Draft:Martyrs of Alapayevsk

Martyrs Martyrs of Alapayevsk
Died	(1918-07-18)18 July 1918 Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire
Venerated in	Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia
Major shrine	Elizabeth's relics in Jerusalem, others' relics in Beijing
Feast	January 29 July 5

The Martyrs of Alapayevsk (Martyrs of the Alapayevskaya Mine) are members of the House of Romanov and people close to them who were killed by Soviet authorities on the night of July 18, 1918, the day after the murder of the Romanov family, 18 km from the town of Alapayevsk near the Nizhnyaya Selimskaya Mine, in one of the mines where their bodies were dumped. On June 8, 2009, the Russian Prosecutor General's Office posthumously exonerated all those killed near Alapayevsk.

The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia canonized all those killed in Alapayevsk (except for F. Remez) as martyrs. The Russian Orthodox Church canonized only two of them as saints: Grand Princess Elizabeth Feodorovna and nun Barbara (as monastic martyr).

Among the victims of the Alapayevsk massacre:

1. Grand Princess Elizabeth Feodorovna;
2. Grand Prince (or Duke) Sergei Mikhailovich;
3. Prince John Konstantinovich of imperial blood;
4. Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich (the Younger) of the Imperial Blood;
5. Prince Igor Konstantinovich of imperial blood;
6. Prince Vladimir Pavlovich Paley (son of the Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich from his morganatic marriage to Olga Pistolkors);
7. Fyodor Semyonovich (Mikhailovich) Remez, administrator of the affairs of Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich;
8. Barbara (Yakovleva), a sister of the Marfo-Mariyinsky Convent, a nurse to Elizaveta Feodorovna.

On that place in 1995 a monastery was established in the name of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church.

Previous events

From their first days in power, the Bolsheviks not only continued the Provisional Government's policy of destroying the symbols of tsarist autocracy, but also began to erase any memory of the House of Romanov. By the end of February 1918, the political and economic situation in Soviet Russia had deteriorated significantly. The German offensive on the entire Eastern front of World War I began, threatening Petrograd. The radicalization of the masses, already rebellious after a year of Revolution, was intensified by the deepening devastation of the national economy. The Bolshevik leaders considered it dangerous for representatives of the Imperial House of Romanov to remain in the capital, especially under the conditions of the approaching external enemy and the danger of anti-government protests inside the country.

The historian V. M. Khrustalev believed that by this time the Bolshevik leaders had drawn up a plan to gather all the representatives of the Romanov dynasty in the Urals, away from external dangers —the German Empire and the Entente— on the one hand, but in a place where the Bolsheviks had a strong political position and could keep the situation with the Romanovs under their control. In such a place, as the historian wrote, the Romanovs could only be destroyed by finding a suitable opportunity to do so. First, on March 9, 1918, Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich was exiled from Petrograd to Perm by order of the Soviet government. Following Mikhail on March 26, 1918 from Petrograd to Vyatka were exiled Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, three brothers John, Konstantin and Igor Konstantinovich (children of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich) and Vladimir Pavlovich, and a month later transferred to the "red capital of the Urals" — Ekaterinburg. In early April 1918, commissar Yakovlev left Moscow for Tobolsk, where the Provisional Government had exiled the abdicated Russian emperor and his family, at the head of an armed detachment with an order from the Bolshevik leadership to deliver Nicholas II to Yekaterinburg.

In the spring of 1918, all the Romanovs who had been exiled from Petrograd to the Urals were constantly being moved from one place to another. According to the surviving documents, these movements took place under the careful control of the Ural Bolsheviks in Ekaterinburg, who in turn were controlled by the All-Russian leadership based in the capitals — Petrograd and Moscow.

Upon their arrival in Ekaterinburg in April 1918, the exiles were accommodated in the Atamansky Rooms Hotel (at the beginning of the 21st century the building housed the FSS and the Sverdlovsk Oblast Home Affairs Department). On May 7, 1918 the Grand Princess Elizabeth Feodorovna was arrested in Moscow and exiled to Perm, from where she was later transported to Ekaterinburg and placed in the Novo-Tikhvin Monastery. The Grand Duchess was accompanied by the nun Barbara (Yakovleva) and the nun Ekaterina (Yanysheva).

