, and it was a mass phenomenon. There were several dozen bishops throughout Russia, the patriarchate was abolished, and the Church had no independence. The system of parochial schools throughout Russia - a huge merit of the Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod K. F. Pobedonostsev - was created only by end of the 19th century century. This is, of course, a great thing; people began to learn to read and write precisely under the Church, but this happened too late.

There is a lot to list. One thing is clear: faith has become largely ritualistic. Many saints of that time, so to speak, testified to the difficult state of the people's soul - first of all, Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov), holy righteous John of Kronstadt. They foresaw that this would lead to disaster.

- Did Tsar Nicholas II himself and his family foresee this catastrophe?

Of course, we also find evidence of this in their diary entries. How could Tsar Nicholas II not feel what was happening in the country when his uncle, Sergei Aleksandrovich Romanov, was killed right next to the Kremlin by a bomb thrown by the terrorist Kalyaev? And what about the revolution of 1905, when even all the seminaries and theological academies were engulfed in rebellion, so that they had to be temporarily closed? This speaks about the state of the Church and the country. For several decades before the revolution, systematic persecution took place in society: the faith and the royal family were persecuted in the press, terrorist attempts were made on the lives of rulers...

- Do you want to say that it is impossible to blame solely Nicholas II for the troubles that befell the country?

Yes, that’s right - he was destined to be born and reign at this time, he could no longer simply change the situation by force of will, because it came from the depths of people’s life. And under these conditions, he chose the path that was most characteristic of him - the path of suffering. The Tsar suffered deeply, suffered mentally long before the revolution. He tried to defend Russia with kindness and love, he did it consistently, and this position led him to martyrdom.

Basement of Ipatiev's house, Yekaterinburg. On the night of July 16-17, 1918, Emperor Nicholas II was killed here along with his family and household members.

What kind of saints are these?..

Father Vladimir, in Soviet time Obviously, canonization was impossible for political reasons. But even in our time it took eight years... Why so long?

You know, more than twenty years have passed since perestroika, and the remnants Soviet era still have a very strong impact. They say that Moses wandered through the desert with his people for forty years because the generation that lived in Egypt and was raised in slavery needed to die. For the people to become free, that generation had to leave. And it is not very easy for the generation that lived under Soviet rule to change their mentality.

- Because of a certain fear?

Not only because of fear, but rather because of the cliches that were implanted from childhood, which owned people. I knew many representatives of the older generation - among them priests and even one bishop - who still saw Tsar Nicholas II during his lifetime. And I witnessed what they did not understand: why canonize him? what kind of saint is he? It was difficult for them to reconcile the image that they had perceived since childhood with the criteria of holiness. This nightmare, which we now cannot truly imagine, when the Germans occupied huge parts of Russian Empire, although the first World War promised to end victoriously for Russia; when terrible persecution and anarchy began, Civil War; when famine came in the Volga region, repressions unfolded, etc. - apparently, in the young perception of the people of that time, it was somehow tied up with the weakness of the government, with the fact that the people did not have a real leader who could resist all this rampant evil . And some people remained under the influence of this idea until the end of their lives...

And then, of course, it is very difficult to compare in your mind, for example, St. Nicholas of Myra, the great ascetics and martyrs of the first centuries with the saints of our time. I know one old woman whose uncle, a priest, was canonized as a new martyr - he was shot for his faith. When they told her about this, she was surprised: “How?! No, of course he was very good man, but what kind of saint is he? That is, it is not so easy for us to accept the people with whom we live as saints, because for us saints are “celestials,” people from another dimension. And those who eat, drink, talk and worry with us - what kind of saints are they? It is difficult to apply the image of holiness to a person close to you in everyday life, and this also has a very great importance.

In 1991, the remains of the royal family were found and buried in the Peter and Paul Fortress. But the Church doubts their authenticity. Why?

Yes, there was a very long controversy about the authenticity of these remains; many examinations were carried out abroad. Some of them confirmed the authenticity of these remains, while others confirmed the not very obvious reliability of the examinations themselves, that is, an insufficiently clear scientific organization of the process was recorded. Therefore, our Church avoided resolving this issue and left it open: it does not risk agreeing with something that has not been sufficiently verified. There are fears that by taking one position or another, the Church will become vulnerable, because there is no sufficient basis for an unambiguous decision.

