In 1873, Elizabeth's three-year-old brother Friedrich crashed to death in front of his mother. In 1876, an epidemic of diphtheria broke out in Darmstadt, all the children fell ill, except for Elizabeth. The mother sat at night by the beds of sick children. Soon the four-year-old Maria died, and after her, Grand Duchess Alice herself fell ill and died at the age of 35.
In that year, the time of childhood ended for Elizabeth. Grief intensified her prayers. She understood that life on earth is the way of the Cross. The child tried with all his might to alleviate the grief of his father, support him, console him, and to some extent replace his mother for his younger sisters and brother.
In the twentieth year of her life, Princess Elizabeth became the bride of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, the fifth son of Emperor Alexander II, brother of Emperor Alexander III. She met her future husband in childhood, when he came to Germany with his mother, Empress Maria Alexandrovna, who also came from the Hessian house. Before that, all applicants for her hand were refused: Princess Elizabeth in her youth made a vow to keep her virginity all her life. After a frank conversation between her and Sergei Alexandrovich, it turned out that he secretly made the same vow. By mutual agreement, their marriage was spiritual, they lived like brother and sister.

Elizaveta Feodorovna with her husband Sergei Alexandrovich

The whole family accompanied Princess Elizabeth to her wedding in Russia. Instead, the twelve-year-old sister Alice came with her, who met her future husband, Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich, here.
The wedding took place in the church of the Grand Palace of St. Petersburg according to the Orthodox rite, and after it according to the Protestant rite in one of the living rooms of the palace. The Grand Duchess intensively studied the Russian language, wanting to study the culture and especially the faith of her new homeland in depth.
Grand Duchess Elizabeth was dazzlingly beautiful. In those days they said that in Europe there are only two beauties, and both are Elizabeths: Elisabeth of Austria, the wife of Emperor Franz Joseph, and Elizaveta Feodorovna.

For most of the year, the Grand Duchess lived with her husband in their Ilinskoye estate, sixty kilometers from Moscow, on the banks of the Moscow River. She loved Moscow with its ancient churches, monasteries and patriarchal way of life. Sergei Alexandrovich was a deeply religious person, strictly observed all church canons, fasts, often went to services, went to monasteries - the Grand Duchess followed her husband everywhere and stood idle for long church services. Here she experienced an amazing feeling, so unlike what she met in a Protestant church.
Elizaveta Feodorovna firmly decided to convert to Orthodoxy. From this step, she was held back by the fear of hurting her family, and above all, her father. Finally, on January 1, 1891, she wrote a letter to her father about her decision, asking for a short telegram of blessing.
The father did not send his daughter the desired telegram with a blessing, but wrote a letter in which he said that her decision brings him pain and suffering, and he cannot give a blessing. Then Elizaveta Feodorovna showed courage and, despite moral suffering, firmly decided to convert to Orthodoxy.
On April 13 (25), on Lazarus Saturday, the sacrament of chrismation of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna was performed, leaving her former name, but in honor of the holy righteous Elizabeth - the mother of St. John the Baptist, whose memory the Orthodox Church celebrates on September 5 (18).
In 1891, Emperor Alexander III appointed Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich as the Governor-General of Moscow. The wife of the governor-general had to perform many duties - there were constant receptions, concerts, balls. It was necessary to smile and bow to the guests, dance and carry on conversations, regardless of mood, state of health and desire.
The people of Moscow soon appreciated her merciful heart. She went to hospitals for the poor, to almshouses, to shelters for homeless children. And everywhere she tried to alleviate the suffering of people: she distributed food, clothes, money, improved the living conditions of the unfortunate.
In 1894, after many obstacles, a decision was made on the engagement of the Grand Duchess Alice with the heir to the Russian throne, Nikolai Alexandrovich. Elizaveta Fedorovna was glad that the young lovers could finally unite, and her sister would live in Russia, dear to her heart. Princess Alice was 22 years old and Elizabeth Feodorovna hoped that her sister, living in Russia, would understand and love the Russian people, master the Russian language perfectly and be able to prepare for the high service of the Russian Empress.
But everything happened differently. The bride of the heir arrived in Russia when Emperor Alexander III was in a terminal illness. On October 20, 1894, the emperor died. The next day, Princess Alice converted to Orthodoxy with the name Alexandra. The marriage of Emperor Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna took place a week after the funeral, and in the spring of 1896 the coronation took place in Moscow. The celebrations were overshadowed by a terrible disaster: on the Khodynka field, where gifts were distributed to the people, a stampede began - thousands of people were injured or crushed.

When the Russo-Japanese War began, Elizaveta Fedorovna immediately began organizing assistance to the front. One of her remarkable undertakings was the arrangement of workshops to help the soldiers - all the halls of the Kremlin Palace, except for the Throne, were occupied for them. Thousands of women worked on sewing machines and work tables. Huge donations came from all over Moscow and from the provinces. From here, bales of food, uniforms, medicines and gifts for soldiers went to the front. The Grand Duchess sent marching churches to the front with icons and everything necessary for worship. She personally sent Gospels, icons and prayer books. At her own expense, the Grand Duchess formed several sanitary trains.
In Moscow, she arranged a hospital for the wounded, created special committees to provide for the widows and orphans of those who died at the front. But the Russian troops suffered one defeat after another. The war showed the technical and military unpreparedness of Russia, the shortcomings of public administration. The settling of scores for past insults of arbitrariness or injustice, an unprecedented scale of terrorist acts, rallies, strikes began. The state and social order was falling apart, a revolution was approaching.
Sergei Alexandrovich believed that it was necessary to take tougher measures against the revolutionaries and reported this to the emperor, saying that in the current situation he could no longer hold the post of Governor-General of Moscow. The sovereign accepted his resignation and the couple left the governor's house, temporarily moving to Neskuchnoye.
Meanwhile, the militant organization of the Social Revolutionaries sentenced Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich to death. Her agents were watching him, waiting for an opportunity to carry out the execution. Elizaveta Feodorovna knew that her husband was in mortal danger. She was warned in anonymous letters not to accompany her husband if she did not want to share his fate. The Grand Duchess tried all the more not to leave him alone and, if possible, accompanied her husband everywhere.
On February 5 (18), 1905, Sergei Aleksandrovich was killed by a bomb thrown by the terrorist Ivan Kalyaev. When Elizaveta Fyodorovna arrived at the site of the explosion, a crowd had already gathered there. Someone tried to prevent her from approaching the remains of her husband, but with her own hands she collected pieces of her husband's body scattered by the explosion on a stretcher.
On the third day after the death of her husband, Elizaveta Fedorovna went to the prison where the murderer was kept. Kalyaev said: "I did not want to kill you, I saw him several times and the time when I had the bomb at the ready, but you were with him, and I did not dare to touch him."
- "And you did not realize that you killed me along with him?" she replied. Further, she said that she brought forgiveness from Sergei Alexandrovich and asked him to repent. But he refused. Nevertheless, Elizaveta Fedorovna left the Gospel and a small icon in the cell, hoping for a miracle. Leaving prison, she said: "My attempt was unsuccessful, although, who knows, it is possible that at the last minute he will realize his sin and repent of it." The Grand Duchess asked Emperor Nicholas II to pardon Kalyaev, but this request was rejected.
Since the death of her wife, Elizaveta Feodorovna did not take off her mourning, she began to keep a strict fast, she prayed a lot. Her bedroom in the Nicholas Palace began to resemble a monastic cell. All luxurious furniture was taken out, the walls were repainted white, they were only icons and paintings of spiritual content. She did not appear at social receptions. I only went to the church for weddings or christenings of relatives and friends and immediately went home or on business. Now she had nothing to do with social life.

Elizaveta Feodorovna in mourning after the death of her husband

She collected all her jewels, gave part to the treasury, part to her relatives, and decided to use the rest to build a monastery of mercy. On Bolshaya Ordynka in Moscow, Elizaveta Fedorovna bought an estate with four houses and a garden. In the largest two-storey house there is a dining room for sisters, a kitchen and other utility rooms, in the second - a church and a hospital, next to it - a pharmacy and an outpatient clinic for visiting patients. In the fourth house there was an apartment for the priest - confessor of the monastery, classes of the school for girls of the orphanage and a library.
On February 10, 1909, the Grand Duchess gathered 17 sisters of the monastery she founded, took off her mourning dress, put on a monastic robe and said: “I will leave the brilliant world where I occupied a brilliant position, but together with all of you I ascend to a greater world - to world of the poor and the suffering."

The first temple of the monastery (“hospital”) was consecrated by Bishop Tryphon on September 9 (21), 1909 (the day of the celebration of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos) in the name of the holy myrrh-bearing women Martha and Mary. The second temple - in honor of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos, was consecrated in 1911 (architect A.V. Shchusev, paintings by M.V. Nesterov).