After the transfer of the former tsar, tsarina and their daughter Maria to Ekaterinburg on April 30, 1918, and the transfer of the rest of the royal family from Tobolsk in mid-May, the Ural Bolsheviks realized that there would be too large a "concentration" of Romanovs in the city, In the middle of May, the Ural Bolsheviks realized that in the city will be too large "concentration" of Romanovs and decided to "disperse" some of them to other places, so the Grand Dukes were moved to Alapayevsk, the resolution of this Ural Regional Council dated May 18, 1918, and on May 20 of the same year the exiles arrived in Alapayevsk.

The Council of Commissars of the Petrograd Workers' Commune has decided:

Members of the former Romanov family: Nikolai Mikhailovich Romanov, Dmitry Konstantinovich Romanov, and Pavel Alexandrovich Romanov shall be exiled from Petrograd and its environs until a special order with the right to freely choose their place of residence within the Vologda, Vyatka, and Perm provinces. Sergei Mikhailovich Romanov, Gavriil Konstantinovich Romanov, Yevgeny Konstantinovich Romanov, Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov, Igor Konstantinovich Romanov, and Vladimir Pavlovich Paley to be exiled from the same areas until further notice, with the right to freely choose their place of residence within the Vyatka and Perm provinces. All the above persons are obliged to report within three days from the date of publication of this decree to the Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counterrevolution and Speculation (Gorokhovaya Street, 2) in order to obtain certificates of passage to their chosen places of permanent residence and to leave for their destination within the time specified by the Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counterrevolution and Speculation.

The change of the chosen place of residence is permitted with the permission of the respective Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies. Deputies.

Chairman of the Workers' Commune G. Zinoviev.

Commissar of Internal Affairs M. Uritsky.

Manager of affairs S. Gusev.

"Krasnaya gazeta" (Petrograd). 26 March 1918

Arrest and death

In Alapayevsk, the exiles were housed in the local Napolnaya School on the outskirts of the city. The Alapayevsk Soviet of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies and the Extraordinary Investigative Commission of Alapayevsk were entrusted with the supervision of the detainees. For the first time in the city the regime of imprisonment was relatively free. All prisoners received identity cards with the right to move "only in Alapayevsk", to leave the building it was enough to notify the guard.

The "escape" of Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich on June 12-13, 1918, was used as an excuse to transfer all the exiled Romanovs to the Urals, under a strict regime of imprisonment. The Ural Bolsheviks coordinated their actions with Moscow and Petrograd.

In Alapayevsk the order to tighten the regime came from Ekaterinburg on June 21, 1918: "All their property was confiscated: shoes, underwear, dresses, pillows, gold objects and money; only worn clothes and shoes and two changes of underwear were left..." They were forbidden to go out in the city and correspondence, as well as limited food rations. At the same time, Sister Catherine of the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent, who had accompanied Elizabeth Feodorovna, two lackeys and the doctor Helmersen were expelled. A little later, Helen of Serbia (wife of Prince John Konstantinovich), who renounced her foreign citizenship to be near her husband, left the Napolnaya School.

On the night of July 18, 1918, the prisoners of the Napolnaya School were taken to an unknown destination, after which reports of their deaths soon appeared.

• 
  Elizabeth Fyodorovna (52 years)
• 
  Sergei Mikhailovich (48 years)
• 
  John Konstantinovich (32 years)
• 
  Konstantin Konstantinovich (27 years)
• 
  Igor Konstantinovich (24 years)
• 
  Vladimir Paley (21 years)
• 
  Nurse Barbara (Yakovleva) (about 38 years)

"Disappearance" of arrested

On the night of July 18, at three o'clock in the morning, shots were fired and grenades exploded in the building of the Napoleon School. The Red Army detachment was called to the scene and spent an hour in a cordon around the building. Then the commissar A. Smolnikov came out and told them that the White Army had abducted the princes by airplane. The Alapayevsk Executive Committee immediately sent the following telegram to Yekaterinburg:

Military Yekaterinburg

Ural Administration

On July 18 in the morning for 2 hours a gang of unknown armed men attacked the ground school where the Grand Dukes were accommodated. During the shooting one bandit was killed and apparently there are wounded. The princes and their servants managed to escape in an unknown direction. When the Red Army detachment arrived, the bandits fled in the direction of the forest. They could not be arrested. The search continues.