Cross at the construction site of the Temple of the Sovereign Icon Mother of God, Monastery of the Royal Passion-Bearers on Ganina Yama.Photo courtesy of the press service of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus'

End crowns the work

Father Vladimir, I see on your table, among others, there is a book about Nicholas II. What is your personal attitude towards him?

I grew up in Orthodox family and from early childhood I knew about this tragedy. Of course, he always treated the royal family with reverence. I have been to Yekaterinburg several times...

I think that if you pay attention and seriously, you cannot help but feel, see the greatness of this feat and not be fascinated by these wonderful images - the sovereign, the empress and their children. Their life was full of difficulties, sorrows, but it was beautiful! How strictly the children were brought up, how they all knew how to work! How can one not admire the amazing spiritual purity of the Grand Duchesses! Modern young people need to see the life of these princesses, they were so simple, majestic and beautiful. For their chastity alone they could have been canonized, for their meekness, modesty, readiness to serve, for their loving hearts and mercy. After all, they were very modest people, unassuming, never aspired to glory, they lived as God placed them, in the conditions in which they were placed. And in everything they were distinguished by amazing modesty and obedience. No one has ever heard of them displaying any passionate traits of character. On the contrary, a Christian dispensation of heart was nurtured in them - peaceful, chaste. It’s enough to even just look at photographs of the royal family; they themselves already reveal an amazing inner appearance - of the sovereign, and the empress, and the grand duchesses, and Tsarevich Alexei. The point is not only in upbringing, but also in their very life, which corresponded to their faith and prayer. They were real Orthodox people: as they believed, so they lived, as they thought, so they acted. But there is a saying: “The end is the end.” “Whatever I find, that’s what I judge,” says Holy Bible on behalf of God.

Therefore, the royal family was canonized not for their life, which was very high and beautiful, but, above all, for their even more beautiful death. For their near-death suffering, for the faith, meekness and obedience with which they went through this suffering to the will of God - this is their unique greatness.

Valeria POSASHKO

On August 20, 2000, in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, in the presence of the heads and representatives of all Orthodox Autocephalous Churches, the glorification of many saints of God, new martyrs and confessors of the Russian twentieth century took place, including the entire Royal Family. The act of conciliar glorification of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia in the 20th century reads:

""To glorify the Royal Family as passion-bearers in the host of new martyrs and confessors of Russia: Emperor Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra, Tsarevich Alexy, Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia. In the last Orthodox Russian monarch and members of his Family, we see people who sincerely sought to embody the commandments of the Gospel in their lives. In the suffering endured by the Royal Family in captivity with meekness, patience and humility, in their martyrdom in Yekaterinburg on the night of July 4 (17), 1918, the evil-conquering light of Christ's faith was revealed, just as it shone in life and death millions of Orthodox Christians who suffered persecution for Christ in the twentieth century... Report the names of the newly glorified saints to the Primates of the fraternal Local Orthodox Churches for their inclusion in the calendar."

There are no reasons to revise this decision.

http://www.rv.ru/content.php3?id=811

This is how the royal family, including Nicholas II, were canonized. Here's what I think about it.

Some people treat Nicholas II and his family like crazy, saying how wonderful the Tsar was! But let's briefly recall the story.

1. Immediately after the tragedy on the Khodynka field, he indulged in entertainment with the ambassadors of foreign powers, not considering it necessary to cancel them.

After the execution of the workers of St. Petersburg, in his speech on January 19, 1905, Nicholas II said:
« I believe in the honest feelings of working people and in their unshakable devotion to Me, and therefore I forgive them their guilt. Now return to your peaceful work, having been blessed, get to work together with your comrades, and may God help you».

https://ru.wikisource.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D0%B5%D1%87%D1%8C_%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%80%D0 %B0%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B0_%D0%9D%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B0%D1%8F_II_%D0%BA_ %D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BF%D1%83%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%B8_%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B1%D0 %BE%D1%87%D0%B8%D1%85_19_%D1%8F%D0%BD%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%8F_1905_%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B4 %D0%B0

So Nicholas II granted forgiveness to the workers whom he shot. The people, seeing such neglect towards themselves, repaid the king in kind.

