Worship of St. Elizabeth's relics will encourage Russians to selfless charitable works, says Alexis II, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church.
"The Grand Duchess' life set an example of dedicated Christian service to one's neighbor. That pious service reached its peak during World War I and the ensuing Revolution. Sts. Martha and Mary's Convent, of which Elizabeth was founding Mother Superior, opened its doors to all wounded soldiers and people otherwise in need of help," His Beatitude said to a media audience at Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
"The parts of relics to be brought to Russia will certainly promote the community to do more for mutual help and support, and move Christians to charitable deeds," the Patriarch went on. He highlighted public organizations' great assistance to the Church as it is working for many holy articles to reach Russia. Thus, St. Andrew's Foundation has assumed all cares to bring Sts. Elizabeth and Barbara's relics to Moscow. From July 25 on, the foundation will join hands with diocesan clerics of the Russian Orthodox Church to arrange worship in Siberia and the Russian Far East-Yakutsk, Anadyr, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Magadan, Sakhalin island, and Vladivostok-points which the relics will reach by plane. Once in the Pacific port of Vladivostok, the relics will be placed in a railway car made into movable church for the occasion, to travel on by land.
Grand Duchess Elizabeth Theodorovna, elder sister of Alexandra, Russia's last Empress, was given in wedlock to Grand Duke Sergius, uncle of Nicholas II. Elizabeth took the veil after her husband fell in a terrorist bomb attack. The laity lovingly referred to her as Royal Mother Abbess. With the revolution of 1917, the entire Martha and Mary sisterhood was put under house arrest. On the third Easter day of 1918, Bolsheviks took Elizabeth and Sisters Barbara (Yakovleva, in the world) and Catherine (Yanysheva) off to Perm and on to Alapayevsk, in the Ural foothills, where many of the Royal family were awaiting their doom under arrest. Bolsheviks promised pardon and safe passage to the two nuns if they left their Mother Superior to her fate. Elizabeth coaxed Sister Catherine to return to the Moscow convent and tell the sisters in Christ about her plight. The nun had Elizabeth's farewell letters to the sisters on her. Sister Barbara was adamant in her resolution to share impending martyrdom with Elizabeth.
Nicholas, Alexandra, their five children and a few dedicated courtiers met their death by the firing squad in Yekaterinburg, in the small hours of July 17 (4, Old Style). Alexandra's sister shared her doom the day after. That was the feast of St. Sergius of Radonezh, one of Russia's foremost saints, whom Elizabeth worshipped with her whole ardent heart. On that horrible day, Bolsheviks took the Grand Duchess, another six members of the Royal family, and Sister Barbara to the town environs, where they were heinously battered and thrown alive down a discarded coal mine. The martyrs were dying of injuries and starvation for several days. Local peasants tearfully hearkened to canticles they sang.
After White guards under valiant Admiral Kolchak took Alapayevsk, they reverentially removed the remains from the mine to take them off to Beijing. Later on, the relics of Elizabeth and Barbara found their way to Jerusalem.
The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad canonized the holy nuns with the other new Russian martyrs back in the 1920s. The Russian Orthodox Church followed it as late as 1992.