Alapayevsk Executive Committee

Abramov

Perminov

Ostanin

On the basis of this telegram, the chairman of the Ural Regional Council, A. G. Beloborodov, sent a telegram to Y. M. Sverdlov, M. S. Uritsky and G. E. Zinoviev. On July 26 an official report on the incident was published:

"The dukes' kidnapping"

The Alapayevsk Executive Committee reports from Ekaterinburg about an attack on the morning of July 18 by an unknown gang on the premises where the former Grand Dukes Igor Konstantinovich, Konstantin Konstantinovich, Ivan Konstantinovich, Sergei Mikhailovich and Paley were being held. Despite the resistance of the guards, the princes were abducted. There are victims on both sides. The search is on.

Signed: Chairman of the Regional Council Beloborodov

— News from the Perm Province Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers', Peasants' and Army Deputies, No. 145.

On the morning of July 18, notices were posted in the city informing that the princes had been kidnapped by a gang of White Guards; in the course of a firefight, one of the kidnappers was killed and two Red Guards were lightly wounded. The fate of Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna and her nurse was not mentioned in the official reports. The official bodies of Alapayevsk and Ekaterinburg conducted an investigation, which was inconclusive. In August 1918 in Alapayevsk there was a sale of things of the princes as missing.

Performance version's opinions

Emigre researchers considered this event as a staged kidnapping of the princes on the basis of the research materials of N. A. Sokolov. For the first time Mikhail Dieterichs wrote about it in his memoirs. During the preparation of materials for canonization of new martyrs in the Center of documentation of public organizations of the Sverdlovsk oblast was found "Transcript of memoirs of party members of Alapayevsky area 1917-1918". (The meeting was held on January 6, 1933 and had the purpose of "preserving for history the memories of the Bolshevik Party organization of the Alapayevsky district in the period from the February Revolution of 1917 to 1921"). According to the memoirs of E. L. Seryodkin, the chairman of the Verkhne-Sinyachka Council, and N. P. Govyrin, the chairman of the Extraordinary Investigative Commission, the Alapayevsk prisoners were killed and then their kidnapping was staged.

Investigation

At the end of September 1918, Alapayevsk came under the control of Admiral Kolchak. An investigation into the deaths of the prisoners was opened. On October 11, 1918 it was opened by I. A. Sergeyev, a member of the Yekaterinburg District Court, and on February 7, 1919 it was taken over by N. A. Sokolov, an investigator of important cases of the Omsk District Court (who also investigated the murder of the Romanov family).

The investigation revealed that on the night of July 18, under the pretext of transferring prisoners from Alapayevsk to the Verkhne-Sinyachikhinsky plant, a group of workers from the Nevyansk and Verkhne-Sinyachikhinsky plants led by Pyotr Startsev arrived at the school building.

We entered the building where the women were being held through an unlocked door, woke them up and told them to get dressed immediately because they had to be taken to a safe place, because here they were at risk of an armed raid.

They obeyed without complaint. We tied their hands behind their backs and then blindfolded them, took them outside and put them in a wagon that was waiting for them specially near the school, and sent them to their destination.

We then entered the room that was occupied by the men. We said to them what we had said to the women before. The young Grand Dukes Konstantinovich and Prince Paley also obeyed without any argument. We led them out into the corridor, blindfolded them, tied their hands behind their backs, and put them into another carriage. We had previously decided that the carts would move apart. The Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich was the only one who tried to resist. (Memories of Vasily Ryabov, one of those involved in the assassination).

Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, who resisted, was shot in the arm and put into the carriage. The prisoners were taken outside the city to one of the abandoned mines of the Nizhnyaya Selimskaya Iron Mine and, after being hit on the head with a part of an axe, were thrown into the abandoned mine. The mine was then bombarded with grenades, piled with poles and logs, and covered with earth. When the bodies were later removed from the mine, it was found that some victims died almost instantly, while others remained alive after the fall, dying of starvation and wounds. Thus the wound of Prince John, who fell on the ledge near Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, was bandaged with part of her apostolnik, and the bodies of Prince Paley and Sister Varvara were found in a semi-seated position. The surrounding peasants reported that for several days they could hear the singing of prayers from the mine. A participant in the murder recalls that after the first grenade was thrown into the mine, a troparion to the True Cross was sung from there: "Save, O Lord, Thy people, and bless Thy possessions, grant victory to those who resist, and preserve Thy dwelling by Thy cross".

Other sources claim that the death of the condemned was almost instantaneous, and rumors of underground prayers and mutual aid among the condemned have the character of folk legend.

The recollections of E. L. Seryodkin, chairman of the Verkhne-Sinyachikha Council, and N.P. Govyrin, chairman of the Special Investigation Commission, confirm the fact established by Kolchakov's investigation that the prisoners were thrown into the mine alive:

We wanted to lower them to the bottom, but they didn't get to the bottom, there was a bridge, they stopped there and ended up alive. We wanted to blow up the mine, we lowered the perexelin..., but we went into the water. In order to kill, it was necessary to do something, I had bombs in the closet, I gave the key to K... to bring ... /unheard/. Then they buried him like that. I had a purse with Prince's tobacco ..., I wanted to keep it, but then I thought that they would get it and I threw it there too. ( — Memories of E. L. Seryodkin, Chairman of the Verkhne-Sinyachikha Council).

It also follows from the above transcript that the decision to execute the Alapayevsk prisoners was made independently by the Bolshevik party organization of Alapayevsk, without the sanction of the Uralobcom of the RCP(b) and the Ural Council. However, from the interrogation of the Chekist Peter Startsev, who participated in the murder, it follows that "the murder of the August prisoners was carried out on the orders of Ekaterinburg, that to direct it from there came specifically Safarov". In connection with the participation of G.I. Safarov in the organization of the murder of the royal family in Ekaterinburg, the investigator N.A. Sokolov concludes that "both the murder in Ekaterinburg and the murder in Alapayevsk are the product of the same will of the same persons". The lawyer A. S. Matveev, who worked with the materials collected by Grand Duke Andrey Vladimirovich on the murder of Alapayevsk prisoners, wrote: "It is difficult to determine exactly how the murder took place. There are too few official and verified documents and testimonies. They could have been collected much more if the White counterintelligence had acted with more caution and had not shot without questioning many former members of the Grand Dukes' guards".

A photograph of Soviet leaders in Alapayevsk, taken in Alapayevsk on May 1, 1918.

The Russian Prosecutor General's Office in its resolution of 1998 on the termination of criminal case №18/123666-93 "On the investigation of the circumstances of the deaths of members of the Russian Imperial House and persons from their entourage in 1918-1919" names 22 people and two unidentified by the investigators of the Verkhne-Sinyachikha factory who organized and carried out the "deliberate murder of members of the Russian Imperial House and persons from their entourage" on the night of July 17-18, 1918. Among the organizers, the commissar of justice of the Alapayevsky Soviet of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies Soloviyov Yefim Andreyevich, the chairman of the Alapayevsky Extraordinary Investigation Commission Govyrin Nikolai Pavlovich, members of the Alapayevsky Extraordinary Investigation Commission, members of the Alapayevsky Soviet of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies, and others are listed. Among the "direct perpetrators of the premeditated murder" are Grigory Pavlovich Abramov, Chairman of the Alapayevsk Soviet of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies, members of the Alapayevsk Extraordinary Investigative Commission, Red Army soldiers, and others.

Rumors in exile

Matilde Kshessinska (the future wife of Grand Duke Andrey Vladimirovich) wrote in her memoirs that in 1920 Andrey Vladimirovich learned in France that "the judicial investigator for special cases Sokolov, who had been appointed by Admiral Kolchak to investigate the murder of the Sovereign and the entire royal family in Ekaterinburg and members of the royal family in Alapayevsk, is in Paris. He was the only one who could tell what had really happened in Ekaterinburg and Alapayevsk and whether there was any hope of saving anyone. Andrei asked him to come to his hotel and called Gavriil Konstantinovich and his wife to be present at the conversation, because three of his brothers had been killed in Alapayevsk".