3. Poor performance Russo-Japanese War and defeat in it.

4. First World War. For some reason, they forget how many hundreds of thousands of people died due to the fact that the Tsar dragged Russia into an unnecessary First World War that suited its interests, although no one attacked Russia or intended to (the German Schlieffen Plan was developed specifically against France).

How many people died hard, how many wives and children were doomed to hunger and suffering because of this war? Have the church ministers thought about these hundreds of thousands, millions of people? After all, because of his incompetent actions, so many people died!!! So maybe we can glorify these hundreds of thousands of people who were driven to slaughter for the interests of their allied sponsors?

5. Moreover, in the end, the war, incomprehensible to the people, and the deprivation of the people (and the bourgeoisie, on the contrary, profited) caused social protests and a second revolution. What kind of king is so holy that revolutions follow one another? From a good life, probably... In addition, it doesn’t hurt to note that the February revolution was not carried out by the Bolsheviks, but precisely by their future enemies (otherwise Lately They blame all the dogs for destroying the Russian Empire. Not true, not them).

The Russian Empire came to an end, resulting in chaos and civil war, which led to more more victims. These were the results of the incompetent reign of Nicholas II.

And one more thing you should pay special attention to.

When did it happen February revolution No one stood up for the tsar; not a single political force willing to stand up for Nicholas II ever appeared. This best, most clearly shows the attitude of the people towards the “holy king”. And in the Civil War, the main warring parties: the Whites (whose leader Kornilov arrested the royal family, and the other leader Alekseev was one of the main conspirators preparing the overthrow of the tsar)) and the Reds did not return the throne to Nicholas II There were no plans to restore the monarchy at all.

But when almost all the people who lived under Nicholas diedII- you can already declare him a saint, and write history in a new way, showing what a people’s benefactor he is...

Thus, the church ministers, classifying NicholasIIThe saints showed, first of all, how far they are from the people.

By rewriting it in an encyclopedic style. Thank you.

Canonization of the royal family - canonization by the Russian Orthodox Church 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 outstanding 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 “calling themselves the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad, which does not have recognition of the entire Orthodox Completeness 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 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 massacre.
• 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.”

July 17 is the day of remembrance of the Passion-Bearers Emperor Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra, Tsarevich Alexy, Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia.

In 2000, the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II and his family were canonized by the Russian Church as holy passion-bearers. Their canonization in the West - in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia - occurred even earlier, in 1981. And although the holy princes Orthodox tradition not uncommon, this canonization still raises doubts among some. Why is the last Russian monarch glorified as a saint? Does his life and the life of his family speak in favor of canonization, and what were the arguments against it? Is the veneration of Nicholas II as the Tsar-Redeemer an extreme or a pattern? We are talking about this with the secretary of the Synodal Commission for the Canonization of Saints, the rector of the Orthodox St. Tikhon's Humanitarian University, Archpriest Vladimir Vorobyov.

Death as an argument

- Father Vladimir, where does this term come from - royal passion-bearers? Why not just martyrs?

— When in 2000 the Synodal Commission for the Canonization of Saints discussed the issue of glorifying the royal family, it came to the conclusion: although the family of Emperor Nicholas II was deeply religious, ecclesiastical and pious, all its members performed their daily prayer rule, regularly communed the Holy Mysteries of Christ and lived a highly moral life, observing the Gospel commandments in everything, constantly performed works of mercy, during the war they worked diligently in the hospital, caring for wounded soldiers, they can be counted as saints primarily for their Christian perception suffering and violent death caused by persecutors Orthodox faith with incredible cruelty. But it was still necessary to clearly understand and clearly formulate why exactly the royal family was killed. Maybe it was just political murder? Then they cannot be called martyrs. However, both the people and the commission had an awareness and feeling of the holiness of their feat. Since the noble princes Boris and Gleb, called passion-bearers, were glorified as the first saints in Rus', and their murder was also not directly related to their faith, the idea arose to discuss the glorification of the family of Emperor Nicholas II in the same person.