The day at the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent began at 6 o'clock in the morning. After the general morning prayer rule. In the hospital church, the Grand Duchess gave obedience to her sisters for the coming day. Those free from obedience remained in the church, where the Divine Liturgy began. The afternoon meal was accompanied by the reading of the lives of the saints. At 5 pm Vespers and Matins were served in the church, where all the sisters who were free from obedience were present. On holidays and Sundays, an all-night vigil was performed. At 9 pm, the evening rule was read in the hospital church, after which all the sisters, having received the blessing of the abbess, dispersed to their cells. Akathists were read four times a week at Vespers: on Sunday - to the Savior, on Monday - to the Archangel Michael and all the Disembodied Heavenly Powers, on Wednesday - to the holy myrrh-bearing women Martha and Mary, and on Friday - to the Mother of God or the Passion of Christ. In the chapel built at the end of the garden, the Psalter was read for the dead. The abbess herself often prayed there at night. The inner life of the sisters was led by a wonderful priest and shepherd - the confessor of the monastery, Archpriest Mitrofan Serebryansky. Twice a week he held talks with the sisters. In addition, the sisters could come daily at certain hours for advice and guidance to the confessor or to the abbess. The Grand Duchess, together with Father Mitrofan, taught the sisters not only medical knowledge, but also the spiritual guidance of degraded, lost and desperate people. Every Sunday after the evening service in the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Mother of God, conversations were held for the people with a common singing of prayers.
Divine services in the monastery have always stood at a brilliant height thanks to the confessor chosen by the abbess, who was exceptional in his pastoral merits. The best shepherds and preachers not only of Moscow, but also of many distant places in Russia came here to perform divine services and preach. As a bee, the abbess collected nectar from all flowers so that people could feel the special aroma of spirituality. The monastery, its temples and divine services aroused the admiration of contemporaries. This was facilitated not only by the temples of the monastery, but also by a beautiful park with greenhouses - in the best traditions of garden art of the 18th - 19th centuries. It was a single ensemble that harmoniously combined external and internal beauty.
A contemporary of the Grand Duchess, Nonna Grayton, the maid of honor of her relative Princess Victoria, testifies: “She had a wonderful quality - to see the good and the real in people, and tried to bring it out. She also did not have a high opinion of her qualities at all ... She never had the words “I can’t”, and there was never anything dull in the life of the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent. Everything was there perfectly both inside and out. And who has been there, carried away a wonderful feeling.
In the Martha and Mary Convent, the Grand Duchess led the life of an ascetic. Slept on a wooden bed without a mattress. She strictly observed the fasts, eating only plant foods. In the morning she got up for prayer, after which she distributed obediences to the sisters, worked in the clinic, received visitors, sorted out petitions and letters.
In the evening, rounds of patients, ending after midnight. At night she prayed in the chapel or in the church, her sleep rarely lasted more than three hours. When the patient rushed about and needed help, she sat at his bedside until dawn. In the hospital, Elizaveta Fedorovna took on the most responsible work: she assisted in operations, did dressings, found words of consolation, and tried to alleviate the suffering of patients. They said that a healing power emanated from the Grand Duchess, which helped them endure pain and agree to difficult operations.
As the main remedy for ailments, the abbess always offered confession and communion. She said: “It is immoral to console the dying with a false hope of recovery, it is better to help them pass in a Christian way into eternity.”
The sisters of the monastery took a course in medical knowledge. Their main task was to visit sick, poor, abandoned children, providing them with medical, material and moral assistance.
The best specialists of Moscow worked in the monastery hospital, all operations were performed free of charge. Here those who were refused by doctors were healed.
The healed patients cried as they left the Marfo-Mariinsky hospital, parting with the “great mother,” as they called the abbess. A Sunday school for factory workers worked at the monastery. Anyone could use the funds of the excellent library. There was a free canteen for the poor.
The abbess of the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent believed that the main thing was not the hospital, but help to the poor and needy. The monastery received up to 12,000 petitions a year. They asked for everything: arrange for treatment, find a job, look after children, take care of bedridden patients, send them to study abroad.
She found opportunities to help the clergy - she gave funds for the needs of poor rural parishes who could not repair the temple or build a new one. She encouraged, strengthened, helped materially the priests - missionaries who worked among the pagans of the Far North or foreigners of the outskirts of Russia.
One of the main places of poverty, to which the Grand Duchess paid special attention, was Khitrov Market. Elizaveta Feodorovna, accompanied by her cell-attendant Varvara Yakovleva or the sister of the monastery, Princess Maria Obolenskaya, tirelessly moving from one brothel to another, collected orphans and persuaded parents to give her children to raise. The entire population of Khitrov respected her, calling her "sister Elizabeth" or "mother." The police constantly warned her that they could not guarantee her safety.
In response to this, the Grand Duchess always thanked the police for their care and said that her life was not in their hands, but in the hands of God. She tried to save the children of Khitrovka. She was not afraid of impurity, abuse, which lost its human face. She said, "The likeness of God may sometimes be obscured, but it can never be destroyed."
The boys torn from Khitrovka, she arranged for hostels. From one group of such recent ragamuffins, an artel of executive messengers from Moscow was formed. The girls were placed in closed educational institutions or shelters, where they also monitored their health, spiritual and physical.
Elizaveta Fyodorovna organized charity homes for orphans, the disabled, the seriously ill, found time to visit them, constantly supported them financially, and brought gifts. They tell such a case: one day the Grand Duchess was supposed to come to a shelter for little orphans. Everyone was preparing to meet their benefactor with dignity. The girls were told that the Grand Duchess was coming: they would have to say hello to her and kiss her hands. When Elizaveta Fyodorovna arrived, she was met by babies in white dresses. They greeted each other and all extended their hands to the Grand Duchess with the words: "Kiss the hands." The teachers were horrified: what will happen. But the Grand Duchess approached each of the girls and kissed everyone's hands. Everyone cried at the same time - such tenderness and reverence was on their faces and in their hearts.
The “Great Mother” hoped that the Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy, which she had created, would blossom into a large fruitful tree.
Over time, she was going to arrange branches of the monastery in other cities of Russia.
The Grand Duchess had a primordially Russian love for pilgrimage.
More than once she went to Sarov and with joy hurried to the temple to pray at the shrine of St. Seraphim. She traveled to Pskov, to Optina Hermitage, to Zosima Hermitage, was in the Solovetsky Monastery. She also visited the smallest monasteries in provincial and remote places in Russia. She was present at all spiritual celebrations associated with the opening or transfer of the relics of the saints of God. The Grand Duchess secretly helped and looked after sick pilgrims who were waiting for healing from the newly glorified saints. In 1914, she visited the monastery in Alapaevsk, which was destined to become the place of her imprisonment and martyrdom.
She was the patroness of Russian pilgrims going to Jerusalem. Through the societies organized by her, the cost of tickets for pilgrims sailing from Odessa to Jaffa was covered. She also built a large hotel in Jerusalem.
Another glorious deed of the Grand Duchess is the construction of a Russian Orthodox church in Italy, in the city of Bari, where the relics of St. Nicholas of Mir of Lycia are buried. In 1914, the lower church was consecrated in honor of St. Nicholas and the hospice.
During the First World War, the work of the Grand Duchess increased: it was necessary to take care of the wounded in the infirmaries. Some of the sisters of the monastery were released to work in the field hospital. At first, Elizaveta Fedorovna, prompted by a Christian feeling, visited the captured Germans, but the slander about the secret support of the enemy forced her to refuse this.
In 1916, an angry crowd approached the gates of the monastery demanding to hand over a German spy, the brother of Elizaveta Feodorovna, who was allegedly hiding in the monastery. The abbess went out to the crowd alone and offered to inspect all the premises of the community. The police cavalry dispersed the crowd.
Shortly after the February Revolution, a crowd again approached the monastery with rifles, red flags and bows. The abbess herself opened the gate - she was told that they had come to arrest her and put her on trial as a German spy, who also kept weapons in the monastery.
To the demand of those who came to immediately go with them, the Grand Duchess said that she must make orders and say goodbye to her sisters. The abbess gathered all the sisters in the monastery and asked Father Mitrofan to serve a prayer service. Then, turning to the revolutionaries, she invited them to enter the church, but to leave their weapons at the entrance. They reluctantly took off their rifles and followed into the temple.
The entire prayer service Elizaveta Feodorovna stood on her knees. After the end of the service, she said that Father Mitrofan would show them all the buildings of the monastery, and they could look for what they wanted to find. Of course, they did not find anything there, except for the cells of the sisters and the hospital with the sick. After the crowd left, Elizaveta Fedorovna told the sisters: "Obviously, we are still unworthy of the martyr's crown."
In the spring of 1917, a Swedish minister came to her on behalf of Kaiser Wilhelm and offered her help in traveling abroad. Elizaveta Fedorovna replied that she had decided to share the fate of the country, which she considered her new homeland and could not leave the sisters of the monastery at this difficult time.
There have never been so many people at worship in the monastery as before the October Revolution. They went not only for a bowl of soup or medical help, but for consolation and advice from the “great mother”. Elizaveta Fedorovna received everyone, listened, strengthened. People left her peaceful and encouraged.
The first time after the October Revolution, the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent was not touched. On the contrary, the sisters were respected, twice a week a truck with food drove up to the monastery: brown bread, dried fish, vegetables, a little fat and sugar. Of the medicines, bandages and essential medicines were issued in limited quantities.
But everyone around was frightened, patrons and wealthy donors were now afraid to help the monastery. The Grand Duchess, in order to avoid provocation, did not go out of the gate, the sisters were also forbidden to go out. However, the established daily routine of the monastery did not change, only the services became longer, the prayer of the sisters became more fervent. Father Mitrofan served the Divine Liturgy every day in the crowded church, there were many communicants. For some time, the miraculous icon of the Mother of God, the Sovereign, found in the village of Kolomenskoye near Moscow on the day of the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II from the throne, was located in the monastery. Cathedral prayers were performed before the icon.
After the conclusion of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the German government obtained the consent of the Soviet authorities for Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna to leave the country. The German ambassador, Count Mirbach, twice tried to see the Grand Duchess, but she did not receive him and categorically refused to leave Russia. She said: “I have done nothing wrong to anyone. Be the will of the Lord!”
The tranquility in the monastery was the calm before the storm. First, questionnaires were sent - questionnaires for those who lived and were on treatment: name, surname, age, social origin, etc. After that, several people from the hospital were arrested. Then it was announced that the orphans would be transferred to an orphanage. In April 1918, on the third day of Easter, when the Church celebrates the memory of the Iberian Icon of the Mother of God, Elizaveta Feodorovna was arrested and immediately taken out of Moscow. On this day, His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon visited the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent, where he served the Divine Liturgy and a prayer service. After the service, the patriarch stayed at the monastery until four in the afternoon, talking with the abbess and sisters. This was the last blessing and parting word of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church before the way of the cross of the Grand Duchess to Golgotha.
Almost immediately after the departure of Patriarch Tikhon, a car with a commissar and Latvian Red Army soldiers drove up to the monastery. Elizaveta Fyodorovna was ordered to go with them. We were given half an hour to get ready. The abbess only had time to gather the sisters in the church of Saints Martha and Mary and give them the last blessing. Everyone present wept, knowing that they were seeing their mother and abbess for the last time. Elizaveta Feodorovna thanked the sisters for their dedication and loyalty and asked Father Mitrofan not to leave the monastery and serve in it as long as it was possible.
Two sisters went with the Grand Duchess - Varvara Yakovleva and Ekaterina Yanysheva. Before getting into the car, the abbess made the sign of the cross to everyone.
Having learned about what had happened, Patriarch Tikhon tried through various organizations with which the new government was considered to achieve the release of the Grand Duchess. But his efforts were in vain. All members of the imperial house were doomed.
Elizaveta Fedorovna and her companions were sent by rail to Perm.
The Grand Duchess spent the last months of her life in prison, at a school, on the outskirts of the city of Alapaevsk, together with Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich (the youngest son of Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolayevich, brother of Emperor Alexander II), his secretary, Fyodor Mikhailovich Remez, and three brothers, John, Konstantin and Igor (sons of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich) and Prince Vladimir Paley (son of Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich). The end was near. Mother Superior prepared for this outcome, devoting all her time to prayer.
The sisters accompanying their abbess were brought to the Regional Council and offered to be released. Both begged to be returned to the Grand Duchess, then the Chekists began to frighten them with torture and torment, which would await everyone who would stay with her. Varvara Yakovleva said that she was ready to give a subscription even with her own blood, that she wanted to share her fate with the Grand Duchess. So the cross sister of the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent Varvara Yakovleva made her choice and joined the prisoners who were waiting for their fate to be decided.
In the dead of night on July 5 (18), 1918, on the day of the uncovering of the relics of St. Sergius of Radonezh, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, along with other members of the imperial house, was thrown into the mine of an old mine. When the brutalized executioners pushed the Grand Duchess into the black pit, she said a prayer: "Lord, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." Then the Chekists began throwing hand grenades into the mine. One of the peasants, who witnessed the murder, said that from the depths of the mine, the singing of the Cherubim was heard. It was sung by the New Martyrs of Russia before passing into eternity. They died in terrible suffering, from thirst, hunger and wounds.

The Grand Duchess fell not to the bottom of the shaft, but to a ledge, which was at a depth of 15 meters. Next to her, they found the body of John Konstantinovich with a bandaged head. All broken, with the strongest bruises, here she also sought to alleviate the suffering of her neighbor. The fingers of the right hand of the Grand Duchess and nun Varvara turned out to be folded for the sign of the cross.
The remains of the abbess of the Martha and Mary Convent and her faithful cell-attendant Varvara were transported to Jerusalem in 1921 and placed in the tomb of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene Equal-to-the-Apostles in Gethsemane.
The Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1992 canonized the Holy New Martyrs of Russia, the Monk Martyr Grand Duchess Elizabeth and Nun Varvara, establishing a celebration for them on the day of their death - July 5 (18).

Elizaveta Feodorovna (at birth Elisabeth Alexandra Luise Alice Alice of Hessen-Darmstadt, German Elisabeth Alexandra Luise Alice von Hessen-Darmstadt und bei Rhein, her family name was Ella, officially in Russia - Elisaveta Feodorovna; November 1, 1864, Darmstadt - July 18, 1918, Perm province) - Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt; in marriage (behind the Russian Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich) the Grand Duchess of the reigning house of the Romanovs. Founder of the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent in Moscow. Honorary member of the Imperial Kazan Theological Academy (the title of the Highest was approved on June 6, 1913).

She was glorified as a saint in the Russian Orthodox Church in 1992.

She was called the most beautiful princess in Europe - the second daughter of the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt Ludwig IV and Princess Alice, whose mother was Queen Victoria of England. The August poet Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov dedicated the following poem to the beautiful German princess:

I look at you, admiring hourly:
You are so unspeakably good!
Oh, right, under such a beautiful exterior
Such a beautiful soul!
Some meekness and innermost sadness
There is depth in your eyes;
Like an angel you are quiet, pure and perfect;
Like a woman, shy and gentle.
Let nothing on earth
in the midst of many evils and sorrows
Your purity will not be stained.
And everyone who sees you will glorify God,
who created such beauty!

However, the real life of Elizabeth was very far from our ideas about how princesses live. Brought up in strict English traditions, the girl was accustomed to work from childhood, she and her sister did housework, and clothes and food were simple. In addition, from a very early age, the children in this family were engaged in charity work: together with their mother, they visited hospitals, shelters, homes for the disabled, trying as much as possible, if not to alleviate, then at least brighten up the stay of the suffering in them. The life example of Elizabeth was her relative, the German saint Elisabeth of Thuringia, after whom this sad and beautiful girl was named.