This interested Andrey Vladimirovich "in connection with the rumors that were constantly spread at the time that they had been rescued, hidden somewhere, and that the Empress Maria Feodorovna knew about it. Sokolov's answer put an end to the legends of the rescue... (...) As for Alapayevsk, the fact that members of the Imperial House had been murdered was proven: the bodies were all found in the mine, examined and identified, and Sokolov immediately showed us their photographs. During the examination of the bodies, was made an exact list of everything found on them. The conversation with Sokolov was sad for us, there was no more hope, everyone was dead.

Sokolov sent the Grand Duke an investigative file, and Andrew and Kshesinskaya spent almost a whole night copying it.

All the small items found on the bodies were sent by Admiral Kolchak to the Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna, who distributed them to the family members according to their affiliation, in particular, Khesinskaya received what was found on her "civilian husband" Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, namely:

• A small, round, gold medallion with an emerald in the center. Inside was a photograph of me, quite well preserved, and around it was engraved: "August 21-Malya-September 25," and inside was a ten-kopeck silver coin from 1869, the year of the Grand Duke's birth. I gave him this medallion many years ago.
• It's a little gold key chain, representing a potato, with a chain. When they were all young, they formed a so-called "potato" circle with the Vorontsovs and Sheremetevs. The origin of this name is obscure, but they all called themselves that, and the expression often appears in the tsar's diary when he describes the time when he was still an heir.

After receiving them, any hopes of error were dispelled.

Remains history

Bodies detection

John Konstantinovich and Elizaveta Feodorovna's bodies

On September 28, 1918 Alapayevsk was conquered by the army of Admiral Alexander Kolchak. On October 6, the comrade prosecutor N.I. Ostroumov, the commander of the Tobolsk regiment, which took part in the capture of Alapayevsk, informed the comrade prosecutor that, according to his information, the prisoners of Alapayevsk had been buried alive behind a town in a mine which had exploded by means of grenades. The order to search for the bodies of the murdered princes was given to the chief policeman T. Malshikov. He was able to find witnesses who "on the night of July 18 were returning to Alapayevsk on the Sinyachikha road and at eleven or twelve met a whole 'train' of horses going to the Verkhne-Sinyachikha factory". Searches were started in the vicinity of the Sinyachikhinskaya mine and the mine. On October 19, the cap of one of the Grand Dukes was found, and then the bodies themselves, which were then removed from the mine for four days:

• October 21 — Fyodor Remez;
• October 22 — Nun Barbara and Prince Vladimir Paley;
• October 23 — Princes Konstantin Konstantinovich and Igor Konstantinovich and Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich;
• October 24 — Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna and Prince John Konstantinovich.

The fingers of the right hands of Elizabeth Feodorovna, the nun Barbara and Prince John Konstantinovich were folded in the sign of the cross. On the Grand Duchess's breast there was a picture of Jesus Christ set with gemtones, and in the pocket of Prince John Konstantinovich's coat there was an icon given to him by John of Kronstadt.

Medical examinations and forensic autopsies were conducted after the bodies were recovered from the mine:

According to those who took part in the removal of the bodies from the mine, only the body of Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich had a bullet wound in the back of the head at the bottom of the occiput; all the others who had been tortured were thrown down the mine alive and died from injuries sustained in the fall and from starvation. The body of the Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna was found completely intact, despite the fact that all the bodies had been in the mine for several months; the face of the Grand Duchess retained the expression of a smile, and her right hand was folded in a cross, as if in blessing. The body of Prince John Konstantinovich also underwent only partial and very slight (in the area of the chest) decomposition, all the other bodies were subjected to a greater or lesser degree of decomposition.

According to the results of the examination and autopsy, all the bodies were in a state of severe decomposition, making it impossible to determine their age.