— When we say “royal martyrs,” do we mean only the king’s family? The relatives of the Romanovs, the Alapaevsk martyrs, who suffered at the hands of the revolutionaries, do not belong to this list of saints?

- No, they don’t. The very word “royal” in its meaning can only be attributed to the family of the king in the narrow sense. Relatives did not reign; they were even titled differently than members of the sovereign’s family. Besides, Grand Duchess Elizaveta Fedorovna Romanova, the sister of Empress Alexandra, and her cell attendant Varvara can be called martyrs for the faith. Elizaveta Fedorovna was the wife of the Governor-General of Moscow, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich Romanov, but after his murder she was not involved in state power. She devoted her life to the cause of Orthodox charity and prayer, founded and built the Martha and Mary Convent, and led the community of her sisters. The cell attendant Varvara, a sister of the monastery, shared her suffering and death with her. The connection between their suffering and faith is completely obvious, and they were both canonized as new martyrs - abroad in 1981, and in Russia in 1992. However, now such nuances have become important for us. In ancient times, no distinction was made between martyrs and passion-bearers.

- But why was it that the family of the last sovereign was glorified, although many representatives of the Romanov dynasty ended their lives in violent deaths?

— Canonization generally takes place in the most obvious and edifying cases. Not all killed representatives of the royal family show us an image of holiness, and most of these murders were committed with political purpose or in a struggle for power. Their victims cannot be considered victims for their faith. As for the family of Emperor Nicholas II, it was so incredibly slandered by both contemporaries and the Soviet government that it was necessary to restore the truth. Their murder was epochal, it amazes with its satanic hatred and cruelty, leaving a feeling of a mystical event - the reprisal of evil against the divinely established order of life of the Orthodox people.

—What were the criteria for canonization? What were the pros and cons?

“The Canonization Commission worked on this issue for a very long time, very pedantically checking all the pros and cons.” At that time there were many opponents of the canonization of the king. Someone said that this should not be done because Emperor Nicholas II was “bloody”; he was blamed for the events of January 9, 1905 - the execution peaceful demonstration workers. The commission carried out special work to clarify the circumstances of Bloody Sunday. And as a result of the study of archival materials, it turned out that the sovereign was not in St. Petersburg at that time, he was in no way involved in this execution and could not give such an order - he was not even aware of what was happening. Thus, this argument was eliminated. All other arguments “against” were considered in a similar way until it became obvious that there were no significant counter-arguments. The royal family was canonized not simply because they were killed, but because they accepted the torment with humility, in a Christian way, without resistance. They could have taken advantage of the offers to flee abroad that were made to them in advance. But they deliberately did not want this.

- Why can’t their murder be called purely political?

— The royal family personified the idea of ​​the Orthodox kingdom, and the Bolsheviks not only wanted to destroy possible contenders for the royal throne, they hated this symbol - the Orthodox king. By killing the royal family, they destroyed the very idea, the banner of the Orthodox state, which was the main defender of all world Orthodoxy. This becomes understandable in the context of the Byzantine interpretation of royal power as the ministry of the “external bishop of the church.” And during the synodal period, the “Basic Laws of the Empire” published in 1832 (Articles 43 and 44) ​​stated: “The Emperor, as a Christian Sovereign, is the supreme defender and guardian of the dogmas of the ruling faith and the guardian of orthodoxy and all holy deanery in the Church. And in this sense, the emperor in the act of succession to the throne (dated April 5, 1797) is called the Head of the Church.”

The Emperor and his family were ready to suffer for Orthodox Russia, for their faith, this is how they understood their suffering. The Holy Righteous Father John of Kronstadt wrote back in 1905: “We have a Tsar of righteous and pious life, God sent Him a heavy cross of suffering, as His chosen one and beloved child.”

Renunciation: weakness or hope?

- How to understand then the abdication of the sovereign from the throne?