The biography of this amazing woman, who made her life journey during the Crusades, is in many ways surprising for us. At the age of four, she was betrothed to her future husband, Landgrave Ludwig IV of Thuringia, who was not much older than her. In 1222, at the age of 15, she gave birth to her first child, and in 1227 she was widowed. And she was only 20 years old and had three children in her arms. Elizabeth took a monastic vow and retired to Marburg, where she devoted herself to serving God and people. On her initiative, a hospital for the poor was built here, where Elizabeth worked selflessly, personally caring for patients. Overwork and exhausting austerity quickly undermined the strength of a young fragile woman. She was gone at 24. Elizabeth lived in a world dominated by brute force and class prejudice. Her activities seemed to many absurd and harmful, but she was not afraid of ridicule and malice, she was not afraid of being different from others and acting contrary to established views. She perceived each person, first of all, as the image and likeness of God, and therefore caring for him acquired for her the highest, sacred meaning. How consonant with the life and work of her holy successor, who became the Orthodox Martyr Elisabeth!

The second daughter of the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt Ludwig IV and Princess Alice, granddaughter of the English Queen Victoria. Her younger sister Alice later, in November 1894, became the Russian Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, having married the Russian Emperor Nicholas II.

From childhood, she was religiously disposed, participated in charity work together with her mother, Grand Duchess Alice, who died in 1878. An important role in the spiritual life of the family was played by the image of St. Elizabeth of Thuringia, after whom Ella was named: this saint, the ancestor of the Dukes of Hesse, famous for her deeds of mercy.

Living in seclusion, the German princess, apparently, did not seek marriage. In any case, all applicants for the hand and heart of the beautiful Elizabeth were refused. So it was until she met Sergei Alexandrovich Romanov, the fifth son of Emperor Alexander II, brother of Emperor Alexander III. At the age of twenty, Elizabeth became the bride of the Grand Duke, and then his wife.

On June 3 (15), 1884, in the Court Cathedral of the Winter Palace, she married Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, brother of the Russian Emperor Alexander III, as announced by the Supreme Manifesto. The Orthodox marriage was performed by the court protopresbyter John Yanyshev; crowns were held by Tsesarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse, Grand Dukes Alexei and Pavel Alexandrovich, Dmitry Konstantinovich, Peter Nikolaevich, Mikhail and Georgy Mikhailovich; then, in the Alexander Hall, the pastor of the church of St. Anna also performed a service according to the Lutheran rite.

The couple settled in the Beloselsky-Belozersky palace bought by Sergei Alexandrovich (the palace became known as Sergievsky), spending their honeymoon in the Ilyinsky estate near Moscow, where they also lived later. At her insistence, a hospital was set up in Ilyinsky, fairs were periodically held in favor of the peasants.

She perfectly mastered the Russian language, spoke it almost without an accent. While still professing Protestantism, she attended Orthodox services. In 1888, together with her husband, she made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. In 1891, she converted to Orthodoxy, writing before that to her father: “I thought and read and prayed to God all the time - to show me the right path - and came to the conclusion that only in this religion can I find a real and strong faith in God, which a person must have to be a good Christian."

Thus began the "Russian" era of the life of the German princess. A woman's homeland is where her family is, says a folk proverb. Elizabeth tried her best to learn the language and traditions of Russia. And soon mastered them to perfection. She, as the Grand Duchess, did not have to accept Orthodoxy. However, Sergei Alexandrovich was a sincere believer. He regularly visited the temple, often went to confession and partake of the holy Mysteries of Christ, kept fasts and tried to live in harmony with God. At the same time, he did not put any pressure on his wife, who remained a devout Protestant. The example of her husband so strongly influenced the spiritual life of Elizabeth that she decided to accept Orthodoxy, despite the protest of her father and family, who remained in Darmstadt. Attending all divine services with her beloved husband, in her soul she had long since become Orthodox. After the Sacrament of Confirmation, the Grand Duchess was left her former name, but in honor of the holy righteous Elizabeth - the mother of the holy Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord John. Only one letter has changed. And all life. Emperor Alexander III blessed his daughter-in-law with a precious icon of the Savior Not Made by Hands, with which Elisaveta Feodorovna did not part all her life and with it on her chest she accepted a martyr's death.

Characteristically, visiting the Holy Land in 1888, examining the Church of St. Mary Magdalene Equal-to-the-Apostles on the Mount of Olives, the Grand Duchess said: “How I would like to be buried here.” Little did she know then that she had uttered a prophecy that was destined to be fulfilled.

As the wife of the Moscow governor-general (Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich was appointed to this post in 1891), in 1892 she organized the Elizabethan Charitable Society, established in order to "see the legitimate babies of the poorest mothers, hitherto placed, although without any right, in the Moscow Educational house, under the guise of illegal. The activities of the society first took place in Moscow, and then spread to the entire Moscow province. Elisabeth committees were formed at all Moscow church parishes and in all county towns of the Moscow province. In addition, Elizaveta Fedorovna headed the Ladies' Committee of the Red Cross, and after the death of her husband, she was appointed chairman of the Moscow Department of the Red Cross.

As you know, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich was the Moscow governor-general. It was the time of spiritual growth of the Grand Duchess. Residents of Moscow appreciated her mercy. Elisaveta Fedorovna visited hospitals for the poor, almshouses, shelters for homeless children. And everywhere she tried to alleviate the suffering of people: she distributed food, clothes, money, improved the living conditions of the unfortunate. But especially the talents of mercy of the Grand Duchess manifested themselves during the Russo-Japanese and First World Wars. Assistance to the front, to the wounded and disabled, as well as to their wives, children and widows, was organized in an unparalleled way.

With the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, Elizaveta Fyodorovna organized a Special Committee for Assistance to Soldiers, under which a donation warehouse was created in the Grand Kremlin Palace in favor of the soldiers: bandages were prepared there, clothes were sewn, parcels were collected, and camp churches were formed.

In the recently published letters of Elizabeth Feodorovna to Nicholas II, the Grand Duchess appears as a supporter of the most stringent and decisive measures against any freethinking in general and revolutionary terrorism in particular. "Is it really impossible to judge these animals by a field court?" - she asked the emperor in a letter written in 1902 shortly after the murder of Sipyagin, and she herself answered the question: - "Everything must be done to prevent them from becoming heroes ... in order to kill their desire to risk their lives and commit such crimes (I think that it would be better if he paid with his life and thus disappeared!). But who he is and what he is - let no one know ... and there is nothing to pity those who themselves do not pity anyone. "

However, the country was overwhelmed by terrorist acts, rallies and strikes. The state and social order was falling apart, a revolution was approaching. Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich believed that it was necessary to take tougher measures against the revolutionaries, and reported this to the Emperor, saying that in the current situation he could no longer hold the post of Governor-General of Moscow. The emperor accepted his resignation. Nevertheless, the militant organization of the Social Revolutionaries sentenced Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich to death. Her agents were watching him, waiting for the right opportunity to carry out their intent. Elizaveta Feodorovna knew that her husband was in mortal danger. She received anonymous letters warning her not to accompany her husband if she did not want to share his fate. The Grand Duchess tried all the more not to leave him alone, and whenever possible accompanied her husband everywhere. On February 18, 1905, Sergei Aleksandrovich was killed by a bomb thrown by the terrorist Ivan Kalyaev. When Elizaveta Fyodorovna arrived at the site of the explosion, a crowd had already gathered there. And with her own hands, she collected pieces of her husband’s body scattered by the explosion on a stretcher. Then, after the first memorial service, she changed into all black. On the third day after the death of her husband, Elizaveta Fedorovna went to the prison where the murderer was kept. The Grand Duchess brought him forgiveness from Sergei Alexandrovich and asked Kalyaev to repent. She held the Gospel in her hands and asked to read it, but he refused both it and repentance. Nevertheless, Elizaveta Feodorovna left the Gospel and a small icon in the cell, hoping for a miracle that did not happen. After that, the Grand Duchess asked Emperor Nicholas II to pardon Kalyaev, but this request was rejected. At the site of the murder of her husband, Elizaveta Fedorovna erected a monument - a cross, made according to the design of the artist Vasnetsov with the words of the Savior spoken by Him on the Cross: “Father, let them go, they don’t know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). These words were the last in her life - on July 18, 1918, when agents of the new godless government threw the Grand Duchess alive into the Alapaevskaya mine. But until that day, there were still a few years left, filled with the ascetic work of the cross sister of mercy Elizabeth in the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent founded by the Grand Duchess. Without becoming a nun in the true sense of the word, she was not afraid to be different from others, like her German ancestor, devoting herself, without a trace, to serving people and God ...

Shortly after the death of her husband, she sold her jewels (giving away to the treasury that part of them that belonged to the Romanov dynasty), and with the proceeds she bought an estate with four houses and a vast garden on Bolshaya Ordynka, where the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent of Mercy, founded by her in 1909, is located (this there was no monastery in the exact sense of the word, the charter of the monastery allowed the sisters to leave it under certain conditions, the sisters of the monastery were engaged in charitable and medical work).

She was a supporter of the revival of the rank of deaconesses - ministers of the church of the first centuries, who in the first centuries of Christianity were delivered through ordination, participated in the celebration of the Liturgy, approximately in the role in which subdeacons now serve, were engaged in catechism of women, helped with the baptism of women, served the sick. She received the support of the majority of the members of the Holy Synod on the issue of conferring this title on the sisters of the monastery, however, in accordance with the opinion of Nicholas II, the decision was never made.

When creating the monastery, both Russian Orthodox and European experience was used. The sisters who lived in the monastery took vows of chastity, non-possession and obedience, however, unlike the nuns, after a certain period they could leave the monastery, start a family and be free from the previous vows. The sisters received serious psychological, methodological, spiritual and medical training in the monastery. They were given lectures by the best doctors of Moscow, conversations with them were conducted by the confessor of the monastery, Fr. Mitrofan Srebryansky (later Archimandrite Sergius; canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church) and the second priest of the monastery, Fr. Eugene Sinadsky.

According to the plan of Elizabeth Feodorovna, the monastery was supposed to provide comprehensive, spiritual, educational and medical assistance to those in need, who were often not only given food and clothing, but were helped in finding employment, placed in hospitals. Often the sisters persuaded families who could not give their children a normal upbringing (for example, professional beggars, drunkards, etc.) to send their children to an orphanage, where they were given education, good care and a profession.

A hospital, an excellent outpatient clinic, a pharmacy, where part of the medicines were given free of charge, a shelter, a free canteen, and many other institutions were created in the monastery. Educational lectures and talks, meetings of the Palestinian Society, the Geographical Society, spiritual readings and other events were held in the Intercession Church of the monastery.

Having settled in the monastery, Elizaveta Fedorovna led an ascetic life: at night, caring for the seriously ill or reading the Psalter over the dead, and during the day she worked, along with her sisters, bypassing the poorest quarters, she herself visited Khitrov Market - the most criminogenic place in Moscow at that time, rescuing young children from there. There she was highly respected for the dignity with which she carried herself, and her complete lack of exaltation over the inhabitants of the slums.

She maintained relations with a number of well-known elders of that time: Schema-Archimandrite Gabriel (Zyryanov) (Eleazar Hermitage), Schemagumen German (Gomzin) and Hieroschemamonk Alexy (Soloviev) (Elders of the Zosima Hermitage). Elizaveta Feodorovna did not accept monastic vows.

During the First World War, she actively took care of helping the Russian army, including wounded soldiers. Then she tried to help the prisoners of war, with whom hospitals were overcrowded and, as a result, she was accused of aiding the Germans. She had a sharply negative attitude towards Grigory Rasputin, although she had never met him. The murder of Rasputin was regarded as a "patriotic act."

Elizaveta Feodorovna was an honorary member of the Berlin Orthodox St. Prince Vladimir Brotherhood. In 1910, together with Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, she took under her protection the fraternal church in Bad Nauheim (Germany).