After the autopsy, the bodies were washed, dressed in clean white clothes, and placed in wooden coffins with iron covers. The coffins were placed in the cemetery church of Alapayevsk, where a memorial service was held and the Unsaved Psalter was read. On October 31 a council of 13 priests held an all-night vigil service at the coffins. The next day, November 1, a crowded procession went from the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Alapayevsk to the cemetery church. The funeral liturgy was celebrated and then the coffins were carried to the cathedral. After the funeral liturgy the funeral service was held. Then the bodies were taken to the tomb, which was placed on the south side of the altar of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, and the entrance to it was walled up.

Relocation in Russia

Chita Convent

With the advance of the Red Army in June 1919 it was decided to remove the remains from the city. At the request of Hegumen Seraphim (Kuznetsov), the abbot of the Seraphimo-Alexeyev skete of the Belogorsk St. Nicholas Monastery, who was in Ekaterinburg, General M. K. Diterikhs received permission from Admiral Kolchak to transport the coffins. On July 14, 1919, eight coffins were loaded into a freight car for shipment to Chita. Hegumen Seraphim (Kuznetsov) accompanied the bodies with two novices, Seraphim Gnevashev and Maxim Kanunnikov. According to the memories of Hegumen Seraphim, recorded by Princess M. A. Putyatina (in monasticism — Seraphima), niece of the last imperial envoy to China, on the way it was hot and humid, and:

A liquid was constantly leaking from the crevices of five coffins, spreading a terrible stench. The train would often stop in the middle of a field, and they would collect grass and wipe the coffins with it. The liquid that flowed from the Grand Duchess's coffin was fragrant, and they carefully collected it as a shrine in bottles.

The train arrived in Chita on August 30. The coffins were taken to the Bogoroditsky (Pokrovsky) Convent with the help of the ataman Grigory Semyonov, where they were placed under the floor of the cell where Hegumen Seraphim lived.

On March 5, 1920, on the order of General Diterikhs and with the support of Ataman Semenov, the coffins were taken from Chita and sent to China. Ataman Semenov's former wife Maria Mikhailovna, who had received a divorce settlement in the form of gold ingots, provided material assistance for the transportation.

The removal abroad

Hegumen Seraphim rode to the Hailar station without a guard, but when he arrived at the station, it appeared that power in the city had passed into the hands of the Bolsheviks, who seized his carriage:

Ioann Konstantinovich's coffin, and intented mistreat all of them. But I managed to quickly ask the Chinese commander of the troops, who immediately sent his troops, who took away the car at the very moment when they opened the first coffin. From that moment on, I and the coffins were under the protection of the Chinese and Japanese military authorities, who were very sympathetic and guarded me on the spot and during the journey to Beijingg...

In early March the bodies arrived in Harbin, where they were received by Bishop Nestor (Anisimov) of Kamchatka, and later Prince Nikolai Kudashev, the last imperial envoy to China, arrived in the city. Under his supervision, the coffins were opened for identification and a protocol was drawn up. Later the Prince recalled that all the bodies, except for Elizabeth Feodorovna's, were in a state of complete decomposition:

The coffins were opened and placed in the Russian church. When I entered, I felt almost sick and then I vomited violently. The Grand Duchess was lying there as if she was alive, and had not changed at all since the day I had seen her off in Moscow before I left for Beijingg, except that on one side of her face there was a large bruise from the fall into the mine.

On April 8, the train left Harbin for Mukden, from where it went to Beijing on April 13. The head of the Russian theological mission, Archbishop Innokenty (Figurovsky), was warned about the arrival of the bodies by Archbishop Mefodiy (Gerasimov) of Orenburg, who was in exile in Harbin, and began negotiations on the possibility of their burial on the territory of the theological mission. However, the Russian Embassy did not participate in the solution of the problem, and due to the prohibition of the Chinese authorities to bring the bodies to Beijing, it was decided to bury them in the cemetery of the Russian Spiritual Mission outside the city limits.