- Although the sovereign signed the abdication of the throne as a responsibilities for governing the state, this does not mean his renunciation of royal dignity. Until his successor was installed as king, in the minds of all the people he still remained the king, and his family remained the royal family. They themselves understood themselves this way, and the Bolsheviks perceived them the same way. If the sovereign, as a result of abdication, would lose his royal dignity and become an ordinary person, then why and who would need to persecute and kill him? When, for example, the presidential term ends, who will prosecute the former president? The king did not seek the throne, did not conduct election campaigns, but was destined for this from birth. The whole country prayed for their king, and the liturgical rite of anointing him with holy myrrh for the kingdom was performed over him. The pious Emperor Nicholas II could not refuse this anointing, which manifested God’s blessing for the most difficult service to the Orthodox people and Orthodoxy in general, without having a successor, and everyone understood this perfectly well.

The sovereign, transferring power to his brother, stepped away from fulfilling his managerial duties not out of fear, but at the request of his subordinates (almost all front commanders were generals and admirals) and because he was a humble man, and the very idea of ​​a struggle for power was completely alien to him. He hoped that the transfer of the throne in favor of his brother Michael (subject to his anointing as king) would calm the unrest and thereby benefit Russia. This example of abandoning the struggle for power in the name of the well-being of one’s country and one’s people is very edifying for the modern world.

— Did he somehow mention these views in his diaries and letters?

- Yes, but this can be seen from his very actions. He could strive to emigrate, go to a safe place, organize reliable security, and protect his family. But he did not take any measures, he wanted to act not according to his own will, not according to his own understanding, he was afraid to insist on his own. In 1906, during the Kronstadt rebellion, the sovereign, after the report of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, said the following: “If you see me so calm, it is because I have an unshakable belief that the fate of Russia, my own fate and the fate of my family lies in hands of the Lord. Whatever happens, I bow to His will.” Shortly before his suffering, the sovereign said: “I would not like to leave Russia. I love her too much, I’d rather go to the farthest end of Siberia.” At the end of April 1918, already in Yekaterinburg, the Emperor wrote: “Perhaps an atoning sacrifice is necessary to save Russia: I will be this sacrifice - may God’s will be done!”

“Many see renunciation as an ordinary weakness...

- Yes, some see this as a manifestation of weakness: a powerful person, strong in the usual sense of the word, would not abdicate the throne. But for Emperor Nicholas II, strength lay in something else: in faith, in humility, in the search for a grace-filled path according to the will of God. Therefore, he did not fight for power - and it was unlikely that it could be retained. But the holy humility with which he abdicated the throne and then accepted a martyr’s death even now contributes to the conversion of the entire people with repentance to God. Still, the vast majority of our people—after seventy years of atheism—consider themselves Orthodox. Unfortunately, the majority are not churchgoers, but still not militant atheists. Grand Duchess Olga wrote from captivity in the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg: “Father asks to tell all those who remained devoted to him, and those on whom they may have influence, so that they do not take revenge for him - he has forgiven everyone and is praying for everyone, and so that they remember that the evil that is now in the world will be even stronger, but that it is not evil that will defeat evil, but only love.” And, perhaps, the image of the humble martyr king moved our people to repentance and faith to a greater extent than a strong and powerful politician could have done.

Room of the Grand Duchesses in the Ipatiev House

Revolution: the inevitability of disaster?

— Did the way the last Romanovs lived and believed influence their canonization?

- Undoubtedly. A lot of books have been written about the royal family, a lot of materials have been preserved that indicate a very high spiritual structure of the sovereign himself and his family - diaries, letters, memoirs. Their faith was evidenced by all who knew them and by many of their actions. It is known that Emperor Nicholas II built many churches and monasteries; he, the empress and their children were deeply religious people who regularly partook of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. In conclusion, they constantly prayed and prepared in a Christian manner for their martyrdom, and three days before their death, the guards allowed the priest to perform a liturgy in the Ipatiev House, during which all members of the royal family received communion. There, Grand Duchess Tatiana, in one of her books, emphasized the lines: “Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ went to death as if on a holiday, facing inevitable death, they retained the same wondrous calm of spirit that did not leave them for a minute. They walked calmly towards death because they hoped to enter into a different, spiritual life, which opens up for a person beyond the grave.” And the Emperor wrote: “I firmly believe that the Lord will have mercy on Russia and pacify passions in the end. Let His Holy Will be done." It is also well known what place in their lives occupied works of mercy, which were performed in the spirit of the Gospel: the royal daughters themselves, together with the empress, cared for the wounded in the hospital during the First World War.