Refused to leave Russia after the Bolsheviks came to power. In the spring of 1918, she was taken into custody and deported from Moscow to Perm. In May 1918, she, along with other representatives of the Romanov dynasty, was transported to Yekaterinburg and placed in the Ataman Rooms hotel (currently the FSB and Central Internal Affairs Directorate for the Sverdlovsk region are located in the building, the modern address is the intersection of Lenin and Weiner streets), and then, two months later, sent to the city of Alapaevsk. She did not lose her presence of mind, in letters she instructed the remaining sisters, bequeathing them to keep love for God and neighbors. With her was a sister from the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent Varvara Yakovleva. In Alapaevsk, Elizaveta Fedorovna was imprisoned in the building of the Napolnaya School. Until now, an apple tree grows near this school, according to legend, planted by the Grand Duchess (12 travels in the Middle Urals, 2008).

On the night of July 5 (18), 1918, Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna was killed by the Bolsheviks: she was thrown into the Novaya Selimskaya mine, 18 km from Alapaevsk. Died with her:

Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich;
Prince John Konstantinovich;
Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich (younger);
Prince Igor Konstantinovich;
Prince Vladimir Pavlovich Paley;
Fyodor Semyonovich Remez, manager of the affairs of Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich;
sister of the Martha and Mary Convent Barbara (Yakovleva).

All of them, except for the shot Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, were thrown into the mine alive. When the bodies were removed from the shaft, it was discovered that some of the victims lived after the fall, dying of hunger and wounds. At the same time, the wound of Prince John, who fell on the ledge of the mine near the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, was bandaged with part of her apostle. The surrounding peasants said that for several days the singing of prayers could be heard from the mine.

On October 31, 1918, the White Army occupied Alapaevsk. The remains of the dead were removed from the mine, placed in coffins and put to a funeral service in the cemetery church of the city. However, with the advance of the Red Army, the bodies were transported further to the East several times. In April 1920, they were met in Beijing by the head of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission, Archbishop Innokenty (Figurovsky). From there, two coffins - Grand Duchess Elizabeth and sister Varvara - were transported to Shanghai and then by steamer to Port Said. Finally, the coffins arrived in Jerusalem. Burial in January 1921 under the Church of Equal-to-the-Apostles Mary Magdalene in Gethsemane was performed by Patriarch Damian of Jerusalem.

Thus, the desire of the Grand Duchess Elizabeth herself to be buried in the Holy Land, expressed by her during a pilgrimage in 1888, was fulfilled.

In 1992, Grand Duchess Elizabeth and Sister Barbara were canonized by the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church and included in the Council of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia (earlier, in 1981, they were canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia).

In 2004-2005, the relics of the New Martyrs were in Russia, the CIS countries and the Baltic States, where more than 7 million people bowed to them. According to Patriarch Alexy II, "long queues of believers to the relics of the holy new martyrs are another symbol of Russia's repentance for the sins of hard times, the country's return to its original historical path." Then the relics were returned to Jerusalem.

The monument to this merciful and virtuous woman was erected more than 70 years after her martyrdom. Elizabeth Feodorovna, being a member of the imperial family, was distinguished by rare piety and mercy. And after the death of her husband, who died as a result of a terrorist attack by the Socialist-Revolutionaries, she devoted herself entirely to serving God and helping the suffering. The sculpture depicted the princess in monastic clothes. Opened in August 1990 in the courtyard of the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent. Sculptor V. M. Klykov.

Literature

Materials for the Life of the Martyr Grand Duchess Elizabeth. Letters, diaries, memoirs, documents. M., 1995. GARF. F. 601. Op.1. L. 145-148v.
Maerova V. Elizaveta Fedorovna: Biography. M.: Ed. "Zakharov", 2001. ISBN 5-8159-0185-7
Maksimova L. B. Elisaveta Feodorovna // Orthodox Encyclopedia. Volume XVIII. - M.: Church-Scientific Center "Orthodox Encyclopedia", 2009. - S. 389-399. - 752 p. - 39000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-89572-032-5
Miller, L.P. Holy Martyr Russian Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna. M .: "Capital", 1994. ISBN 5-7055-1155-8
Kuchmaeva I. K. Life and feat of the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna. M.: ANO Research Center "Moskvovedenie", JSC "Moscow textbooks", 2004. ISBN 5-7853-0376-0
Rychkov A. V. 12 travels in the Middle Urals. - Malysh and Carlson, 2008. - 50 p. - 5000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-9900756-1-0
Rychkov A. Holy Martyr Elizabeth Feodorovna. - Publishing house "MiK", 2007.

Elizaveta Feodorovna and Sergei Alexandrovich Romanov

It is generally accepted that the Grand Duchess and the Grand Duke were in a “white marriage” (that is, they lived like brother and sister). This is not true: they dreamed of children, especially Sergei Alexandrovich. It is generally accepted that Elizaveta Feodorovna was a meek and quiet angel. And that's not true. Her strong-willed character and business qualities made themselves felt from childhood. They said that the Grand Duke is vicious and has unconventional inclinations - again not true. Even the all-powerful British intelligence did not find anything more "reprehensible" in his behavior than excessive religiosity.

Today, the personality of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich Romanov either remains in the shadow of his great wife, the Reverend Martyr Elizabeth Feodorovna, or is vulgarized - as, for example, in the film "State Councilor", where the Governor General of Moscow appears as a very unpleasant type. Meanwhile, it was largely thanks to the Grand Duke that Elizaveta Feodorovna became what we know her to be: “the great Mother”, “the guardian angel of Moscow”.

Slandered during his lifetime, almost forgotten after his death, Sergei Alexandrovich deserves to be rediscovered. The man, through whose efforts Russian Palestine appeared, and Moscow became an exemplary city; a man who has carried the cross of an incurable disease and the cross of endless slander all his life; and the Christian who took communion up to three times a week - with the general practice of doing this once a year at Easter, for whom faith in Christ was the core of life. “God grant me to be worthy of the leadership of such a spouse as Sergius,” wrote Elizaveta Feodorovna after his murder ...

About the history of the great love of Elizabeth Feodorovna and Sergei Alexandrovich, as well as the history of lies about them - our story.

The name of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich Romanov is pronounced today, as a rule, only in connection with the name of his wife, the Reverend Martyr Elizabeth Feodorovna. She really was an outstanding woman with an extraordinary fate, but Prince Sergei, who remained in her shadow, it turns out, just played the first violin in this family. They tried to denigrate their marriage more than once, call it lifeless or fictitious, in the end, unhappy, or, conversely, idealized. But these attempts are unconvincing. After the death of her husband, Elizaveta Fedorovna burned her diaries, but the diaries and letters of Sergei Alexandrovich have survived, and they allow us to look into the life of this exceptional family, carefully guarded from prying eyes.

Not such a simple bride

The decision to marry was made at a difficult time for Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich: in the summer of 1880, his mother, Maria Alexandrovna, whom he adored, died, and less than a year later, the bomb of the People's Will Ignaty Grinevitsky cut short the life of his father, Emperor Alexander II. The time has come for him to remember the words of the teacher, the maid of honor Anna Tyutcheva, who wrote to the young prince: “By your nature, you need to be married, you suffer alone.” Sergei Alexandrovich really had the unfortunate property of going deep into himself, engaging in self-criticism. He needed a close person ... And he found such a person.

Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. 1861

1884 Ella is one of the most beautiful brides in Europe. Sergei is one of the most enviable suitors, the fifth son of Emperor Alexander II the Liberator. Judging by the diaries, they first met when the Grand Duchess of Hesse and the Rhine, Alice-Maud-Mary, wife of Ludwig IV, was in the last months of pregnancy the future wife of the Grand Duke. A photograph has been preserved where she sits together with the Russian Empress Maria Alexandrovna, who arrived in Darmstadt, and her seven-year-old son Sergei. When the Russian royal family returned to Russia from their trip to Europe, they again stopped by their relatives in Darmstadt, and the little Grand Duke was allowed to be present at the bathing of the newborn Ella, his future wife.

Why Sergei made a choice in favor of Elizabeth, escaped the attention of his relatives and educators. But the choice was made! And although Ella and Sergei both had doubts, in the end, in 1883, their engagement was announced to the world. “I gave my consent without hesitation,” Ella’s father, Grand Duke Ludwig IV, said then. - I have known Sergei since childhood; I see his sweet, pleasant manner and I am sure that he will make my daughter happy.”

The son of the Russian emperor married a provincial German duchess! Here is a familiar look at this brilliant couple - and also a myth. The duchesses of Darmstadt were not so simple. Elizabeth and Alexandra (who became the last Russian empress) are the granddaughters of Queen Victoria, from the age of 18 until her death in old age - the permanent ruler of Great Britain (Empress of India since 1876!), A man of strict morality and an iron grip, under which Britain achieved its heyday. The official title of Elizabeth Feodorovna, which passed to all Hessian princesses, is the Duchess of Great Britain and the Rhine: they belonged, no more, no less, to the family that ruled at that time the third part of the land. And this title - according to all the rules of etiquette - was inherited from her mother, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, daughter of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II.

Thus, the Romanovs became related to the British crown thanks to Alice of Hesse - like her mother Victoria, an unusually strong woman: having married a German duke, Alice had to face the fastidiousness of the Germans, who were not very willing to accept the English princess. However, she once led parliament for nine months; launched extensive charitable activities - the almshouses founded by her operate in Germany to this day. Ella also inherited her grip, and subsequently her character will make itself felt.

In the meantime, Elizabeth of Darmstadt, although extremely noble and educated, but somewhat windy and impressionable young lady, discusses shops and beautiful trinkets. Preparations for their wedding with Sergei Alexandrovich were kept in the strictest confidence, and in the summer of 1884, the nineteen-year-old Hessian princess arrived in a train decorated with flowers in the capital of the Russian Empire.

“He often treated her like a school teacher…”

Princess of Hesse and British Ella. Early 1870s

In public, Elizaveta Fedorovna and Sergei Alexandrovich were, first of all, high-ranking persons, they headed societies and committees, and their human relations, their mutual love and affection were kept secret. Sergei Alexandrovich made every effort to ensure that the inner life of the family did not become public: he had many ill-wishers. From the letters we know more than the contemporaries of the Romanovs could have known.

“He told me about his wife, admired her, praised her. He thanks God every hour for his happiness,” recalls Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich, his relative and close friend. The Grand Duke really adored his wife - he loved to give her unusual jewelry, to give her small gifts with or without occasion. Treating her sternly at times, in her absence he could not boast of Elizabeth. As one of his nieces (in the future - Queen Maria of Romania) recalls, “my uncle was often harsh with her, as with everyone else, but worshiped her beauty. He often treated her like a school teacher. I saw the delicious flush of shame that filled her face as he scolded her. “But, Serge ...” she exclaimed then, and her expression was like the face of a student convicted of some kind of mistake.

“I felt how Sergey longed for this moment; and I knew many times that he suffered from it. He was a true angel of kindness. How often could he, by touching my heart, lead me to change my religion in order to make myself happy; and never, never did he complain... Let people shout about me, but just never say a word against my Sergei. Take his side before them and tell them that I adore him and also my new country and that in this way I have learned to love their religion too…”

From a letter from Elizabeth Feodorovna to her brother Ernest about the change of religion

Contrary to the rumors spread then, it was a truly happy marriage. On the day of the decade of married life, which fell at the height of the Russo-Japanese War, the prince wrote in his diary: “In the morning I am in church, my wife is in the warehouse *. Lord, why am I so happy? (The donation warehouse for the benefit of the soldiers, organized with the assistance of Elizabeth Feodorovna: they sewed clothes there, prepared bandages, collected parcels, formed camp churches. - Ed.)

Their life really was a service with the maximum return of all their strengths and abilities, but we will have time to say about this.

What is she? In a letter to her brother Ernest, Ella calls her husband "a real angel of kindness."

The Grand Duke became in many ways the teacher of his wife, very soft and unobtrusive. Being 7 years older, he really takes care of her education to a large extent, teaches her Russian language and culture, introduces her to Paris, shows her Italy and takes her on a trip to the Holy Land. And, judging by the diaries, the Grand Duke did not stop praying, hoping that someday his wife would share with him the main thing in his life - his faith and the Sacraments of the Orthodox Church, to which he belonged with all his soul.

“After 7 long years of our happy married life, we must start a brand new life and leave our cozy family life in the city. We will have to do so much for the people there, and in fact we will play the role of the ruling prince there, which will be very difficult for us, because instead of playing such a role, we are eager to lead a quiet private life.