The fate of the stopovers in China

View of the northern palace of the Russian Spiritual Mission in Beijingg

On April 16, 1920 the coffins were met by a procession at the Beijing railway station and taken to the Church of St. Seraphim of Sarov in the cemetery located north of the territory of the Russian Theological Mission behind the Andingmun Gate, 2 km from the city. After the funeral service, 8 coffins were sealed with the seals of the Russian Theological Mission and placed in one of the tombs of the cemetery. Soon, with Ataman G. M. Semyonov's money, a ambon was built under the pulpit of the church, where the bodies of the martyrs of Alapayevsk were placed. In November, 1920, Elizabeth Feodorovna and Barbara's bodies were buried in Jerusalem.

Before leaving, Hegumen Seraphim gave the keys to the crypt to Bishop Innocent, the head of the spiritual mission. According to memories, the burial of the Grand Dukes was soon practically forgotten:

The old coffins of the Grand Dukes are simple iron boxes. The iron is corroded in many places. The portraits on the coffins of Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich and Grand Duke John Konstantinovich are half-decayed. On all the coffins there are simple copper plates with the names of the deceased. On the coffin of Prince Paley the inscription has been erased. Only the words "...your mother" are visible.

The crypt is stuffy and smells of decay. In the iron triple coffins, which are tightly closed, the decomposition of the bodies is slow.

The Beijing Ecclesiastical Mission and its Metropolitan were solely responsible for their care. In the church, the Metropolitan hired two Russian guards to supervise the cemetery and the tombs of the Grand Dukes.

— The newspaper "Zarya". Harbin. 1931. № 33

By 1930, the church was in complete disrepair: "The plaster had collapsed, the roof leaked badly, the wooden floor had rotted and settled. The coffins of the Alapayevsk martyrs also needed immediate replacement". A collection was organized, but the income was minimal. It was only possible to make new coffins, into which the bodies of the princes were transferred and returned to the crypt. According to the testimony of the doctor of the former imperial diplomatic mission in Beijing, Peter Sudakov, who was present at the transfer of the remains into the new coffins, the bodies were well preserved, because they were embalmed, the faces of the deceased were recognizable. Only the body of Vladimir Paley, at the request of his mother, was buried in one of the crypts of the cemetery for the spiritual mission.

Coffins with the bodies of Grand Duke Sergey Mikhailovich, Princes John and Konstantin Konstantinovich in the crypt of the church in the name of All Saints Martyrs.

In 1938, after the Japanese occupation of China, Archbishop Viktor (Svyatin) received permission from the Beijing authorities to transfer the coffins of the Martyrs of Alapayevsk to the crypt of the church in the name of All Saints Martyrs on the territory of the Russian Theological Mission. In 1947, due to the threat of the coming Communist regime, with the permission of Archbishop Victor, the Vicar of the Assumption Monastery of the Theological Mission, Archimandrite Gabriel and Hieromonk Nicholas, under the pretext of repairing the church, buried the remains of the Martyrs of Alapayevsk under the floor of the side chapel of Apostle Simon the Zealot. Later Hieromonk Nicholas wrote: "The grave was covered with stone slabs: 4 arshin long, ¾ arshin wide and about 3 inches thick. The slabs were covered with sand and cemented; on top of them they placed artificial slabs of 8x8 vershky, which are laid out the entire floor of the temple, and poured, joined with cement. There are no external signs of a tomb in the temple".

In 1945, the Church of the Holy Martyrs was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church, but in 1954, after the transfer of the land of the spiritual mission to the Soviet Embassy, it was closed. In 1957, by order of the Soviet Ambassador to the People's Republic of China, P. F. Yudin, the church was demolished and replaced by a playground and embassy buildings.

In the period from February 22 to 25, 2005, on the territory of the Russian Embassy in Beijing, works were carried out to find the place of the foundation of the Church of All Saints Martyrs. They determined the possible location of the underground crypt, and from the testimonies of the workers involved in the demolition of the temple it was found out that the remains were not touched and during the demolition of the building they were covered with earth. At present the remains, except for the bodies of Elizabeth Feodorovna and Sister Varvara (see below), are lost. At the same time, according to the information contained in a letter from Bishop Basil of Beijing to His Holiness Patriarch Alexy, when the churches in Beiguan were closed, all the relics were transferred to the Seraphic Church in the Orthodox cemetery of Beijing. Later this cemetery was transformed into the Youth Lake Park — perhaps the remains of the Alapayevsk martyrs are there under the golf course where the Seraphim Church used to be.

