The Royal and Noble Martyrs
The imperial family and the members of the House of Romanov killed in 1918, and their place within the category of the New Martyrs. This section summarizes the imperial passion-bearers — deferring their full story to their own collection — and treats St. Elizabeth the New Martyr and the killings at Alapaevsk, again deferring the detail and linking. The category question is central here: whether these are martyrs or passion-bearers, and how the two glorifications differed.
Tradition: Russian Orthodox
Overview
The most famous of the New Martyrs are the members of the imperial family, and their place in the category is also the most theologically delicate, because the ground of their killing was dynastic and political, not a demand to deny Christ. This section situates them within the Sobor and defers their full stories to their own collections.
The first file, The Imperial Passion-Bearers, treats the Emperor Nicholas II, the Empress Alexandra, and their five children, murdered at Ekaterinburg in July 1918, and explains the category under which the Moscow Patriarchate glorified them — strastoterptsy, passion-bearers — and how this differed from the Russian Church Abroad’s glorification of them as martyrs. The detail of their lives and deaths is deferred to the Royal Martyrs collection.
The second file, St. Elizabeth and the Alapaevsk Martyrs, treats the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna — the Empress’s sister, who became a nun and founder of the Martha and Mary Convent — and the members of the Romanov family and their companions thrown alive down a mine shaft at Alapaevsk the day after the Ekaterinburg killings. Her life is deferred to her own collection.
Contents
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| the-imperial-passion-bearers.md | The Emperor Nicholas II and his family; their place in the category; deferred to the Royal Martyrs collection and linked |
| saint-elizabeth-and-the-alapaevsk-martyrs.md | St. Elizabeth Feodorovna and the Alapaevsk killings; deferred to her own collection and linked |
See Also
- What a New Martyr Is — the passion-bearer category
- The Glorifications: Methodology — how ROCOR and Moscow glorified the Royal Family differently
- The Royal Martyrs of Russia — the imperial family’s own collection
- St. Elizabeth the New Martyr — her own collection
References
- Christensen, Karin Hyldal. The Making of the New Martyrs of Russia: Soviet Repression in Orthodox Memory. London: Routledge, 2018.