From a letter from Elizabeth Feodorovna to her father, the Grand Duke of Hesse, on the appointment of her husband to the post of Governor-General of Moscow

Unusual religiosity is a feature that distinguished the Grand Duke from childhood. When seven-year-old Sergei was brought to Moscow and asked: what would you like? - he replied that his most cherished desire is to get to the bishop's service in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin.

Subsequently, when an adult young man he met during a trip to Italy with Pope Leo XIII, he was amazed at the Grand Duke's knowledge of church history - and even ordered to raise the archives to check the facts voiced by Sergei Alexandrovich. Entries in his diaries always began and ended with the words: "Lord, have mercy," "Lord, bless." He himself decided what church utensils should be brought to the consecration of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Gethsemane (also his brainchild) - brilliantly knowing both the service and all its paraphernalia! And, by the way, Sergei Alexandrovich was the first and only of the great princes of the Romanov dynasty who made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land three times in his life. Moreover, he dared to do the first through Beirut, which was extremely difficult and far from safe. And on the second he took his wife with him, at that time still a Protestant ...

“It is right to be of the same faith with your spouse”

In their family estate Ilyinsky, where Sergei Alexandrovich and Elizaveta Fedorovna spent the happiest days of their lives, starting from their honeymoon, a temple has been preserved, now it is working again. According to legend, it was here that the then Protestant Ella was present at her first Orthodox service.

According to her status, Elizabeth Feodorovna did not have to change her religion. It will be 7 years after her marriage before she writes: "My heart belongs to Orthodoxy." Evil tongues said that Elizabeth Feodorovna was actively pushed to adopt a new faith by her husband, under whose unconditional influence she was always. But, as the Grand Duchess herself wrote to her father, her husband “never tried to force me by any means, leaving all this to my conscience alone.” All he did was softly and delicately introduce her to his faith. And the princess herself approached this issue very seriously, studying Orthodoxy, looking at it very carefully.

Having finally made a decision, Ella first of all writes to her influential grandmother Queen Victoria - they have always been on good terms. The wise grandmother replies: "Being with your spouse of the same faith is right." Her father did not accept Elizabeth Feodorovna's decision at all so favorably, although it is difficult to come up with a more affectionate and tactful tone and more sincere words with which Ella begged "dear Pope" for blessing on the decision to convert to Orthodoxy:

“... I kept thinking and reading and praying to God to show me the right path, and I came to the conclusion that only in this religion can I find all the real and strong faith in God that a person must have in order to be a good Christian. It would be a sin to remain the way I am now - to belong to the same Church in form and for the outside world, but inside myself to pray and believe like my husband does husband…”

Duke Ludwig IV did not answer his daughter, but she could not go against her conscience, although she admitted: “I know that there will be many unpleasant moments, since no one will understand this step.” So, to the indescribable happiness of the spouse, the day came when they were able to take communion together. And the third, last in his life, trip to the Holy Land has already been made together - in every sense.

90 Societies of the Grand Duke

The Grand Duke was one of the initiators of the creation and until his death - the chairman of the Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society, without which today it is impossible to imagine the history of the Russian pilgrimage to the Holy Land! Having become the head of the Society in the 1880s, he managed to open 8 courtyards of the Russian Orthodox Church in Palestine, 100 schools where Arab children were taught the Russian language and introduced to Orthodoxy, build a church of Mary Magdalene in honor of his mother - this is an incomplete list of his deeds, and All this was carried out quite subtly and cunningly. So, sometimes the prince allocated money for construction, without waiting for the issuance of permits, one way or another bypassed many obstacles. There is even an assumption that his appointment in 1891 as the governor-general of Moscow is a cunning political intrigue invented by the intelligence services of the discontented England and France - who will like Russia's "mastery" on the territory of their colonies? - and which had as its goal the removal of the prince from affairs in the Holy Land. Be that as it may, these calculations did not come true: the prince, it seems, only redoubled his efforts!

It is hard to imagine how active people the spouses were, how much they managed to do in their, in general, short life! He headed or was a trustee of about 90 societies, committees and other organizations, and found time to take part in the life of each of them. Here are just a few: the Moscow Architectural Society, the Ladies' Guardianship of the Poor in Moscow, the Moscow Philharmonic Society, the Committee for the Arrangement of the Museum of Fine Arts named after Emperor Alexander III at Moscow University, the Moscow Archaeological Society. He was an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Arts, the Society of Artists of Historical Painting, Moscow and St. Petersburg Universities, the Society of Agriculture, the Society of Natural Science Lovers, the Russian Musical Society, the Archaeological Museum in Constantinople and the Historical Museum in Moscow, the Moscow Theological Academy, the Orthodox Missionary Society, Department of distribution of spiritual and moral books.

Since 1896, Sergei Alexandrovich has been the commander of the Moscow Military District. He is also the chairman of the Imperial Russian Historical Museum. On his initiative, the Museum of Fine Arts on Volkhonka was created - the Grand Duke laid six of his own collections at the basis of its exposition.

“Why do I always feel deeply? Why am I not like everyone else, not cheerful like everyone else? I delve stupidly into everything and see it differently - I myself am ashamed that I am so old-fashioned and cannot be, like all the “golden youth”, cheerful and carefree.

From the diary of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich

Becoming in 1891 the governor-general of Moscow - and this meant taking care not only of Moscow, but also of the ten provinces adjacent to it - he launched an incredible activity, setting himself the goal of making the city equal to European capitals. Under him, Moscow became exemplary: clean, neat paving stones, police officers placed within sight of each other, all utilities work perfectly, order is everywhere and in everything. Under him, electric street lighting was established - the central city power station was built, the GUM was erected, the Kremlin towers were restored, a new building of the Conservatory was built; under him, the first tram began to run along the capital, the first public theater opened, and the city center was put in perfect order.

Charity, which was engaged in Sergei Alexandrovich and Elizaveta Fedorovna, was neither ostentatious nor superficial. “The ruler must be the blessing of his people,” Ella's father often repeated, and he himself and his wife, Alice of Hesse, tried to follow this principle. From childhood, their children were taught to help people, regardless of rank - for example, every week they went to the hospital, where they gave flowers to seriously ill patients, encouraged them. It entered their blood and flesh, the Romanovs raised their children in the same way.

Even while relaxing in their estate near Moscow, Ilyinsky, Sergei Alexandrovich and Elizaveta Feodorovna continued to accept requests for help, for employment, for donations for the upbringing of orphans - all this was preserved in the correspondence of the Grand Duke's manager of the court with different people. Once a letter arrived from the compositors of a private printing house, who dared to ask to be allowed to sing at the Liturgy in Ilyinsky in the presence of the Grand Duke and Princess. And this request was fulfilled.

In 1893, when cholera was raging in Central Russia, a temporary first-aid post was opened in Ilyinsky, where they examined and, if necessary, urgently operated on all those in need of help, where peasants could stay in a special “hut for isolation” - like in a hospital. The infirmary operated from July to October. This is a classic example of the ministry that the couple has been engaged in all their lives.

"White Marriage" That Wasn't

Spouses Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich and Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna. 1884 Sergei Alexandrovich and Elizaveta Feodorovna in the year of their wedding. Contrary to popular belief, they did not live in the so-called. "white marriage": the Grand Duke dreamed of children. “We must not be destined to have complete happiness on earth,” he wrote to his brother Paul. “If I had children, then it seems to me that there would be paradise on our planet for me, but the Lord does not want this - His ways are inscrutable!”

“How I wish I had children! For me, there would be no greater paradise on earth if I had my own children, ”Sergey Alexandrovich writes in letters. A letter from Emperor Alexander III to his wife, Empress Maria Feodorovna, has been preserved, where he writes: “What a pity that Ella and Sergey cannot have children.” “Of all the uncles, we were most afraid of Uncle Sergei, but despite this, he was our favorite,” the niece of Prince Maria recalls in her diaries. “He was strict, kept us in awe, but he loved children ... If he had the opportunity, he would come to watch the children bathe, cover them with a blanket and kiss them goodnight ...”

The Grand Duke was given the opportunity to raise children - but not his own, but his brother Pavel, after the tragic death during premature birth of his wife, the Greek princess Alexandra Georgievna. Direct witnesses of the six-day agony of the unfortunate woman were the owners of the estate, Sergei and Elizaveta. Heartbroken, Pavel Aleksandrovich, for several months after the tragedy, was not able to take care of his children - the young Maria and the newborn Dmitry, and Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich took over this care completely and completely. He canceled all plans and trips and stayed in Ilyinsky, participated in bathing a newborn - who, by the way, should not have survived, according to the unanimous opinion of doctors - he himself covered him with cotton wool, did not sleep at night, taking care of the little prince. Interestingly, Sergei Alexandrovich wrote down all the important events in the life of his ward in his diary: the first erupted tooth, the first word, the first step. And after brother Pavel, contrary to the will of the emperor, married a woman who did not belong to an aristocratic family, and was expelled from Russia, his children, Dmitry and Maria, were finally taken into care by Sergei and Elizabeth.

Why the Lord did not give the spouses their own children is His secret. Researchers suggest that the childlessness of the grand ducal couple could be the result of Sergei's serious illness, which he carefully concealed from others. This is another little-known page in the life of the prince, which completely changes the ideas about him that are familiar to many.

Why does he need a corset?

Coldness of character, isolation, closeness - the usual list of accusations against the Grand Duke.

To this they add: proud! - because of his overly straight posture, which gave him an arrogant look. If the accusers of the prince knew that the “culprit” of a proud posture is a corset, with which he was forced to support his spine all his life. The prince was seriously and terminally ill, like his mother, like his brother Nikolai Alexandrovich, who was supposed to become the Russian emperor, but died of a terrible illness. His diagnosis - bone tuberculosis, leading to dysfunction of all joints - Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich knew how to hide from everyone. Only his wife knew what it cost him.

“Sergey suffers a lot. He is unwell again. Salts, hot baths are very necessary, he cannot do without them, ”Elizaveta writes to close relatives. “Instead of going to the reception, the Grand Duke took a bath,” the Moskovskie Vedomosti newspaper scoffed already in pre-revolutionary times. A hot bath is almost the only remedy that relieves pain (articular, dental) that tormented Sergei Alexandrovich. He could not ride, could not do without a corset. In Ilyinsky, during the life of his mother, a koumiss farm was set up for medicinal purposes, but the disease progressed over the years. And if it were not for the bomb of student Ivan Kalyaev, it is very possible that the Governor-General of Moscow would not have lived long anyway ...

The Grand Duke was closed, laconic and closed from childhood. And could you expect anything else from a child whose parents were in fact divorced, which nevertheless could not take place? Maria Alexandrovna lived on the second floor of the Winter Palace, no longer having marital relations with her husband and enduring the presence of the sovereign's favorite, Princess Dolgorukova (she became his wife after the death of Maria Alexandrovna, but stayed in this status for less than a year, until the death of Alexander II). The collapse of the parental family, deep attachment to the mother, who meekly endured this humiliation, are factors that largely determined the formation of the character of the little prince.

They are also reasons for slander, rumors and slander against him. “Too much religious, closed, very often in the temple, takes communion up to three times a week,” this is the most “suspicious” of what English intelligence managed to find out about the prince before he married Elizabeth, after all - granddaughter of the English queen. The reputation is almost impeccable, and yet, even during his lifetime, streams of slander and unpleasant accusations poured out on the Grand Duke ...

"Be patient - you are on the battlefield"

They talked about the dissolute lifestyle of the Governor-General of Moscow, rumors spread around the capital about his non-traditional sexual orientation, that Elizaveta Fedorovna was very unhappy in her marriage to him - all this even during the life of the prince sounded even in English newspapers. Sergei Alexandrovich was at first lost and perplexed, this can be seen from his diary entries and letters, where he poses one question: “Why? Where does all this come from?!”

“Tolerate all this lifetime slander, endure - you are on the battlefield,” Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich wrote to him.

Attacks, accusations of arrogance and indifference could not be avoided and Elizabeth Feodorovna. Of course, there were reasons for this: despite the widest charitable activities, she always kept her distance, knowing the price of her status as a Grand Duchess - belonging to the imperial house hardly implies familiarity. And her character, manifested from childhood, gave rise to such accusations.