The tomb with the relics of St. Elizabeth

Transportation of the remains of Elizabeth Feodorovna and Sister Barbara to Jerusalem

In November 1920, at the request of Elizabeth Feodorovna's sister, Princess Victoria von Battenberg, and in fulfillment of her own wish to be buried in the Holy Land, two coffins (Grand Duchess Elizabeth and Sister Barbara) were transported from Beijingg to Tianjin, then to Shanghai, and from there by sea through the Suez Canal to Port Said (Egypt) and then to Jerusalem. The coffins were accompanied by Hegumen Seraphim (Kuznetsov), who was joined in Port Said by Princess Victoria with her husband Luois and daughter Louise. On January 28, 1921, in Jerusalem, the bodies of the martyrs were solemnly received by the Greek and Russian clergy, as well as numerous Russian emigrants. The coffins were taken to the city by automobile, and on the way they were met by a procession of nuns from the monasteries of Gorno and Eleon.

The bodies were broght to the Church of Mary Magdalene in Gethsemane. For two days at them the funeral services were held, and on January 30 the Patriarch of Jerusalem Damian has made a funeral liturgy and on the great entrance has read the prayer of indulgence to the victims, and then after the funeral services the coffins have been placed in a crypt, arranged in a crypt of the church. After the glorification of the princess and the nun in the face of saints by the Russian Orthodox Church on May 1, 1982, on the day of celebration of the Week of the holy myrrhbearing women, their relics were transferred from the crypt to the church.

Canonization and rehabilitation

On November 1, 1981 the martyrs of Alapayevsk (except for F. M. Remez) were canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia.

Elizabeth Feodorovna and the nun Barbara were canonized as monastic martyrs by the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1992, although Elizabeth did not receive the monastic tonsure. The Cathedral Act states:

Grand Duchess Elizaveta, the founder of the Marfo-Mariinsky Monastery in Moscow, devoted her pious Christian life to charity, helping the poor and the sick. Together with her Keleinitsa nun Barbara she received the crown of martyrdom on the day of St. Sergius of Radonezh - July 5 (old style), 1918. (— Act on the Canonization of Grand Duchess Elizabeth and Nun Barbara)

The issue of canonization of the other Alapayevsk mine martyrs was not discussed in the ROC.

On March 27, 2009, Maria Vladimirovna Romanova, through her lawyer, filed an application with the Russian Prosecutor General's Office for the exoneration of the relatives of the last Russian tsar Nicholas II. In her statement to the "Interfax" news agency, the lawyer said: "Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna believes that all the above-mentioned members of the Russian Imperial House were victims of the arbitrary rule of the totalitarian state and were subjected to political repression on social, class and religious grounds". On June 8, 2009, the Prosecutor General's Office decided to rehabilitate members of the Romanov family and their close associates. The official report stated that the analysis of archival documents "allows us to conclude that all of the above persons were subjected to repression in the form of arrest, expulsion and being under the supervision of Cheka bodies, without being charged with a specific crime for class and social reasons".

Bibliography

• Мельцер А. М. Алапаевский во имя Новомучеников Российских мужской монастырь // Православная энциклопедия. — М., 2000. — V. I: «А — Алексий Студит». — P. 444. — 752 p. — 40 000 copies. — ISBN 5-89572-006-4.
• Хрусталёв В. М. Глава XI. Путь на эшафот: Алапаевск // Романовы. Последние дни великой династии. — 1-е. — М.: АСТ, 2013. — P. 652—690. — 861 p. — (Романовы. Падение династии). — 2500 copies. — ISBN 978-5-17-079109-5.

External links

• Alapayevsk Monastery of the New Martyrs of Russia. — Official site of the monastery. Date of circulation: 31 May 2009.
• Napara D. In memory of the martyrs of Alapayevsk, in the land of the Chinese under the thaw. Pravoslavie.ru. Date of circulation: 31 May 2009.
• Fomin S. The Martyrs of Alapayevsk: killed and forgotten. Date: 28 June 2009.
• The movie "State Border. Eastern Frontier": the worship of White Guards to relics in Beijing is shown.