— There are very different attitudes towards Emperor Nicholas II today: from accusations of lack of will and political insolvency to veneration as a tsar-redeemer. Is it possible to find a middle ground?

“I think that the most dangerous sign of the difficult state of many of our contemporaries is the lack of any attitude towards the martyrs, towards the royal family, towards everything in general. Unfortunately, many are now in some kind of spiritual hibernation and are not able to accommodate any serious questions in their hearts or look for answers to them. The extremes that you named, it seems to me, are not found in the entire mass of our people, but only in those who are still thinking about something, are still looking for something, are internally striving for something.

— How can one answer such a statement: the Tsar’s sacrifice was absolutely necessary, and thanks to it Russia was redeemed?

“Such extremes come from the lips of people who are theologically ignorant. Therefore, they begin to reformulate some points of the doctrine of salvation in relation to the king. This, of course, is completely wrong; there is no logic, consistency or necessity in this.

- But they say that the feat of the new martyrs meant a lot for Russia...

—Only the feat of the new martyrs was able to withstand the rampant evil to which Russia was subjected. At the head of this martyr's army were great people: Patriarch Tikhon, the greatest saints, such as Metropolitan Peter, Metropolitan Kirill and, of course, Emperor Nicholas II and his family. These are such great images! And the more time passes, the clearer their greatness and their meaning will become.

I think that now, in our time, we can more adequately assess what happened at the beginning of the twentieth century. You know, when you are in the mountains, an absolutely amazing panorama opens up - many mountains, ridges, peaks. And when you move away from these mountains, all the smaller ridges go beyond the horizon, but above this horizon there remains one huge snow cap. And you understand: here is the dominant!

So it is here: time passes, and we are convinced that these new saints of ours were truly giants, heroes of the spirit. I think that the significance of the feat of the royal family will be revealed more and more over time, and it will be clear what great faith and love they showed through their suffering.

In addition, a century later it is clear that no most powerful leader, no Peter I, could have restrained with his human will what was happening then in Russia.

- Why?

- Because the cause of the revolution was the state of the entire people, the state of the Church - I mean its human side. We often tend to idealize that time, but in reality everything was far from rosy. Our people received communion once a year, and it was a mass phenomenon. There were several dozen bishops throughout Russia, the patriarchate was abolished, and the Church had no independence. The system of parochial schools throughout Russia - a huge merit of the Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod K. F. Pobedonostsev - was created only towards the end of the 19th century. This is, of course, a great thing; people began to learn to read and write precisely under the Church, but this happened too late.

There is a lot to list. One thing is clear: faith has become largely ritualistic. Many saints of that time, if I may say so, testified to the difficult state of the people's soul - first of all, Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov), holy righteous John of Kronstadt. They foresaw that this would lead to disaster.

— Did Tsar Nicholas II himself and his family foresee this catastrophe?

- Of course, and we find evidence of this in their diary entries. How could Tsar Nicholas II not feel what was happening in the country when his uncle, Sergei Aleksandrovich Romanov, was killed right next to the Kremlin by a bomb thrown by the terrorist Kalyaev? And what about the revolution of 1905, when even all the seminaries and theological academies were engulfed in rebellion, so that they had to be temporarily closed? This speaks about the state of the Church and the country. For several decades before the revolution, systematic persecution took place in society: the faith and the royal family were persecuted in the press, terrorist attempts were made on the lives of rulers...

— Do you want to say that it is impossible to blame solely Nicholas II for the troubles that befell the country?

- Yes, that’s right - he was destined to be born and reign at this time, he could no longer simply by exerting his will change the situation, because it came from the depths of people’s life. And under these conditions, he chose the path that was most characteristic of him - the path of suffering. The Tsar suffered deeply, suffered mentally long before the revolution. He tried to defend Russia with kindness and love, he did it consistently, and this position led him to martyrdom.

What kind of saints are these?..

— Father Vladimir, in Soviet times, obviously, canonization was impossible for political reasons. But even in our time it took eight years... Why so long?

— You know, more than twenty years have passed since perestroika, and the remnants of the Soviet era are still very much felt. They say that Moses wandered through the desert with his people for forty years because the generation that lived in Egypt and was raised in slavery needed to die. For the people to become free, that generation had to leave. And it is not very easy for the generation that lived under Soviet rule to change their mentality.

— Because of a certain fear?

- Not only because of fear, but rather because of the cliches that were implanted from childhood, which owned people. I knew many representatives of the older generation - among them priests and even one bishop - who still saw Tsar Nicholas II during his lifetime. And I witnessed what they did not understand: why canonize him? what kind of saint is he? It was difficult for them to reconcile the image that they had perceived since childhood with the criteria of holiness. This nightmare, which we now cannot truly imagine, when huge parts of the Russian Empire were occupied by the Germans, although the First World War promised to end victoriously for Russia; when terrible persecution, anarchy, and Civil War began; when famine came in the Volga region, repressions unfolded, etc. - apparently, in the young perception of people of that time, it was somehow linked to the weakness of the government, to the fact that the people did not have a real leader who could resist all this rampant evil . And some people remained under the influence of this idea until the end of their lives...

And then, of course, it is very difficult to compare in your mind, for example, St. Nicholas of Myra, the great ascetics and martyrs of the first centuries with the saints of our time. I know one old woman whose priest uncle was canonized as a new martyr - he was shot for his faith. When they told her about this, she was surprised: “How?! No, he, of course, was a very good person, but what kind of saint was he? That is, it is not so easy for us to accept the people with whom we live as saints, because for us saints are “celestials,” people from another dimension. And those who eat, drink, talk and worry with us - what kind of saints are they? It is difficult to apply the image of holiness to a person close to you in everyday life, and this is also very important.

End crowns the work

— Father Vladimir, I see on your table, among others, there is a book about Nicholas II. What is your personal attitude towards him?

“I grew up in an Orthodox family and knew about this tragedy from early childhood. Of course, he always treated the royal family with reverence. I have been to Yekaterinburg several times...

I think that if you pay attention and seriously, you cannot help but feel and see the greatness of this feat and not be fascinated by these wonderful images - the sovereign, the empress and their children. Their life was full of difficulties, sorrows, but it was beautiful! How strictly the children were brought up, how they all knew how to work! How can one not admire the amazing spiritual purity of the Grand Duchesses! Modern young people need to see the life of these princesses, they were so simple, majestic and beautiful. For their chastity alone they could have been canonized, for their meekness, modesty, readiness to serve, for their loving hearts and mercy. After all, they were very modest people, unassuming, never aspired to glory, they lived as God placed them, in the conditions in which they were placed. And in everything they were distinguished by amazing modesty and obedience. No one has ever heard of them displaying any passionate traits of character. On the contrary, a Christian disposition of the heart was nurtured in them - peaceful, chaste. It’s enough to even just look at photographs of the royal family; they themselves already reveal an amazing inner appearance - of the sovereign, and the empress, and the grand duchesses, and Tsarevich Alexei. The point is not only in upbringing, but also in their very life, which corresponded to their faith and prayer. They were true Orthodox people: they lived as they believed, they acted as they thought. But there is a saying: “The end is the end.” “What I find, in that I judge,” says the Holy Scripture on behalf of God.

Therefore, the royal family was canonized not for their life, which was very high and beautiful, but, above all, for their even more beautiful death. For the suffering before death, for the faith, meekness and obedience with which they went through this suffering to the will of God - this is their unique greatness.

The interview is published in abbreviation. Full version read in the special issue of the Foma magazine “The Romanovs: 400 years in history” (2013)

Valeria Mikhailova (Posashko)