In our eyes, the image of the Grand Duchess, admittedly, is somewhat unctuous: a gentle, meek woman with a humble look. This image was formed, of course, not without reason. “Her purity was absolute, it was impossible to take your eyes off her, after spending the evening with her, everyone was waiting for the hour when they could see her the next day,” her niece Maria admires Aunt Ella. And at the same time, it is impossible not to notice that the Grand Duchess Elizabeth had a strong-willed character. Mother admitted that Ella was the exact opposite of her older obedient sister Victoria: very strong and by no means quiet. It is known that Elizabeth spoke very harshly about Grigory Rasputin, believing that his death would be the best way out of the catastrophic and ridiculous situation that had developed at court.

“... When he saw her, he asked: “Who are you?” “I am his widow,” she replied, “why did you kill him?” "I did not want to kill you," he said, "I saw him several times at the time when I had the bomb at the ready, but you were with him, and I did not dare to touch him." “And you didn’t realize that you killed me along with him?” - she replied ... "

Description of the conversation between Elizabeth Feodorovna and the murderer of her husband from the book of Fr. M. Polsky "New Russian Martyrs"

As they would say today, the Grand Duchess was a first-class manager, who skillfully knew how to organize business, distribute duties and monitor their implementation. Yes, she kept a little aloof, but at the same time she did not ignore the slightest requests and needs of those who turned to her. There is a famous case during the First World War when a wounded officer, who was threatened with amputation of his leg, filed a request to reconsider this decision. The petition fell to the Grand Duchess and was granted. The officer recovered and subsequently, during the Second World War, served as Minister of Light Industry.

Of course, the life of Elizabeth Feodorovna changed dramatically after the terrible event - the murder of her beloved husband ... The photograph of the carriage torn apart by the explosion was then printed in all Moscow newspapers. The explosion was so strong that the dead man's heart was found only on the third day on the roof of the house. But the Grand Duchess collected the remains of Sergei with her own hands. Her life, her fate, her character - everything has changed, but, of course, the whole previous life, full of dedication and activity, was a preparation for this.

“It seemed,” recalled Countess Alexandra Andreevna Olsufieva, “that from that time on she peered intently at the image of another world, devoted herself to the search for perfection.”

"You and I know that he is a saint"

“Lord, I would be worthy of such a death!” - Sergei Alexandrovich wrote in his diary after the death of one of the statesmen from a bomb - a month before his own death. He received threatening letters, but ignored them. The only thing the prince did was to stop taking his children - Dmitry Pavlovich and Maria Pavlovna - and his adjutant Dzhunkovsky with him on trips.

The Grand Duke foresaw not only his death, but also the tragedy that would overwhelm Russia in a decade. He wrote to Nicholas II, imploring him to be more resolute and tough, to act, to take action. And he himself took such measures: in 1905, when the uprising broke out among the students, he sent students on indefinite vacations, to their homes, preventing the fire from breaking out. "Hear me!" - he writes and writes in recent years to the sovereign emperor. But the emperor did not hear ...

February 4, 1905 Sergei Alexandrovich leaves the Kremlin through the Nikolsky Gate. For 65 meters before the Nikolskaya tower, an explosion of terrible force is heard. The coachman was mortally wounded, and Sergei Alexandrovich was torn to pieces: his head, arm and legs remained - so the prince was buried, having built a special “doll”, in the Miracle Monastery, in the tomb. At the site of the explosion, they found his personal belongings, which Sergei always carried with him: icons, a cross given by his mother, a small Gospel.

After the tragedy, everything that Sergei did not manage to do, everything that he put his mind and indefatigable energy into, Elizaveta Fedorovna considered it her duty to continue. “I want to be worthy of the leadership of such a spouse as Sergius,” she wrote shortly after his death to Zinaida Yusupova. And, probably, driven by these thoughts, she went to prison to the murderer of her husband with words of forgiveness and a call to repentance. She worked to the point of exhaustion and, as Countess Olsufyeva writes, "always calm and humble, she found strength and time, getting satisfaction from this endless work."

It is difficult to say in a few words about what the Martha-Mariinsky Convent of Mercy, founded by the Grand Duchess, and which still exists today, has become for the capital. “The Lord gave me so little time,” she writes to Z. Yusupova. “There is still a lot to be done.”…

On July 5, 1918, Elizaveta Fedorovna, her cell-attendant Varvara (Yakovleva), nephew Vladimir Pavlovich Paley, the sons of Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich - Igor, John and Konstantin, and the manager of the affairs of Prince Sergei Mikhailovich Fyodor Mikhailovich Remez were thrown alive into a mine near Alapaevsk.

The relics of the Grand Duchess rest in the temple built by her husband - the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Gethsemane, and the remains of the Grand Duke were transferred in 1998 to the Novospassky Monastery in Moscow. She was canonized in the 1990s, but he... It seems that holiness can be very different, and the great - really great - Prince Sergei Alexandrovich again remained in the shadow of his great wife. Today, the commission for his canonization resumed its work. “You and I know that he is a saint,” Elizaveta Feodorovna said in correspondence after the death of her husband. She knew him best.

Elizaveta Fedorovna Romanova was born on November 1, 1864 in Darmstadt. She was an Honorary Member and Chairman of the Palestinian Orthodox Society in 1905-1917, the founder of the Moscow Martha and Mary Convent.

Elizaveta Romanova: biography. Childhood and family

She was the second daughter of Ludwig IV (Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt) and Princess Alice. In 1878 diphtheria overtook the family. Only Elizaveta Romanova, Empress Alexandra (one of the younger sisters) did not get sick. The latter was in Russia and was the wife of Nicholas II. The mother of Princess Alice and the second younger sister Maria died of diphtheria. After the death of his wife, Ella's father (as Elizabeth was called in the family) married Alexandrina Gutten-Chapskaya. The children were brought up primarily by their grandmother at Osborne House. From childhood, Ella was instilled with religious views. She participated in charitable causes, received lessons in housekeeping. Of great importance in the development of the spiritual world of Ella was the image of St. Elizabeth of Thuringia, famous for her mercy. Friedrich of Baden (her cousin) was considered as a potential suitor. For some time, Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia courted Elizabeth. He was also her cousin. According to a number of sources, Wilhelm proposed to Ella, but she rejected him.

Grand Duchess Elizabeth Romanoff

On June 3 (15), 1884, the wedding of Ella and Sergei Alexandrovich, brother of Alexander III, took place in the Court Cathedral. After the wedding, the couple settled in the Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace. Later it became known as Sergievsky. took place in Ilyinsky, where subsequently Elizaveta Fedorovna Romanova and her husband lived. At the insistence of Ella, a hospital was equipped on the estate, and regular fairs for peasants began to be held.

Activity

Princess Elizaveta Romanova was fluent in Russian. Confessing Protestantism, she attended services in the Orthodox Church. In 1888 she made a pilgrimage with her husband to the Holy Land. Three years later, in 1891, Elizaveta Romanova converted to Christianity. Being at that time the wife of the Moscow governor-general, she organized a charitable society. Its activities were carried out first in the city itself, and then spread to the district. Elisabeth committees were formed at all church parishes in the province. In addition, the wife of the Governor-General headed the Ladies' Society, and after the death of her husband, she became the chairman of the Moscow Red Cross Department. At the beginning of the war with Japan, Elizaveta Romanova established a special committee to help the soldiers. A donation fund for the soldiers was formed. Bandages were prepared in the warehouse, clothes were sewn, parcels were collected, camp churches were formed.

The death of a spouse

During the years, the country experienced revolutionary unrest. Elizaveta Romanova also spoke about them. The letters that she wrote to Nikolai expressed her rather tough position regarding freethinking and revolutionary terror. February 4, 1905 Sergei Alexandrovich was killed by Ivan Kalyaev. Elizaveta Fedorovna was very upset by the loss. Later, she came to the killer in prison and conveyed forgiveness on behalf of her deceased husband, leaving Kalyaev the Gospel. In addition, Elizaveta Fedorovna filed a petition to Nikolai for a pardon for the criminal. However, it was not satisfied. After the death of her husband, Elizaveta Romanova replaced him as Chairman of the Palestinian Orthodox Society. She held this post from 1905 to 1917.

Foundation of the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent

After the death of her husband, Ella sold the jewelry. Having transferred to the treasury the part owned by the Romanov dynasty, Elizaveta bought an estate on Bolshaya Ordynka with a large garden and four houses with the funds received. The Marfo-Mariinsky Convent was arranged here. The sisters were engaged in charitable affairs, medical activities. When organizing the monastery, both Russian Orthodox and European experience was used. The sisters who lived in it took vows of obedience, non-possession and chastity. In contrast to the monastic service, after a while they were allowed to leave the monastery and create families. The sisters received serious medical, methodological, psychological and spiritual training. Lectures were read to them by the best Moscow doctors, and conversations were held by the confessor, Father Mitrofan Srebryansky (who later became Archimandrite Sergius) and Father Evgeny Sinadsky.

The work of the monastery

Elizaveta Romanova planned that the institution would provide comprehensive, medical, spiritual and educational assistance to all those in need. They were not only given clothes and food, but were often employed and placed in hospitals. Often the sisters persuaded families who could not give their children a proper upbringing to give them to an orphanage. There they received good care, profession, education. The monastery operated a hospital, had its own dispensary, pharmacy, some of the medicines in which were free. There was also a shelter, there was a canteen and many other institutions. Educational talks and lectures were held in the Church of the Intercession, meetings of the Orthodox Palestinian and Geographical Societies, and other events were held. Elizabeth, living in the monastery, led an active life. At night, she nursed the seriously ill or read the Psalter over the dead. During the day, she worked with the rest of the sisters: she went around the poorest neighborhoods, visited Khitrov Market on her own. The latter was considered at that time the most criminogenic place in Moscow. From there, she took the minors and took them to a shelter. Elizabeth was respected for the dignity with which she always held herself, for her lack of exaltation over the inhabitants of the slums.

Establishment of a prosthetic factory

During the First World War, Elizabeth actively participated in providing for the Russian army, helping the wounded. At the same time, she tried to support the prisoners of war, with whom the hospitals were then overcrowded. For this, she was subsequently accused of aiding the Germans. At the beginning of 1915, with her active assistance, a workshop was established for assembling prostheses from finished parts. Most of the elements were then delivered from St. Petersburg, from the factory of military medical products. It operated a separate prosthetic shop. This industrial branch was developed only in 1914. Funds for organizing a workshop in Moscow were collected from donations. As the war progressed, the need for products increased. By decision of the Committee of the Princess, the production of prostheses was transferred from Trubnikovsky lane to Maronovsky, to the 9th house. With her personal participation in 1916, work began on the design and construction of the country's first prosthetic plant, which still operates today, producing components.

Murder

After the Bolsheviks came to power, Elizaveta Romanova refused to leave Russia. She continued her active work in the monastery. On May 7, 1918, Patriarch Tikhon served a prayer service, and half an hour after his departure, Elizabeth was arrested by order of Dzerzhinsky. Subsequently, she was deported to Perm, then transported to Yekaterinburg. She and other members of the Romanov family were placed in the Ataman Rooms hotel. After 2 months they were sent to Alapaevsk. The sister of the monastery Varvara was also present with the Romanovs. In Alapaevsk they were in Napolnaya school. An apple tree grows near her building, which, according to legend, was planted by Elizabeth. On the night of July 5 (18), 1918, all the prisoners were shot and thrown alive (except for Sergei Mikhailovich) into the Nov. Selimskaya, 18 km from Alapaevsk.

burial

On October 31, 1918, the Whites entered Alapaevsk. The remains of the executed were taken out of the mine and placed in coffins. They were put to a funeral service in the church at the cemetery of the city. But with the onset of the Red Army detachments, the coffins were transported further and further to the East several times. In Beijing in April 1920, they were met by Archbishop Innokenty, head of the Russian spiritual mission. From there, the coffins of Elizabeth Feodorovna and sister Varvara were transported to Shanghai, and then to Port Said and finally to Jerusalem. The burial was performed in January 1921 by Patriarch Damian of Jerusalem. Thus, the will of Elizabeth herself, expressed in 1888, during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, was fulfilled.

glorification

In 1992, the Grand Duchess and Sister Varvara were canonized by the Council of Bishops. They were included in the Council of Confessors and New Martyrs of Russia. Shortly before that, in 1981, they were canonized by the Orthodox Church Abroad.

relics

From 2004 to 2005 they were in Russia and the CIS. More than 7 million people bowed to them. As noted by II, long queues of people to the relics of the New Martyrs act as another symbol of repentance for sins, testify to the country's return to the historical path. After that they returned to Jerusalem.

Monasteries and temples

In honor of Elizabeth Feodorovna, several churches were built in Russia and Belarus. The information base for October 2012 contained information about 24 churches, the main altar in which is dedicated to her, 6 - where it is one of the additional ones, as well as one church under construction and 4 chapels. They are located in the cities:

1. Yekaterinburg.
2. Kaliningrad.
3. Belousov (Kaluga region).
4. P. Chistye Bory (Kostroma region).
5. Balashikha.
6. Zvenigorod.
7. Krasnogorsk.
8. Odintsovo.
9. Lytkarina.
10. Shchelkovo.
11. Shcherbinka.
12. D. Kolotskoe.
13. P. Diveevo (Nizhny Novgorod region).
14. Nizhny Novgorod.
15. S. Vengerov (Novosibirsk region).
16. Orel.
17. Bezhetsk (Tver region).

Additional thrones in temples:

1. Three Hierarchs in the Spassko-Elizarovsky Monastery (Pskov region).
2. Ascension of the Lord (Nizhny Novgorod).
3. Elijah the Prophet (Ilinskoye, Moscow region, Krasnogorsk district).
4. Sergius of Radonezh and the Monk Martyr Elizabeth (Yekaterinburg).
5. Savior Not Made by Hands in Usovo (Moscow region).
6. In the name of St. Elisaveta Feodorovna (Yekaterinburg).
7. Dormition of St. Mother of God (Kurchatov, Kursk region).
8. Holy Martyr Vel. Princess Elizabeth (Shcherbinka).

Chapels are located in Orel, St. Petersburg, Yoshkar-Ola, in Zhukovsky (Moscow region). The list in the infobase contains data about house churches. They are located in hospitals and other social institutions, do not occupy separate buildings, but are located in the premises of buildings, etc.

Conclusion

Elizaveta Romanova has always sought to help people, often even to her own detriment. There was, perhaps, not a single person who would not respect her for all her deeds. Even during the revolution, when her life was in danger, she did not leave Russia, but continued to work. In a difficult time for the country, Elizaveta Romanova gave all her strength to people in need. Thanks to her, a huge number of lives were saved, a prosthetic plant, shelters for children, and hospitals started operating in Russia. Contemporaries, having learned about the arrest, were extremely surprised, because they could not imagine what danger she could pose for the Soviet government. On June 8, 2009, the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation rehabilitated Elizaveta Romanova posthumously.

Everyone spoke of her as a dazzling beauty, and in Europe they believed that there were only two beauties on the European Olympus, both of them - Elizabeth. Elisabeth of Austria, wife of Emperor Franz Joseph, and Elizaveta Feodorovna.

Elizabeth Feodorovna, the elder sister of Alexandra Feodorovna, the future Russian Empress, was the second child in the family of Duke Louis IV of Hesse-Darmstadt and Princess Alice, daughter of Queen Victoria of England. Another daughter of this couple - Alice - later became Empress of Russia Alexandra Feodorovna.

Children were brought up in the traditions of old England, their lives were held according to a strict routine. Clothes and food were the simplest. The eldest daughters themselves did the housework: they cleaned the rooms, beds, stoked the fireplace. Much later, Elizaveta Fedorovna would say: "They taught me everything at home."

Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov, the same KR, dedicated the following lines to Elizabeth Feodorovna in 1884:

I look at you, admiring hourly:

You are so unspeakably good!

Oh, right, under such a beautiful exterior

Such a beautiful soul!

Some meekness and innermost sadness

There is depth in your eyes;

Like an angel, you are quiet, pure and perfect;

Like a woman, shy and gentle.

Let nothing on earth

In the midst of many evils and sorrows

Your purity will not be stained.

And everyone who sees you will glorify God,

who created such beauty!

At the age of twenty, Princess Elizabeth became the bride of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, the fifth son of Emperor Alexander II. Before that, all applicants for her hand received a categorical refusal. They were married in the church of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, and, of course, the grandeur of the event could not help but impress the princess. The beauty and antiquity of the wedding ceremony, the Russian church service struck Elizabeth like an angelic touch, and she could not forget this feeling all her life.

She had an irresistible desire to get to know this mysterious country, its culture, its faith. And her appearance began to change: from a chilly German beauty, the Grand Duchess gradually turned into a spiritualized woman, all as if glowing with inner light.

The family spent most of the year at their Ilinskoye estate, sixty kilometers from Moscow, on the banks of the Moskva River. But there were also balls, festivities, theatrical performances. The cheerful Ellie, as she was called in the family, brought youthful enthusiasm into the life of the imperial family with her home theater productions and holidays at the skating rink. The heir Nicholas liked to visit here, and when twelve-year-old Alice arrived at the house of the Grand Duke, he began to come even more often.

Ancient Moscow, its way of life, its ancient patriarchal life and its monasteries and churches fascinated the Grand Duchess. Sergei Alexandrovich was a deeply religious person, observed fasts and church holidays, went to divine services, went to monasteries. And with him the Grand Duchess was everywhere, standing up for all the services.

How it did not look like a Protestant church! How the soul of the princess sang and rejoiced, what grace poured over her soul when she saw Sergei Alexandrovich, transformed after communion. She wanted to share with him this joy of finding grace, and she began to seriously study the Orthodox faith, to read spiritual books.

And here is another gift of fate! Emperor Alexander III instructed Sergei Alexandrovich to be in the Holy Land in 1888 at the consecration of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Gethsemane, which was built in memory of their mother, Empress Maria Alexandrovna. The couple visited Nazareth, Mount Tabor. The princess wrote to her grandmother, Queen Victoria of England: “The country is really beautiful. All around are gray stones and houses of the same color. Even the trees do not have the freshness of color. But nevertheless, when you get used to it, you find picturesque features everywhere and you are amazed…”.

She stood at the majestic church of St. Mary Magdalene, as a gift to which she brought precious utensils for worship, the Gospel and air. Around the temple, such silence and airy splendor spread ... At the foot of the Mount of Olives, in a flickering, slightly muffled light, as if slightly traced against the sky, cypresses and olives froze. A wonderful feeling took possession of her, and she said: "I would like to be buried here." It was a sign of fate! A sign from above! And how will he respond in the future!

Sergei Alexandrovich after this trip became chairman of the Palestinian Society. And Elizaveta Feodorovna, after visiting the Holy Land, made a firm decision to convert to Orthodoxy. That was not easy. On January 1, 1891, she wrote to her father about her decision, asking him to bless her: “You must have noticed how deep a reverence I have for the local religion .... I kept thinking and reading and praying to God to show me the right path, and I came to the conclusion that only in this religion can I find all the real and strong faith in God that a person must have in order to be a good Christian. It would be a sin to remain the way I am now, to belong to the same church in form and for the outside world, but within myself to pray and believe like my husband…. You know me well, you must see that I decided to take this step only out of deep faith, and that I feel that I must appear before God with a pure and believing heart. I thought and thought deeply about all this, being in this country for more than 6 years and knowing that the religion was "found". I so strongly desire to partake of the Holy Mysteries with my husband on Easter.” The father did not bless his daughter for this step. Nevertheless, on the eve of Easter 1891, on Lazarus Saturday, the rite of acceptance into Orthodoxy was performed.

What rejoicing of the soul - on Easter, together with her beloved husband, she sang the bright troparion “Christ is risen from the dead by death, trampling down death ...” and approached the holy Chalice. It was Elizaveta Feodorovna who persuaded her sister to convert to Orthodoxy, finally dispelling Alix's fears. Ellie did not need to convert to the Orthodox faith when marrying Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, since he could not under any circumstances be the heir to the throne. But she did this out of an inner need, she explained to her sister the whole necessity of this and that the transition to Orthodoxy would not be an apostasy for her, but, on the contrary, the acquisition of the true faith.

In 1891, the emperor appointed Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich as Moscow governor-general. Muscovites soon recognized the Grand Duchess as the protector of the orphans and the poor, the sick and the poor, she went to hospitals, almshouses, shelters, helped many, eased suffering, distributed help.

When the Russo-Japanese War began, Elizaveta Fedorovna immediately took up organizing assistance to the front, workshops were set up in all the halls of the Kremlin Palace to help the soldiers. Medicines, food, uniforms, warm clothes for soldiers, donations and funds - all this was collected and sent by the Grand Duchess to the front. She formed several medical trains, set up a hospital for the wounded in Moscow, which she often visited, organized special committees to provide for the widows and orphans of those who died at the front. But it was especially touching for the soldier to receive icons and icons, prayer books and Gospels from the Grand Duchess. She was especially concerned about sending marching Orthodox churches with everything necessary for performing divine services.

Revolutionary groups were outrageous in the country at that time, and Sergei Alexandrovich, who considered it necessary to take tougher measures against them and did not find support, resigned. The sovereign accepted the resignation. But it was all in vain. Meanwhile, the militant organization of the Social Revolutionaries had already sentenced Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich to death. The authorities knew about the impending assassination attempt and tried to prevent it. Elizaveta Fyodorovna received anonymous letters in which she was warned that if she did not want to share the fate of her husband, she should not accompany him anywhere. The princess, on the contrary, tried to be everywhere with him, not to leave him for a minute. But on February 4, 1905, it did happen. Sergei Alexandrovich was killed by a bomb thrown by the terrorist Ivan Kalyaev at the Nikolsky Gates of the Kremlin. When Elizaveta Fedorovna arrived there, a crowd of people had already gathered there. Someone tried to prevent her from approaching the site of the explosion, but when a stretcher was brought, she herself laid her husband's remains on them. Only the head and face were intact. Moreover, she picked up icons in the snow that her husband wore around his neck.

The procession with the remains moved to the Chudov Monastery in the Kremlin, Elizaveta Fedorovna followed the stretcher on foot. In church, she knelt beside the stretcher by the pulpit and bowed her head. She stood on her knees throughout the memorial service, only occasionally casting a glance at the blood oozing through the tarpaulin.

Then she got up and walked through the frozen crowd to the exit. In the palace, she ordered that a mourning dress be brought to her, changed clothes and began to write telegrams to her relatives, writing in an absolutely clear, clear handwriting. It just seemed to her that someone else was doing it for her. Completely different. Several times she inquired about the well-being of the coachman Efim, who had served the Grand Duke for twenty-five years and was badly injured during the explosion. In the evening she was told that the coachman had regained consciousness, but no one dared to tell him about the death of Sergei Alexandrovich. And then Elizaveta Feodorovna went to see him in the hospital. Seeing that the coachman was very unwell, she bent over him and affectionately said that everything had turned out all right, and Sergei Alexandrovich asked her to visit the old servant. The coachman seemed to brighten up his face, calmed down and after a while calmly died.

The next morning they buried the Grand Duke. At the last moment, his heart was found on one of the roofs near the murder site. Managed to put in a coffin.

In the evening she went to the Butyrka prison. The head of the prison went to the criminal's cell with her. At the threshold of the cell, she lingered for a second: am I doing the right thing? And as if the voice was hers, the voice of her husband, who wanted forgiveness for the killer.

Kalyaev, with a feverish gleam in his eyes, rose to meet her and shouted defiantly:

I am his widow. Why did you kill him?

I did not want to kill you, I saw him several times while I had the bomb at the ready, but you were with him and I did not dare to touch him.

And you did not understand that they killed me along with him?

The killer didn't answer...

She tried to explain to him that she had brought forgiveness from Sergei Alexandrovich. But he did not hear, they spoke in different languages. Elizaveta Fedorovna asked him to repent, but these words were unfamiliar to him. The Grand Duchess spoke with Kalyaev for more than two hours, she brought him the Gospel and asked him to read it. But it was all in vain. Leaving the Gospel and a small icon, she left.

The Grand Duchess asked Emperor Nicholas II to pardon Kalyaev, but it was rejected because the offender did not repent. At the trial, he demanded a death sentence for himself, with burning eyes he madly repeated that he would always destroy political opponents. They told her, however, that at the last minute he took the icon in his hands and laid it on the pillow.

Sergei Alexandrovich was buried in the small church of the Chudov Monastery, a crypt-tomb was made here. It was here that Elizaveta Fedorovna came every day and at night, prayed, thought about how to live on. Here, in the Miracle Monastery, she received grace-filled help from the relics of the great prayer book, St. Alexis, and then all her life she carried a piece of his relics in her pectoral cross. At the site of the murder of her husband, Elizaveta Fedorovna erected a monument-cross, made according to the project of Vasnetsov. On it are the words of the Savior, spoken by Him on the cross: "Father, let them go, for they do not know what they are doing." In 1918, the cross was demolished, in 1985 a crypt with the remains of the Grand Duke was discovered. And in 1995, the cross was restored to the old place.

After the death of her husband, Elizaveta Feodorovna did not take off her mourning, she prayed a lot, fasted. The solution came in long prayer. She dissolved the court, divided her fortune into three parts: to the treasury, to her husband's heirs, and the largest part for charitable needs.

In 1909, the Grand Duchess came to Polotsk to transfer the relics of St. Euphrosyne of Polotsk from Kyiv. The fate of Euphrosyne spoke a lot to Elizabeth Feodorovna: she died in Jerusalem, apparently the first Russian pilgrimage. How she recalled their trip with Sergei to the Holy Land, how serene their happiness was, how good and peaceful she was there!

She decided to devote herself to the construction and creation of a merciful monastery. Elizaveta Fedorovna continued to do charity work, helped soldiers, the poor, orphans, and all the time thought about the monastery. Various projects of the charter of the monastery were drawn up, one of them was submitted by the Oryol priest Mitrofan Srebryansky, the author of a book she read with deep interest - “The Diary of a Regimental Priest Who Served in the Far East During the Entire Period of the Past Russo-Japanese War”, to which the princess offered to be monastery confessor. The synod did not immediately accept and understand its intention, so the charter was altered many times.

After the death of her husband, from the share of the fortune intended for charitable purposes, the Grand Duchess allocated part of the money for the purchase of an estate on Bolshaya Ordynka and began building a church and the premises of the monastery, an outpatient clinic, and an orphanage here. In February 1909, the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent of Mercy was opened, there were only six sisters in it. Two churches were built on the territory of the monastery: the first - in honor of the holy myrrh-bearing women Martha and Mary, the second - the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos. A small church-tomb was built under the latter. The Grand Duchess thought that her body would rest here after death, but God judged otherwise.

On April 22, 1910, in the church of Martha and Mary, Bishop Tryphon consecrated 17 ascetics led by the abbess as sisters of the cross of love and mercy. For the first time, the Grand Duchess took off her mourning and put on the attire of the cross sister of love and mercy. She gathered the seventeen sisters and said: "I leave the brilliant world where I held a brilliant position, but together with all of you I ascend to a greater world - to the world of the poor and suffering."

An almshouse, a hospital and an orphanage were built. The monastery was extraordinarily beautiful, heartfelt divine services that many contemporaries remembered were performed here. Temples, one of which was built by the famous architect Shchusev and painted by the artist Mikhail Nesterov, the fragrance of flowers, greenhouses, the park - everything was a spiritual harmony.

The sisters studied the basics of medicine, visited hospitals and almshouses, it was here that the most seriously ill patients were brought, whom everyone refused, the best specialists were invited to them, medical offices and a surgical clinic were the best in Moscow, all operations were performed free of charge. A pharmacy was also built here, where medicines were also dispensed to the poor for free. Day and night, the sisters vigilantly monitored the condition of the sick, patiently looked after them, and the abbess, it seemed to them, was always with them, for she set aside 2-3 hours a day for sleep. Many hopeless people got up and, leaving the monastery, wept, calling Elizabeth Feodorovna "Great Mother." She bandaged the wounds herself, often sat all night at the bedside of the patient. If someone died, she read the Psalter over the dead all night, and at 6 in the morning she invariably began her working day.

Elizaveta Fyodorovna opened a school in the monastery for orphans and children whom she found in the Khitrov market. It was a place where all the dregs of society seemed to gather, but the abbess always repeated: "The likeness of God can sometimes be darkened, but it cannot be destroyed." Everyone here already knew her, respected her, affectionately and reverently called her “mother” and “sister Elizabeth”. She was not afraid of illness, nor the surrounding dirt, nor the abuse that spread around Khitrovka, tirelessly and zealously she searched for orphans here, moved with her sisters Varvara Yakovleva or Princess Maria Obolenskaya from brothel to brothel, persuading them to give them to her upbringing. The boys from Khitrovka soon began to work in the gang of messengers, the girls were placed in closed educational institutions and shelters, a shelter for orphans was also organized in the monastery, and for poor children a big Christmas tree with gifts was arranged for Christmas.

In addition, a Sunday school for factory workers was opened in the monastery, a library was organized where books were given out free of charge, more than 300 meals were given to the poor every day, and those who had large families could take meals home. Over time, she wanted to spread the experience of her monastery throughout Russia and open branches in other cities. In 1914 there were already 97 cross sisters in the monastery.

In the monastery, the Grand Duchess led an ascetic life: she slept on wooden boards without a mattress, secretly wore a sackcloth and chains, did everything herself, strictly observed fasts, and ate only plant foods. When the patient needed help, she sat in his bed all night until dawn, assisted in the most difficult operations. Patients felt the healing power of the spirit emanating from her and agreed to any most difficult operation if she spoke of its necessity.

During the First World War, she cared for the wounded in the infirmaries, sent many sisters to work in field hospitals. She also visited captured wounded Germans, but evil tongues, slandering about the secret support of the enemy by the royal family, forced her to decide to abandon this.

Immediately after the February Revolution, a truck with armed soldiers, led by a non-commissioned officer, drove up to the monastery. They demanded to take them to the head of the monastery. “We have come to arrest the sister of the Empress,” the non-commissioned officer said cheerfully. The confessor, Archpriest Mitrofan, was also present, and he turned indignantly to the soldiers: “Whom have you come to arrest! After all, there are no criminals here! Everything that Mother Elizabeth had, she gave everything to the people. A monastery, a church, an almshouse, a shelter for homeless children, and a hospital were built at her expense. Is this a crime?

The non-commissioned officer who led the detachment gazed intently at the priest and suddenly asked him: “Father! Are you Father Mitrofan of Orel?” - "Yes it's me". The face of the non-commissioned officer instantly changed, and he said to the soldiers: “That's it, guys! I'll stay here and take care of everything myself. And you go back." The soldiers, after listening to Father Mitrofan and realizing that they had started something not quite right, obeyed and left. And the non-commissioned officer said: “Now I will stay here and guard you!”

There were still many searches and arrests, but the Grand Duchess steadfastly endured these hardships and injustices. And all the time she repeated: “The people are a child, they are not to blame for what is happening ... They are misled by the enemies of Russia” ...

On the third day of Pascha, the day of the celebration of the Iberian Icon of the Mother of God, Elizaveta Feodorovna was arrested and immediately taken from Moscow to Perm. She was given half an hour to get ready. All the sisters ran to the temple of Martha and Mary, and the abbess blessed them for the last time. The temple was filled with weeping, everyone understood that they were seeing each other for the last time ... Two sisters went with her - Varvara Yakovleva and Ekaterina Yanysheva.

With the arrest of the abbess in April 1918, the monastery practically ceased its charitable activities, although it existed for another seven years. Father Mitrofan continued to spiritually minister to the sisters until the closing of the monastery, His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon visited here, repeatedly served the liturgy, here he tonsured Father Mitrofan as a monk under the name of Sergius, and his mother - under the name of Elizabeth.

On the night of July 17-18, 1918, an equestrian group of workers drove up to the building of the Napolnaya School in Alapaevsk and, having seated the captives in carriages (Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, sons of Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov, Princes John, Igor and Konstantin, son of Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich, Prince Vladimir Paley , Elizaveta Feodorovna and novice Varvara), took them to the forest to the old mine. Sergei Mikhailovich resisted and was shot. The rest were thrown alive into the mine. When the Grand Duchess was pushed into the mine, she repeated aloud the prayer of the Savior: "Lord, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

Elizaveta Feodorovna fell not to the bottom of the shaft, but to a ledge at a depth of 15 meters. Next to her was John Konstantinovich with bandaged wounds. Here, too, the Grand Duchess did not cease to be merciful and relieve the suffering of others, although she herself had numerous fractures and severe head bruises.

The killers returned several times to finish off their victims, they threw logs, grenades, burning sulfur. One of the peasants, who was an accidental witness to this execution, recalled that from the depths of the mine were heard the sounds of the Cherubim, which the sufferers sang, and the voice of the Grand Duchess stood out especially.

Three months later, the whites exhumed the remains of the dead. The fingers of the Grand Duchess and nun Varvara were folded for the sign of the cross. They died of wounds, thirst and hunger in terrible agony. Their remains were transported to Beijing. According to the stories of the witness, the bodies of the dead lay in the mine, and then a certain monk managed to extract them from there, put them in hastily knocked together coffins and through the whole of Siberia, engulfed in civil war, scorching with terrible heat, drove them to Harbin for three weeks. Upon arrival in Harbin, the bodies completely decomposed, and only the body of the Grand Duchess turned out to be incorrupt.

From the story of Prince N.A. Kudashev, who saw her in Harbin: “The Grand Duchess lay as if alive, and had not changed at all since the day I, before leaving for Beijing, said goodbye to her in Moscow, only on one side of the face there was a large bruise from a blow during a fall in mine. I ordered real coffins for them and attended the funeral. Knowing that she always expressed her desire to be buried in Gethsemane in Jerusalem, I decided to fulfill her will and sent the ashes of her and her faithful novice to the Holy Land, asking the monk to accompany them to the place of final rest.

The same monk who later carried the imperishable body of Elizabeth Feodorovna was surprisingly familiar with the Grand Duchess before the revolution, and during the revolution he was in Moscow, met with her and persuaded her to go with him to Alapaevsk, where, as he said, he there were "good people in the monastic sketes who will be able to save Your Highness." But the Grand Duchess refused to hide, adding: "If they kill me, then I ask you to bury me in a Christian way."

There were several attempts to save the Grand Duchess. In the spring of 1917, a Swedish minister came to her on behalf of Kaiser Wilhelm with an offer of assistance in leaving Russia. Elizaveta Fedorovna refused, saying that she decided to share the fate of her country, her homeland, and besides, she could not leave the sisters of the monastery at this difficult time.

After the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the German government obtained permission from the Soviets for Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna to leave for Germany, and the German ambassador to Russia, Count Mirbach, tried to see her twice, but she refused him and conveyed a categorical refusal to leave Russia with the words: “I didn't do anything wrong to anyone. Be the will of the Lord!”

In one of her letters, she wrote: “I felt such deep pity for Russia and its children, who at the present time do not know what they are doing. Is it not a sick child whom we love a hundred times more during his illness than when he is cheerful and healthy? I would like to bear his suffering, teach him patience, help him. That's what I feel every day. Holy Russia cannot perish. But great Russia, alas, is no more. But God in the Bible shows how he forgave his repentant people and gave them blessed power again. Let us hope that prayers, intensifying every day, and increasing repentance will propitiate the Ever-Virgin, and she will pray for us her Divine Son, and that the Lord will forgive us.

In the holy city of Jerusalem, in the so-called Russian Gethsemane, in a crypt located under the Church of St. Mary Magdalene Equal to the Apostles, there are two coffins. In one lies the Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna, in the other - her novice Varvara, who refused to leave her abbess and thereby save her life.

Commemoration Day of the Martyr Grand Duchess Elisaveta Feodorovna Alapaevskaya is July 5, she is also commemorated on the day of commemoration of all the dead who suffered in the time of persecution for the faith of Christ in the Cathedral of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia on Sunday after January 25.

In 1990, on the territory of the Martha and Mary Convent, Patriarch Alexy II unveiled a monument to Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, created by sculptor Vyacheslav Klykov.

Twentieth century ... More homeless

Even worse than life is darkness

(Even blacker and bigger

Shadow of Lucifer's wing) -

wrote Alexander Blok. But the 20th century was also sanctified by images of new martyrs for the faith, who atoned for our sins before eternity... Such is the image of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna.