Bible and Babylon. Bible prophecy about Babylon

Holy Martyr Elizabeth Feodorovna Romanova

The Holy Martyr Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna (officially in Russia - Elisaveta Feodorovna) was born on October 20 (November 1), 1864 in Germany, in the city of Darmstadt. She was the second child in the family of the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt Ludwig IV and Princess Alice, daughter of Queen Victoria of England. Another daughter of this couple (Alice) would later become Empress of Russia Alexandra Feodorovna.

Grand Duchess Alice of Hesse and the Rhine with her daughter Ella

Ella with her mother Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse and the Rhine

Ludwig IV of Hesse and Alice with Princesses Victoria and Elisabeth (right).

Princess Elisabeth Alexandra Louise Alice of Hesse-Darmstadt

Children were brought up in the traditions of old England, their life passed according to the strict order established by the mother. Children's clothes and food were the most basic. The older daughters themselves did their homework: they cleaned the rooms, beds, stoked the fireplace. Subsequently, Elizaveta Fedorovna said: "The house taught me everything." The mother carefully followed the talents and inclinations of each of the seven children and tried to educate them on a solid basis of Christian commandments, to put love for their neighbors, especially for those who suffer, into their hearts.

The parents of Elizabeth Feodorovna gave away most of their fortune for charitable purposes, and the children constantly traveled with their mother to hospitals, shelters, homes for the disabled, bringing with them large bouquets of flowers, put them in vases, carried them to the wards of patients.

Since childhood, Elizabeth loved nature and especially flowers, which she painted with enthusiasm. She had a picturesque gift, and all her life she devoted a lot of time to this occupation. Loved classical music. Everyone who knew Elizabeth from childhood noted her religiosity and love for her neighbors. As Elizabeth Feodorovna herself later said, even in her earliest youth, she was greatly influenced by the life and deeds of her holy distant relative Elizabeth of Thuringia, in whose honor she bore her name.

Portrait of the family of Grand Duke Ludwig IV, painted for Queen Victoria in 1879 by the artist Baron Heinrich von Angeli.

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 realized 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.

Alice and Louis with their children: Marie in the arms of the Grand Duke and (from left to right) Ella, Ernie, Alix, Irene, and Victoria

Grand Duchess of Hesse and Rhineland Alice

Artist - Henry Charles Heath

Princesses Victoria, Elizabeth, Irene, Alix of Hesse mourn their mother.

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.

Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich

Elisabeth Alexandra Louise Alice of Hesse-Darmstadt

Elizaveta Feodorovna with her husband Sergei Alexandrovich

Elizaveta Feodorovna with her husband Sergei Alexandrovich.

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 there were only two beauties in Europe, and both were Elizabeths: Elisabeth of Austria, the wife of Emperor Franz Joseph, and Elizaveta Feodorovna.

Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna Romanova.

F.I. Rerberg.

Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna Romanova.

Zon, Karl Rudolf-

Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna Romanova.

A.P. Sokolov

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 the 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).

Friedrich August von Kaulbach.

Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, V.I. Nesterenko

Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, 1887 Artist S.F. Alexandrovsky

Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna

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.

Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna

Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna's room

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.

Two sisters Ella and Alix

Ella and Alix

Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna

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 Palace, 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.

Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna

Emperor Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, D. Belyukin

Emperor Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna

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.

Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, V.I. Nesterenko

Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich and Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna

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 didn't 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.

Meeting of Elizabeth Feodorovna and Kalyaev.

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 valuables, 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. The largest two-story house housed a dining room for the 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 - the 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 the world of the poor and the suffering."

Elizaveta Fyodorovna Romanova.

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 is in honor of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos, consecrated in 1911 (architect A.V. Shchusev, murals by M.V. Nesterov)

Mikhail Nesterov. Elisaveta Feodorovna Romanova. Between 1910 and 1912.

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.

Marfo-Mariinsky Convent

Archpriest Mitrofan Srebryansky

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.

Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna

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 comfort, 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."

Healed patients wept as they left the Marfo-Mariinsky hospital, parting with " 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, financially helped 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 " sister Elizabeth" or "mother". The police constantly warned her that they could not guarantee her safety.

Varvara Yakovleva

Princess Maria Obolenskaya

Khitrov market

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 little ones 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.

« 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 Myra 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 mob 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.

Nikolai Konstantinovich Konstantinov

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 not yet worthy of a 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 " great mother". Elizaveta Fedorovna received everyone, listened, strengthened. People left her peaceful and encouraged.

Mikhail Nesterov

Fresco "Christ with Martha and Mary" for the Pokrovsky Cathedral of the Martha and Mary Convent in Moscow

Mikhail Nesterov

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.

The ark with the right hand of the Holy Martyr Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna and with a particle of the relics of the Monk Martyr Nun Barbara arrives in Minsk on May 19 from the Znamensky Synodal Cathedral.

Saint Elizabeth is one of the greatest ascetics of the 20th century, the patroness of philanthropists, doctors and social workers.

Believers turn to Elizabeth with requests for deliverance from illness, for spiritual help in various situations, for the blessing of children and families.

Biography

The Holy Martyr Grand Duchess Elisabeth was born in 1864 in the family of the Grand Duke Ludwig IV of Hesse-Darmstadt and Princess Alice, she became the second daughter.

At the age of 20, the princess married Prince Sergei Alexandrovich, brother of the Russian Emperor Alexander III, the wedding took place according to the Orthodox rite in the church of the Grand Palace of St. Petersburg. The prince was a deeply religious person: he strictly observed all church canons.

Elizaveta Feodorovna (Elizaveta Feodorovna) intensively studied the Russian language, and therefore she was fluent in it, attended Orthodox services, while professing Lutheranism. In 1888, together with her husband, she made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. In 1891, she converted to Orthodoxy, although it was not easy for the princess: Elizabeth asked for a blessing for the opportunity to convert to Orthodoxy. However, the father wrote her a letter in response, in which he indicated that such a decision hurt him and that he could not bless his daughter. Despite this, the Grand Duchess nevertheless decided to accept Orthodoxy.

A year later, in 1892, she organized the Elizabethan Charitable Society. After a short amount of time, Elisabeth Committees were formed in all county towns of the Moscow province and at all Moscow church parishes.

In 1904, when the Russo-Japanese War began, Elisaveta Feodorovna organized the Special Committee for Assistance to Soldiers - under him, a donation warehouse was created in the Grand Kremlin Palace in favor of the soldiers.

On February 4, 1905, the husband of Princess Sergei Alexandrovich was killed by the revolutionary and terrorist Ivan Kalyaev. At the place of death, the wife of Elisaveta Feodorovna erected a monument in the form of a cross, which was made according to the project of the artist Vasnetsov. The words "Father, let them go, they don't know what they are doing" were written on the monument.

After the death of her husband, Elisaveta Feodorovna acquired the estate, where there were four houses and a large garden. There she founded in 1909 the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent of Mercy.

The sisters who lived in the monastery took a vow of chastity, obedience and non-possession (denying not only earthly wealth, but also any property). However, after some time it was possible to leave the monastery and start a family.

In the monastery, the princess led an ascetic life: during the day she went around the poor quarters, and at night she looked after seriously ill people and prayed.

People noted that, despite her high position, the princess never put herself above people from the slums and the poor.

During the First World War, she actively helped the Russian imperial army: wounded soldiers, prisoners of war in hospitals.

In 1916, the princess personally took part in the design and construction of the first prosthetic plant in Moscow.

The death of the princess

Despite the coming of the Bolsheviks to power, Elisaveta Feodorovna continued her ascetic activity. On May 7, 1918, on the third day after Easter, by the personal order of Felix Dzerzhinsky, she was arrested by security officers and Latvian riflemen. She was taken into custody and deported from Moscow to Perm.

In the same month, Elizabeth, like other representatives of the Romanov dynasty, was transferred to Yekaterinburg, and a little later - to Alapaevsk. Elizabeth spent the last months of her life in prison.

On the night of July 18, 1918, the princess was killed by the Bolsheviks: almost everyone who died with her was thrown alive into the mine. After it was discovered that some people survived after the fall, but died of wounds and starvation. For example, the wound that Prince John received was bandaged with part of the princess's apostle.

The peasants also said that for several days from the mine, where Elisaveta Feodorovna and others were thrown, the singing of prayers was heard.

In October 1918, the remains of those who died in the mine were seized - after they were placed in coffins and put to the funeral. Due to the offensive of the Red Army, the bodies of the dead were taken further and further to the East. Two years later, in April 1920, Archbishop Innokenty, head of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission, met the coffins in Beijing, from where later the remains of Grand Duchess Elizabeth and Sister Barbara were transported to Shanghai, and from there to Port Said.

As a result, the coffins were brought to Jerusalem, in 1921, in accordance with the desire of the Grand Duchess to be buried in the Holy Land, the burial of the body took place under the church of St. Mary Magdalene in Gethsemane.

Canonization

In 1981, Grand Duchess Elizabeth and Sister Varvara were canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, based in New York.

In 1992, the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church were canonized and included in the Council of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.

relics

Today, the relics of Grand Duchess Elizabeth and nun Barbara are in Gethsemane, in the monastery of Equal-to-the-Apostles Mary Magdalene. The right hand of the saint was transferred to the United States in 1981.

Where and when the shrine will be in Minsk

Holy Spirit Cathedral (St. Cyril and Methodius, 3):

May 19 (Saturday) from 17:00 to 22:00;
May 20 (Sunday) from 6:00 to 15:00.

St. Elisabeth Monastery, temple in honor of the icon of the Mother of God "Derzhavnaya" (Vygotsky St., 6):

from May 20 (Sunday) from 17:00 to May 22 (Tuesday) until 21:00 around the clock.

6093 18.07.2013

Children were brought up in the traditions of old England, according to a strict routine. The clothes and food of the children were the simplest. The older daughters did their own homework. Subsequently, Elizaveta Feodorovna said: “They taught me everything in the house”

The Holy Martyr Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna was the second child in the family of Grand Duke Ludwig 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 life passed according to a strict routine set by their mother. The clothes and food of the children were the simplest. The eldest daughters themselves did the housework: they cleaned the rooms, beds, stoked the fireplace. Subsequently, Elizaveta Feodorovna said: "In the house they taught me everything." The mother carefully followed the development of the talents and inclinations of each of the seven children and tried to educate them on a solid basis of Christian commandments, to put love for their neighbors into their hearts (1), especially for those who suffer.

The parents of Elizaveta Feodorovna spent most of their fortune on charitable causes, and the children constantly went with their mother to hospitals, shelters, homes for the disabled, brought large bouquets of flowers with them, carried them to the wards of the sick, put them in vases.

Since childhood, Elizabeth loved nature and especially flowers, which she painted with enthusiasm. She had an artistic gift, and all her life she devoted a lot of time to drawing. She also loved classical music.

Everyone who knew Elizabeth from childhood noted her love for her neighbors. As Elizabeth Feodorovna herself later said, even in her earliest youth, she was greatly influenced by the life and exploits of Elizabeth of Thuringia (2), one of her ancestors, after whom she was named.

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 spent the night at the bedside of her sick children. Soon four-year-old Maria died, and after her, the Grand Duchess Alice herself fell ill and died at the age of thirty-five.

In that year, the time of childhood ended for Elizabeth. In grief, she began to pray even more often and more fervently. She realized that life on earth is the way of the cross. She tried with all her might to alleviate her father's grief, support him, console him, and to some extent replace her mother for her 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.

The whole family accompanied Princess Elizabeth to her wedding in Russia. Twelve-year-old sister Alice came with her, and she met her future husband, Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich, here.

The wedding took place in the church of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg (3). 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 there were only two beauties in Europe, and both were Elizabeths: Elisabeth of Austria, wife of Emperor Franz Joseph, and Elizaveta Feodorovna. Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov dedicated a poem to Elizabeth Feodorovna. It was written in 1884.

I look at you, admiring every hour: You are so inexpressibly good! Oh, right, under such a beautiful exterior. Such a beautiful soul! Some kind of 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 among the evils and sorrows of Your many tarnish purity. And everyone, seeing you, will glorify God, who created such beauty! K. R.

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, he lived according to the statutes of the Holy Church, strictly observed fasts, often attended divine services, and went to monasteries. The Grand Duchess followed her husband everywhere and fully stood through the long church services.

In Orthodox churches, she experienced an amazing feeling, mysterious and blessed, so unlike what she felt in a Protestant church. She saw the joyful state of Sergei Alexandrovich after he received the Holy Mysteries of Christ, and she herself wanted to approach the Holy Chalice in order to share this joy. Elizaveta Feodorovna began to ask her husband to get her books of spiritual content, an Orthodox catechism and an interpretation of Scripture, in order to comprehend with her mind and heart what kind of faith is true.

In 1888, Emperor Alexander III instructed Sergei Alexandrovich to be his representative at the consecration of the church of St. Mary Magdalene in Gethsemane, built in the Holy Land in memory of their mother, Empress Maria Alexandrovna. Sergei Alexandrovich was already in the Holy Land in 1881, when he participated in the founding of the Orthodox Palestine Society and became its chairman. This society collected funds for pilgrims to the Holy Land, to help the Russian Mission in Palestine, to expand missionary work, to acquire lands and monuments associated with the life of the Savior. Having learned about the opportunity to visit the Holy Land, Elizaveta Feodorovna took this as an instruction from God and prayed that there, at the Holy Sepulcher, the Savior Himself would reveal His will to her.

Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich and his wife arrived in Palestine in October 1888. The Church of St. Mary Magdalene was built in the Garden of Gethsemane at the foot of the Mount of Olives. This five-domed temple with golden domes is one of the most beautiful temples in Jerusalem to this day. At the top of the Mount of Olives rose a huge bell tower, nicknamed the "Russian candle". Seeing this beauty and feeling the presence of the grace of God in this place, 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 a gift to the church of St. Mary Magdalene, Elizabeth Feodorovna brought precious vessels, the Gospel and air.

After visiting the Holy Land, Grand Duchess Elizabeth 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 to accept the Orthodox faith. We will give it almost in full, it shows what path Elizaveta Feodorovna went through:
“… And now, dear Papa, I want to say something to you and I beg you to give your blessing.

You must have noticed the deep reverence I have for the religion here since you were last here over a year and a half ago. 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 as I am now - to belong to the same church in form and for the outside world, but within myself to pray and believe as my husband does. You cannot imagine how kind he was: he never tried to force me by any means, leaving it all entirely to my conscience. He knows what a serious step it is, and that he had to be absolutely sure before deciding on it. I would have done it even before, it only tormented me that by doing this I hurt you. But you, don't you understand, my dear Papa?

You know me so 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.
How easy it would be to remain as it is now, but then how hypocritical, how false it would be, and how can I lie to everyone - pretending to be a Protestant in all external rites, when my soul belongs entirely to the Orthodox religion. I thought and thought deeply about all this, being in this country for more than six years and knowing that the religion was "found". I so strongly desire to partake of the Holy Mysteries on Easter with my husband. It may seem sudden, but I've been thinking about it for so long, and now, finally, I can't put it off. My conscience won't let me. Please, please, upon receipt of these lines, forgive your daughter if she causes you pain. But isn't faith in God and religion one of the main comforts of this world? Please wire me just one line when you receive this letter. God bless you. It will be such a comfort to me because I know there will be many awkward moments as no one will understand this step. I only ask for a small affectionate letter.

The father did not send his daughter the desired telegram with a blessing, but wrote a letter in which he said that her decision brought him pain and suffering and that he could not give a blessing.
Then Elizaveta Feodorovna showed courage and, despite moral suffering, did not hesitate in her decision to convert to Orthodoxy. Here are some more excerpts from her letters to loved ones:
“... My conscience does not allow me to continue in the same spirit - that would be a sin; I have been lying all this time, remaining for everyone in my old faith... It would be impossible for me to continue to live the way I used to live... Even in Slavonic I understand almost everything, although I have never learned this language. The Bible is available in both Slavonic and Russian, but the latter is easier to read... You say... that the outward brilliance of the church fascinated me. In this you are wrong. Nothing external attracts me, and not worship - but the foundation of faith. The external only reminds me of the internal... I am moving from pure conviction, I feel that this is the highest religion and that I will do it with faith, with deep conviction and confidence that there is God's blessing on it.
On April 12 (25), on Lazarus Saturday, the Sacrament of Confirmation of the 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). After Confirmation, Emperor Alexander III blessed his daughter-in-law with the precious icon of the Savior Not Made by Hands, with which Elizaveta Feodorovna did not part all her life and died a martyr's death with it on her chest. Now she could say to her husband in the words of the Bible: “Your people have become my people, your God my God” (Ruth 1:16).

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 at the guests, dance and have conversations, regardless of mood, state of health and desire.
After moving to Moscow, Elizaveta Feodorovna experienced the death of loved ones - her beloved daughter-in-law, Princess Alexandra (Pavel Alexandrovich's wife) and her father. It was the time of her spiritual growth.

The inhabitants of Moscow soon appreciated the mercy of the Grand Duchess. 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.

After the death of her father, she and Sergei Alexandrovich drove along the Volga with stops in Yaroslavl, Rostov, Uglich. In all these cities, the couple prayed in local churches.
In 1894, despite the many obstacles that arose, finally, a decision was made on the engagement of the Grand Duchess Alice with the Heir to the Russian throne, Nikolai Alexandrovich. Elizaveta Feodorovna was glad that people who love each other could become spouses, and her sister would live in the dear heart of Elizabeth of Russia. Princess Alice was twenty-two years old, and Elizaveta 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 Empress of Russia.

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 and was named after Alexandra. The wedding 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, a stampede began - several thousand people were injured or crushed. Thus began this tragic reign - among dirges and funerary hymns.

In July 1903, the solemn glorification of St. Seraphim of Sarov took place. The entire Imperial Family arrived in Sarov. Empress Alexandra Feodorovna prayed to the monk for the gift of a son to her. When a year later the Heir to the Throne was born, at the request of the Imperial couple, the throne of the lower church built in Tsarskoe Selo was consecrated in the name of St. Seraphim of Sarov. Elizaveta Feodorovna and her husband also came to Sarov. In a letter from Sarov she writes:
“... What weakness, what diseases we saw, but also what faith! It seemed as if we were living in the time of the earthly life of the Savior. And how they prayed, how they cried - these poor mothers with sick children - and, thank God, many were healed. The Lord vouchsafed us to see how the dumb girl spoke, but how her mother prayed for her!” (four)

When the Russo-Japanese War began, Elizaveta Feodorovna 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 Palace, were occupied for them. Thousands of women worked at 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 to the front and marching churches with icons and with everything necessary for the celebration of worship. She personally sent Gospels, icons and prayer books.

At her own expense, the Grand Duchess formed several hospital trains. In Moscow, she set up a hospital for the wounded, which she herself constantly visited, created special committees to provide for the widows and orphans of soldiers and officers who died at the front.

However, the Russian troops suffered one defeat after another. Terrorist acts, rallies and strikes have taken on an unprecedented scale in the country. 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 Socialist-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 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 5 (18), 1905, Sergei Aleksandrovich was killed by a bomb thrown by the terrorist Ivan Kalyaev. When Elizaveta Feodorovna 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. After the first memorial service at the Miracle Monastery, Elizaveta Feodorovna returned to the palace, changed into a black mourning dress and began to write telegrams, and first of all to her sister Alexandra Feodorovna, asking her not to come to the funeral, because the terrorists could use this occasion to assassinate the Imperial couple.

When the Grand Duchess was writing telegrams, she asked several times about the condition of the wounded coachman Sergei Alexandrovich. She was told that the coachman's position was hopeless and he might soon die. In order not to upset the dying, Elizaveta Feodorovna took off her mourning dress, put on the same blue one she had been wearing before, and went to the hospital. There, bending over the dying man's bed, she caught his question about Sergei Alexandrovich and, in order to calm him down, the Grand Duchess overcame herself, smiled at him kindly and said: "He sent me to you." And reassured by her words, thinking that Sergei Alexandrovich was alive, the devoted coachman Yefim died that same night.
On the third day after the death of her husband, Elizaveta Feodorovna went to the prison where the murderer was kept. Kalyaev said: “I did not want to kill you, 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 did not realize that you killed me with him?" she replied. Further, she said that she brought him forgiveness from Sergei Alexandrovich and asked the murderer to repent. She held the Gospel in her hands and asked to read it, but he refused. Nevertheless, Elizaveta Feodorovna 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 recognize his sin and repent of it." After that, the Grand Duchess asked Emperor Nicholas II to pardon Kalyaev, but this request was rejected.

Of the Grand Dukes, only Konstantin Konstantinovich and Pavel Alexandrovich were present at the burial. They buried Sergei Alexandrovich in the small church of the Chudov Monastery, where funeral requiems were performed daily for forty days; The Grand Duchess was present at every service and often came here at night, praying for the newly deceased. Here she felt the grace-filled help from the holy relics of St. Alexis, Metropolitan of Moscow, whom she had especially revered since then. The Grand Duchess wore a silver cross with a particle of the relics of St. Alexis (5). She believed that St. Alexis had planted in her heart the desire to devote the rest of her life to God.

At the site of the murder of her husband, Elizaveta Feodorovna erected a monument - a cross, made according to the design of the artist Vasnetsov. The words of the Savior, spoken by Him on the Cross, were written on the monument: “Father, let them go, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23; 34) (6).

From the moment of her death, 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 any 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.

She collected all her valuables, gave part to the treasury, part to her relatives, and decided to use the rest to build the monastery of Mercy. On Bolshaya Ordynka in Moscow, Elizaveta Feodorovna bought an estate with four houses and a garden. In the largest, two-story house, there was a refectory for sisters, a kitchen, a pantry 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 a priest - confessor of the monastery, classes of a school for girls shelter and library.

Elizaveta Feodorovna worked for a long time on drawing up the Charter of the monastery. She wanted to revive in her the ancient institution of the deaconess, which existed in the first centuries of Christianity. Deaconesses in those days could be widows or middle-aged virgins. Their main duties were: watching over women entering the Church, teaching them the basics of faith, helping them perform the Sacrament of Baptism, and caring for the poor and sick. During the persecution of Christianity, the deaconesses served the martyrs and martyrs in prisons.

Archbishop Anastassy, who personally knew Elizaveta Feodorovna, recalls: “At one time she seriously thought about the revival of the ancient institution of deaconesses, in which she was supported by Metropolitan Vladimir of Moscow (Bogoyavlensky, New Martyr of Russia + 1918).” But this was opposed by the Bishop of Saratov Hermogenes (after the revolution he ended his life as a martyr in Tobolsk).

Elizaveta Feodorovna abandoned her idea, did not want to use her high position to circumvent the established rules and neglect the opinion of church authorities. It happened that the Grand Duchess was unfairly accused of Protestant tendencies, for which they later repented.

Elizaveta Feodorovna continued to work on the drafting of the Charter of the monastery. I went several times to Zosima Hermitage, where I discussed the project with the elders; wrote to various monasteries and spiritual libraries of the world, studied the statutes of ancient monasteries. A happy chance, sent by the Providence of God, helped her in these labors.

In 1906, the Grand Duchess read the book Diary of a Regimental Priest Who Served in the Far East During the Entire Period of the Past Russo-Japanese War (7) by priest Mitrofan Serebryansky. She wished to meet the author and summoned him to Moscow. As a result of their meetings and conversations, a draft charter of the future monastery appeared, prepared by Father Mitrofan, which Elizaveta Feodorovna took as a basis.

According to the draft Charter, a married priest was needed to perform divine services and provide spiritual guidance to the sisters, but who would live with his mother like a brother and sister and would constantly be on the territory of the monastery. Elizaveta Feodorovna, in letters and during personal meetings, asked Father Mitrofan to become the confessor of the future monastery, since he met all the requirements of the Charter.

He was born in Orel in a large family of a priest on July 31, 1870. Children were brought up in piety and strict observance of church rites. When the child was four years old, the father brought him to his mother and said that from now on their child could observe all fasts. Peace and love reigned in the family, the children treated their parents with the greatest respect. As a young man, Mitrofan, after graduating from a theological seminary, asked his parents for blessings for marriage, so that he could then take holy orders. Throughout his life, Father Mitrofan loved and respected his wife very much. At the end of his life, Father Mitrofan recalled: “Olyushka, my companion, she sailed to me in exile on open rafts along the Irtysh. What a support and consolation it was for me!”
The couple did not have children, and by mutual agreement they decided to remain celibate in marriage. Father Mitrofan said that this is the most difficult feat - to have the blessing of living with your beloved wife, but cut off lust. Only by the grace of God is this possible.

Since 1896, Father Mitrofan served as a regimental priest at the 51st Chernigov Dragoon Regiment stationed in Orel. Together with the regiment, Father Mitrofan went to the Russo-Japanese War, where he was in the combat zone near Liaoyang and Mukden from 1904 to 1906. After the end of the war, he returned to his native Oryol and became rector of the parish church. He was very loved in Orel, as a true and spiritually experienced pastor. After the service, the people went to him for hours for advice, guidance, with all the difficulties and questions. He recalled that he rarely managed to leave the church before five o'clock in the evening.

After a conversation with the Grand Duchess, Fr. Mitrofan said that he agreed to move to Moscow and serve in the new monastery. But, returning home, he thought about how many tears awaited him there, how many parishioners would be saddened by the departure of his beloved spiritual father. And he decided to refuse to move to Moscow, although he later said that the request of the Grand Duchess was almost an order.
When, before leaving for Orel, he stopped for the night in a house near Moscow, he thought for a long time and firmly decided to send a telegram refusing the offer of Elizabeth Feodorovna. And suddenly, almost immediately, the fingers on the hand began to go numb, and the hand was taken away. Father Mitrofan was horrified that now he would not be able to serve in the church, and he understood what had happened as an admonition. He began to pray fervently and promised God that he would give his consent to move to Moscow, and two hours later the hand began to work again.

When about. Mitrofan announced his departure in the parish, everyone was crying, requests, letters, petitions to the church authorities began. Months passed, it was not possible to leave Orel, and Father Mitrofan felt that he was unable to do this. And then the hand went away again. Immediately after this, Father Mitrofan went to Moscow, came to the Iverskaya chapel and prayed with tears before the Iberian Icon of the Mother of God, promised to move to Moscow - if only his hand would be healed. And after he kissed the icon, the fingers of his sick hand began to move. Then he went to Elizaveta Feodorovna and joyfully announced that he had firmly decided to come and be the confessor of the monastery.

Several times the Grand Duchess had to change the Charter of her monastery in order to satisfy all the requirements and amendments of the Holy Synod. Emperor Nicholas II, by his Supreme Decree, helped to overcome the resistance of the Synod to the creation of the monastery.

On February 10, 1909, the Grand Duchess took off her mourning dress, put on the attire of the cross sister of love and mercy, and, having gathered the seventeen sisters of the monastery she founded, said: “I leave the brilliant world where I occupied a brilliant position, but together with all of you I ascend to a more the great world into the world of the poor and the suffering.”

Father Mitrofan became the true confessor of the monastery, mentor and assistant to the abbess. How highly the Grand Duchess valued the confessor of the monastery can be seen from her letter to the Sovereign (April 1909): “Father Mitrofan is a blessing of God for our cause, since he laid the necessary foundation ... He confesses me, feeds me in church, gives me great help and sets an example with his pure, simple life - so modest and simple in his boundless love for God and the Orthodox Church. After talking with him for only a few minutes, you see that he is a modest, pure man of God, a servant of God in our Church.”

The basis of the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent of Mercy was the charter of the monastic community. On April 9 (22), 1910, in the Church of Saints Martha and Mary, Bishop Trifon (Turkestanov) consecrated seventeen sisters of the monastery, headed by Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, as cross sisters of love and mercy. During the solemn service, Bishop Tryphon, addressing the Grand Duchess already dressed in the garb of the cross sister of mercy, said prophetic words: “This clothes will hide you from the world, and the world will be hidden from you, but at the same time it will be a witness to your beneficent activity, which will shine before the Lord to His glory."

The dedication of the created monastery to the holy myrrh-bearing women Martha and Mary is significant. The monastery was supposed to become, as it were, the house of St. Lazarus, the Friend of God, the house in which the Savior so often visited. The sisters of the monastery were called to unite the lofty lot of Mary, heeding the words of eternal life, and the service of Martha - the service of the Lord through her neighbor.
The first temple of the monastery (hospital) was consecrated by Bishop Tryphon on September 9 (21), 1909 (on 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, murals by M.V. Nesterov). Built according to the patterns of Novgorod-Pskov architecture, it retained the warmth and comfort of small parish churches, but, nevertheless, was designed for the presence of more than a thousand worshipers.

M. V. Nesterov said about this temple: “The Church of the Intercession is the best of the modern buildings in Moscow, which, under other conditions, can have, in addition to its direct purpose for the parish, an artistic and educational purpose for the whole of Moscow.” In 1914, under the temple, a tomb church was built in the name of the Powers of Heaven and All Saints, which the abbess intended to make her resting place. The painting of the tomb was made by P. D. Korin, a student of 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 obediences to the 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. 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 of the monastery, 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, 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 or guidance to the confessor or to the abbess. The Grand Duchess, together with Father Mitrofan, taught the sisters that their task was not only medical assistance, 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.

“On the entire external environment of the monastery and on its very inner life, and on all the creations of the Grand Duchess in general, there was an imprint of grace and culture, not because she attached any self-sufficient significance to this, but because such was the involuntary action of her creative spirit” Metropolitan Anastassy writes in his memoirs.

Divine services in the monastery were distinguished by special beauty and reverence, this was the merit of the confessor, exceptional in his pastoral merits; chosen by the abbess. Here the best shepherds and preachers not only of Moscow, but also of many remote places of Russia, performed divine services and preached the word of God. Like 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 beauty of the temples, 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 Greyton, a lady-in-waiting to her relative Princess Victoria, testifies about Elizabeth Feodorovna: “She had a wonderful quality - to see the good and 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 word “I can’t”, and there was never anything dull in the life of the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent. Everything was modern, 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. She slept on wooden boards without a mattress, secretly wore a sackcloth and chains. This was told in her memoirs by the ascetic of the Marfo-Mariinsky monastery, nun Lyubov (in the world Euphrosyne). Once she, not yet trained in monastic rules, entered the chambers of the abbess without prayer and without asking for blessings. In the cell, she saw the Grand Duchess in a sackcloth and chains. She, not at all embarrassed, said only: "Darling, when you enter, you must knock."

Nun Lyubov also recalls the wonderful incident that brought her to the monastery. It was in 1912. At the age of 16, she fell into a lethargic sleep, during which her soul was met by the Monk Onufry the Great. He led her to three saints - in one of them Euphrosyne recognized the Monk Sergius of Radonezh, the other two were unknown to her.

The Monk Onufry told Euphrosyne that she was needed at the Martha and Mary Convent, and, waking up from her sleep, Euphrosyne began to find out where in Russia there was a monastery in honor of Martha and Mary. One of her acquaintances turned out to be a novice of this monastery and told Euphrosyne about her and its founder. Euphrosinia wrote a letter to the abbess asking if she could be accepted into the monastery, and received an affirmative answer. When, upon arrival at the monastery, Euphrosyne entered the abbess's cell, she recognized in her the saint who had stood in the paradise monastery together with St. Sergius. When she went to receive the blessing of the spiritual father of the monastery, Father Mitrofan, she recognized in him the second of those who stood next to St. Sergius. Exactly six years after this vision, the Grand Duchess suffered a martyr's death on the day of finding the relics of St. Sergius of Radonezh, and Father Mitrofan subsequently took the tonsure with the name Sergius in honor of St. Sergius.

Accustomed to work from childhood, the Grand Duchess did everything herself and did not demand any services from her sisters for herself. She participated in all the affairs of the monastery, like an ordinary sister, always setting an example for others. Once, one of the novices approached the abbess with a request to send one of the sisters to sort out potatoes, since no one wants to help. The Grand Duchess, without saying a word to anyone, went herself. Seeing the abbess sorting through the potatoes, the ashamed sisters ran and set to work.

The Grand Duchess 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, there was a tour of the patients, ending well after midnight. At night, the abbess prayed in a chapel or 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 Feodorovna took on the most responsible work: she assisted in operations, did dressings, comforted the sick and tried with all her might to alleviate their suffering. They said that 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 also 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 were taught the basics of medicine. Their main task was to visit the sick and the poor, take care of abandoned children, provide them with medical, moral and material assistance.
The best specialists of Moscow worked in the monastery hospital. All operations were carried out free of charge. Here, those who were refused by other 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. A shelter for orphan girls was created in the monastery. By Christmas, they arranged a big Christmas tree for poor children, gave them toys, sweets, warm clothes that the sisters themselves sewed.

The abbess of the monastery believed that the main business of the sisters was not to work in the hospital, but to help the poor and needy. The monastery received up to twelve thousand 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.

The Grand Duchess found opportunities to help the clergy, gave funds for the needs of poor rural parishes that could not repair the temple or build a new one. She helped financially missionary priests who worked among the pagans of the Far North or foreigners on the outskirts of Russia, encouraged and strengthened them.

One of the main places of poverty, to which the Grand Duchess paid special attention, was the 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, the sight of people who had lost their human appearance. 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. Girls were placed in closed educational institutions or shelters, where their health and spiritual growth were also monitored.

Elizaveta Feodorovna created charitable 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 an orphanage for little orphan girls. Everyone was preparing to meet their benefactor with dignity. The girls were told that the Grand Duchess would come: they would have to say hello to her and kiss her hands. When Elizaveta Feodorovna 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, shedding tears, went up to 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.

Another of the countless testimonies of her love for the suffering is remembered by contemporaries. One of the sisters came from a poor quarter and told about a hopelessly ill consumptive woman with two small children living in a cold basement. Mother immediately became agitated, immediately called her elder sister and ordered that her mother be taken to a hospital for consumptives, and the children should be taken to an orphanage; if there is no bed, arrange the patient on a cot. After that, she took clothes and blankets for the children and followed them. The Grand Duchess constantly visited her sick mother until her death, reassured her, promising that she would take care of the children.

The great mother hoped that the Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy, which she had created, would flourish and become 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 there she happily hurried to the temple to pray at the shrine of St. Seraphim. I went to Pskov, Kyiv, Optina Hermitage, Zosima Hermitage, I 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, the Grand Duchess visited the monastery in Alapaevsk, the city that was destined to become the place of her imprisonment and martyrdom.

She helped 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 Myra are buried. In 1914, the lower church was consecrated in honor of St. Nicholas and the hospice.

The memory of the Grand Duchess Metropolitan Anastasy, who personally knew her, is precious: “She was able not only to cry with those who weep, but also to rejoice with those who rejoice, which is usually more difficult than the first. Not being a nun in the true sense of the word, she, better than many nuns, observed the great covenant of St. Finding the good in every person and “calling mercy for the fallen” was the constant desire of her heart. Meekness of temper did not prevent her, however, from burning with holy anger at the sight of injustice. She condemned herself even more severely if she fell into one or another, even an involuntary mistake ...

Once, when I was still a vicar bishop in Moscow, she offered me the presidency of a society that was purely secular in its composition, and which, in its tasks, had no direct relation to the Church. I was involuntarily embarrassed, not knowing how to respond to her words. She immediately understood my position: "Excuse me," she said decisively, "I said something stupid," and thus she got me out of my difficulty.

Contemporaries recalled that Elizaveta Feodorovna brought with her the pure fragrance of a lily, perhaps that is why she loved white so much. Meeting with many people, she could immediately understand a person; servility, lies and cunning were disgusting to her. She said: “Now it is difficult to find the truth on earth flooded more and more by sinful waves; in order not to be disappointed in life, one must look for the truth in heaven, where it has gone from us.

From the very beginning of her life in Orthodoxy until the last days, the Grand Duchess was in complete obedience to her spiritual fathers. Without the blessing of the priest of the Martha and Mary Convent, Archpriest Mitrofan Serebryansky, and without the advice of the elders of Optina Hermitage, Zosima Hermitage and other monasteries, she herself did nothing. Her humility and obedience was amazing.

The Lord rewarded her with the gift of spiritual reasoning and prophecy. Father Mitrofan Serebryansky said that shortly before the revolution he had a dream, vivid and clearly prophetic, but he did not know how to interpret it. The dream was in color: four pictures succeeding each other. First: there is a beautiful church. Suddenly, fiery tongues appear from all sides, and now the whole temple is on fire - a majestic and terrible sight. Second: the image of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna in a black frame; suddenly, shoots begin to grow from the edges of this frame, on which white lilies open, the flowers increase in size and cover the image. Third: Archangel Michael with a fiery sword in his hand. The fourth picture: the Monk Seraphim of Sarov is kneeling on a stone with prayerfully raised hands.

Excited by this dream, Father Mitrofan told the Grand Duchess about it early in the morning, even before the start of the Liturgy. Elizaveta Feodorovna said that she understood this dream. The first picture means that there will soon be a revolution in Russia, the persecution of the Russian Church will begin, and for our sins, for unbelief, our country will stand on the brink of death. The second picture means that the sister of Elizabeth Feodorovna and the entire Royal Family will be martyred. The third picture means that even after that great disasters await Russia. The fourth picture means that through the prayers of St. Seraphim and other saints and righteous people of the Russian land and through the intercession of the Mother of God, our country and people will have mercy.

The gift of spiritual reasoning was especially manifested in her attitude towards Rasputin. She pleaded with her sister Empress many times not to trust him and not put herself in a position of dependence on him. The Grand Duchess also spoke about this to the Emperor himself, but her advice was rejected. At the request of her friends and with the blessing of the elders, in 1916 she made her last attempt and went to Tsarskoye Selo to personally talk with the Sovereign about the situation in the country. The Emperor did not accept her. The conversation about Rasputin took place between the Empress and the Grand Duchess and ended sadly. The empress did not want to listen to her sister: "We know that the saints were slandered before." To this, the Grand Duchess said: “Remember the fate of Louis XVI” (8). They parted coldly.
During the First World War, the work of the Grand Duchess increased: it was necessary to take care of the wounded in hospitals. Some of the sisters of the monastery were released to work in the field hospital. At first, Elizaveta Feodorovna, 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 mob approached the gates of the monastery. They demanded the extradition of 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 Lord did not allow her to die on that day. The police cavalry dispersed the crowd.

To the demand of those who came to go with them immediately, the Grand Duchess said that she must make orders and say goodbye to the sisters. The abbess gathered all the sisters of the convent 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 whole 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, except for the cells of the sisters and the hospital with the sick. After they left, Elizaveta Feodorovna said to the sisters: "Obviously, we are still unworthy of the martyr's crown." In one of the letters of that time, she writes: "The fact that we live is an unchanging miracle." She had no bitterness or condemnation against the follies of the crowd. She said: "The people are a child, they are innocent of what is happening ... they are misled by the enemies of Russia." About the arrest and suffering of the Royal Family, she said: "This will serve to their moral purification and bring them closer to God."
In the spring of 1917, a Swedish minister came to her on behalf of Kaiser Wilhelm and offered her help in traveling abroad. Elizaveta Feodorovna 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 a service in the monastery as before the October Revolution. They went not so much for a bowl of soup or medical help, but for consolation and advice from the “Great Mother”. Elizaveta Feodorovna 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, they brought black bread, dried fish, vegetables ... Of the medicines, bandages and essential medicines were given out in limited quantities.

Everyone around was frightened, patrons and wealthy donors were now afraid to help the monastery. The Grand Duchess, in order to avoid provocations, almost did not go outside the gates of the monastery, the sisters were also forbidden to go outside. 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 the 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!”
Here are excerpts from the letters of the Grand Duchess to close people:
“... The Lord again, with His great mercy, helped us survive the days of internal war, and today I had boundless consolation to pray ... and be present at the Divine service when our Patriarch gave a blessing. The Holy Kremlin, with visible traces of those sad days, was dearer to me than ever, and I felt to what extent the Orthodox Church is the true Church of the Lord. I felt such deep pity for Russia and her 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.
“... Great Russia has been completely destroyed, but Holy Russia and the Orthodox Church, which “the gates of hell will not overcome, exist and exist more than ever before. And those who believe and do not doubt for a moment will see the "inner sun" that illuminates the darkness during a roaring storm ... I am only sure that the Lord who punishes is the same Lord who loves. I have read the Gospel a lot, and if we realize that great sacrifice of God the Father, Who sent His Son to die and rise for us, then we will feel the presence of the Holy Spirit Who illuminates our path. And then the joy becomes eternal, even if our poor human hearts and our little earthly minds experience moments that seem very scary ... We work, pray, hope, and every day we feel the mercy of God. Every day we experience a permanent miracle. And others begin to feel it and come to our church to rest their souls.”

The tranquility of the monastery was the calm before the storm. First, questionnaires were sent to the monastery - questionnaires for everyone who lived and was 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, on the day of the celebration of the Iberian Icon of the Mother of God, Elizaveta Feodorovna was arrested and immediately taken out of Moscow. This happened on the day when His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon visited the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent, where he served the Divine Liturgy and a moleben. After the service, the Patriarch stayed at the monastery until four in the afternoon and talked with the abbess and sisters. This was the last blessing and parting word of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Elizabeth Feodorovna, before the way of the cross 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 Feodorovna 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.

One of the sisters of the monastery, Zinaida (a monastic Nadezhda) recalls:
“... And they took her. The sisters ran after her as far as they could. Some fell down on the road... When I came to mass, I heard that the deacon was reading the litanies and couldn't, crying... And they took her to Yekaterinburg with some guide, and Varvara with her. They did not part ... Then she sent letters to the father and each sister. One hundred and five little notes (9) were enclosed, each according to its character. From the Gospel, from the Bible sayings, and to whom from myself. She knew all the sisters, all her children ... "

Upon learning of what had happened, Patriarch Tikhon tried, through various organizations, with which the new government was taking into account, to achieve the release of the Grand Duchess. But his efforts were in vain. All members of the Imperial House were doomed.

Elizaveta Feodorovna and her companions were sent by rail to Perm. On her way to exile, she wrote a letter to the sisters of her convent. Here are excerpts from it:
“God bless, may the Resurrection of Christ console and strengthen you all... May the Resurrection of Christ preserve us all with you, my dear, Reverend Sergius, Saint Demetrius and Saint Euphrosyne of Polotsk... I cannot forget yesterday, all dear sweet faces. Lord, what suffering in them, oh, how the heart ached. You are becoming dearer to me every minute. How can I leave you, my children, how can I console you, how can I strengthen you? Remember, my family, everything I told you. Always be not only my children, but obedient students. Rally and be like one soul, all for God, and say, like John Chrysostom: “Glory to God for everything!” Elder sisters, unite your sisters. Ask Patriarch Tikhon to take the "chickens" under your wing. Set it up in my middle room. My cell is for confession, and the larger one is for reception... For God's sake, don't lose heart. The Mother of God knows why Her Heavenly Son sent us this test on the day of Her feast… just don’t lose heart and don’t weaken in your bright intentions, and the Lord, who temporarily separated us, will strengthen us spiritually. Pray for me, a sinner, that I would be worthy to return to my children and improve for you, so that we all think how to prepare for eternal life.
You remember how I was afraid that you would find too much strength in my support for life, and I told you: “You need to cling more to God. The Lord says, "My son, give your heart to Me, and let your eyes watch My ways." Then be sure that you will give everything to God if you give Him your heart, i.e. yourself.”

Now we are experiencing the same thing and involuntarily only in Him we find consolation to bear our common cross of separation. The Lord found it time for us to bear His cross. Let's try to be worthy of this joy. I thought that we would be so weak, not mature enough to carry a big cross. "The Lord gave, the Lord took." As God pleased, so it happened. May the name of the Lord be blessed forever.
What an example Saint Job gives us with his humility and patience in sorrows. For this, the Lord later gave him joy. How many examples of such sorrow do the Holy Fathers have in holy monasteries, but then there was joy. Prepare for the joy of being together again. Let's be patient and humble. We do not grumble and thank you for everything.
Your constant prayer and loving mother in Christ.
Mother".

The Grand Duchess spent the last months of her life imprisoned in a school on the outskirts of the city of Alapaevsk, together with Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich (the youngest son of Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich, brother of Emperor Alexander II), his secretary, Feodor 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 who accompanied their abbess were brought to the Regional Council and offered to go free. Both begged to return them to the Grand Duchess. Then the Chekists began to frighten them with torture and torment, which is coming to everyone who stays with her. Varvara Yakovleva said that she was ready to give a signature even with her own blood, that she wanted to share the fate of 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), on the day of finding 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 brutal executioners pushed the Grand Duchess into a black pit, she repeated the prayer uttered by the Savior of the world crucified on the Cross: “Lord, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Lk. 23? 34). 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 sounds of the Cherubim were heard, which the sufferers sang before passing into eternity.

Elizaveta Feodorovna fell not to the bottom of the mine, 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. With the most severe fractures and bruises, she also sought to alleviate the suffering of her neighbor here. The fingers of the right hand of the Grand Duchess and nun Varvara were folded for the sign of the cross. They died in terrible agony from thirst, hunger and wounds.

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.

This road was long and hard. On October 18 (31), 1918, the bodies of the sufferers were placed in wooden coffins and placed in the cemetery church of Alapaevsk, where a constant reading of the psalter was performed and memorial services were served. The next day, the coffins were transferred to the Holy Trinity Cathedral, a funeral Liturgy was served, followed by a funeral service. The coffins were placed in the crypt of the cathedral, on the right side of the altar.

But their bodies did not rest here for long. The Red Army was advancing and it was necessary to transport them to a safer place. Father Seraphim, abbot of the Alekseevsky skete of the Perm diocese, a friend and confessor of the Grand Duchess, took up this.

Immediately after the October Revolution, Fr. Seraphim was in Moscow, had a conversation with the Grand Duchess and invited her to go with him to Alapaevsk, where, according to him, there were reliable people in sketes who would be able to hide and save the Grand Duchess. Elizaveta Feodorovna refused to hide, but added at the end of the conversation: “If they kill me, then I ask you to bury me in a Christian way.” These words turned out to be prophetic.

Hegumen Seraphim received permission from Admiral Kolchak to transport the bodies. Ataman Semyonov allocated a wagon for this and gave him a pass. And on July 1 (14), 1919, eight coffins from Alapaev went to Chita. As assistants to himself, Fr. Seraphim took two novices - Maxim Kanunnikov and Seraphim Gnevashev.

In Chita, the coffins were brought to the Intercession Convent, where the nuns washed the bodies of the martyrs and dressed the Grand Duchess and nun Varvara in monastic attire. Father Seraphim and his novices removed the floorboards in one of the cells, dug a grave there and placed all eight coffins, covering them with a small layer of earth. In this cell, Fr. Seraphim.

The coffins of the sufferers stayed in Chita for six months. But the Red Army was advancing again, and the remains of the new martyrs had to be taken away from Russia. On February 26 (March 2) this journey began, with a complete breakdown of railway transport. The car moved along with the front: it would go forward 25 versts, and then roll back 15 versts. Thanks to the pass, the car was constantly uncoupled and hitched to different trains, directing it to the Chinese border. Summer came, liquid constantly oozed from the cracks of the coffins, spreading a terrible stench. When the train stopped, the escorts collected grass and wiped the coffins with it. The liquid flowing from the coffin of the Grand Duchess, as Fr. Seraphim, fragrant, and they carefully collected it as a shrine in a bottle.

At the very border of China, a detachment of red partisans attacked the train, who tried to throw coffins with bodies out of the car. The Chinese soldiers arrived in time to drive off the attackers and saved the bodies of the sufferers from destruction.

When the train arrived in Harbin, the bodies of all the Alapaevo sufferers were in a state of complete decomposition, except for the bodies of the Grand Duchess and nun Varvara. Prince N. A. Kudashev, summoned to Harbin to identify the dead and draw up a protocol, recalls: “The Grand Duchess lay as if alive, and has not changed at all since the day I said goodbye to her in Moscow before leaving for Beijing, only on one the side of the face had a large bruise from the impact of the fall into the shaft.

I ordered real coffins for them and attended the funeral. Knowing that the Grand Duchess always expressed a desire to be buried in Gethsemane in Jerusalem, I decided to fulfill her will - I sent the ashes of her and her faithful novice to the Holy Land, asking the monk to accompany them to their final resting place and thereby complete the feat that had begun.

In April 1920, the coffins of the sufferers arrived in Beijing, where they were met by the head of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission, Archbishop Innokenty. After the funeral service, they were temporarily placed in one of the crypts at the Mission cemetery, and the construction of a new crypt at St. Seraphim Church immediately began.

The coffins with the bodies of the Grand Duchess and nun Barbara, accompanied by Abbot Seraphim (10) and both novices, set off again, this time from Beijing to Tianjin, then by ship to Shanghai. From Shanghai to Port Said, where they arrived in January 1921. From Port Said, the coffins were sent in a special wagon to Jerusalem, where they were met by Russian and Greek clergy, numerous pilgrims, whom the 1917 revolution found in Jerusalem.

The burial of the bodies of the New Martyrs was performed by Patriarch Damian, co-served by numerous clergy. Their coffins were placed in a tomb under the lower vaults of the church of St. Mary Magdalene Equal-to-the-Apostles in Gethsemane.

When the coffin with the body of the Grand Duchess was opened, the room was filled with fragrance. According to Archimandrite Anthony (Grabbe), there was a "strong smell, as it were, of honey and jasmine." The relics of the new martyrs turned out to be partially incorrupt.

Patriarch Diodorus of Jerusalem blessed the solemn transfer of the relics of the New Martyrs from the tomb, where they had previously been located, to the very church of St. Mary Magdalene.
May 2, 1982 - on the feast of the holy myrrh-bearing women, the holy chalice, the Gospel and the air presented to the church by Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna when she was here in 1886 were used during the divine service.

In 1992, the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church canonized the Holy New Martyrs of Russia, the Holy Martyrs Grand Duchess Elizabeth and Nun Varvara, establishing a celebration for them on the day of their death on July 5 (18).

Notes:
1. Mother of Princess Alice - Queen Victoria, answering the question of one American, what is the main strength of England, showed him the Bible, saying: "In this small book."
2. Elizabeth of Thuringia, canonized by Catholics, lived in the era of the Crusades. She was distinguished by deep religiosity and selfless love for people. She devoted her whole life to serving the cause of mercy.
3. For a princess marrying the Grand Duke, it was not necessary to convert to Orthodoxy.
4. The next day after the glorification in the Assumption Cathedral, the mother of the mute girl wiped the coffin with the relics of the saint with her handkerchief, and then the face of her daughter, and she immediately spoke.
5. This cross, along with other personal belongings, is now kept in the church of St. Mary Magdalene in Gethsemane in Jerusalem.
6. The cross was demolished by the new government in the spring of 1918. In early 1985, during repair work on Ivanovskaya Square in the Moscow Kremlin, workers discovered a well-preserved crypt with the remains of the Grand Duke. Employees of the Moscow Kremlin museums seized all items made of precious metals from the burial: rings, chains, medallions, icons, the St. George Cross and sent them “to the fund commission of the Kremlin museums to determine their artistic value and the place of their further storage,” as recorded in the act of seizure. At the burial site of Sergei Alexandrovich, a parking lot was arranged. On the ninetieth anniversary of the murder, on February 18, 1995, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II served a memorial service in the Archangel Cathedral of the Kremlin and said in a sermon: “We consider it fair to transfer the remains of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich to the Romanovskaya tomb under the cathedral of the Novospassky Monastery. Let us lift up a prayer that the Lord may rest his soul in the abodes of heaven.”
7. Published in 1905-1906. in the Bulletin of the Military Clergy.
8. French King Louis XVI (1754-1793), during which the collapse of the monarchy occurred. The convention condemned him to death, and on January 21, 1793, Louis XVI ascended the scaffold.
9. By 1918 there were one hundred and five sisters in the monastery.
10. On the slopes of the Mount of Olives there is a place called Little Galilee, where the residence of the Patriarch of Jerusalem is located. In the garden of the residence there are two shrines: the foundation of the house in which the Lord appeared to the disciples after His resurrection, and the chapel built on the spot where the Archangel Gabriel appeared to the Mother of God and predicted Her imminent Assumption. In the neighborhood of this chapel, with the blessing of Patriarch Damian, hegumen Seraphim built himself a hut and lived in it until the very end.

“... And I love your soul more than your face ...” - A. S. Pushkin

“Beauty will save the world…” - now these words are often pronounced. But, what beauty did the famous writer-philosopher F.M. Dostoevsky? The beauty of the body and face cannot be called beauty without the beauty of the soul. If the soul is ugly, then everything else takes on the same ugly features. And if this is not immediately noticeable, then after some time the understanding comes that there is simply no beauty without a soul.

Many moral qualities were destroyed and lost over time. And only love for one's neighbor can bring them back.

Grand Duchess Elisaveta Feodorovna and Alexandra Feodorovna

Now the memory of those who did good deeds, showed mercy or extended a helping hand to the destitute is returning to Russia. Charitable work in Russia was a common thing for rich people, it was even the rule, not the exception. Rich people knew that the work of mercy is the rule of a Christian's life, indicated among all others in the Gospel.

A significant part of hospitals, hospices and other care and even cultural and educational institutions until 1917 were built with the money of donors and patrons. For example, by the beginning of the 20th century, many hospitals were built, on which memorial plaques with the names of the benefactors of the merchants Morozov, Kashchenko, the publisher Soldatenkov, and Prince Shcherbatov hung.

Orphanages, widows' homes, almshouses, cheap, or even free apartments, vocational schools were built with the money of the manufacturers Bakhrushins, Rakhmanovs, Solodovnikovs and other donors. The People's University in Moscow was built by the gold miner Shanyavsky.

Among all the names today in the days of the Holy Resurrection of Christ, I would like to recall the name of the founder of the Martha and Mary Convent, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, the sister of the last Russian Empress. She was the wife of the Moscow Governor-General - Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, who was killed by Kalyaev in Moscow in 1905.

The future Grand Duchess married a member of the imperial family, converted to Orthodoxy and immediately began to engage in charitable activities, to which she was accustomed from an early age by her parents, who generously distributed income throughout her life.

As children, Elizaveta Fedorovna and her sisters went to hospitals every Saturday, visiting suffering people. Therefore, love for one's neighbor for the Grand Duchess was the main feature of her character, seemingly soft, but in fact strong and noble. Many contemporaries spoke of her in the same way: "rare beauty, wonderful mind, ... angelic patience, noble heart."

During the Russo-Japanese War, Elizaveta Fedorovna led the patriotic movement: she organized sewing workshops for the needs of the army, which included women of all classes, equipped several ambulance trains at her own expense, visited hospitals daily, took care of the widows and orphans of the dead.

When Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich died, she devoted herself entirely to charitable activities. Elizaveta Feodorovna was a deeply religious person, and this is what explained many of her actions. For example, after the death of her husband, she turned to the king for a pardon for the murderer. After a long period of mourning, she dismissed her court and decided to withdraw completely from the world, to devote her life to serving God and her neighbors, the needy and the suffering.

She divided her entire fortune into three parts: to the treasury, and to charitable needs. She left nothing for herself, not even a wedding ring. On Bolshaya Ordynka, the Grand Duchess acquired a small estate with four houses and a garden. A hospital with a house church, a pharmacy, an outpatient clinic, a shelter for girls and other household facilities were located here. In addition, there was a library, a dining room and a hostel for the sisters.

In 1910, 17 girls of different classes became the first sisters of the new convent. In 1911, when, according to the project of A.V. Shchusev, the Cathedral of the Intercession Church was built, this abode of goodness and mercy took on a completed architectural appearance, they called it Marfo-Mariinsky.

The Gospel tells about two sisters Martha and Mary, who combined two main life paths: the spiritual path - serving God and the path of mercy - serving others. The sisters of the monastery shared equally any work. The best doctors worked in her hospital - experts in their field.

Every week, 34 doctors saw patients, and for free, they did not take money from the poor for medicines, others received medicines at a big discount compared to other pharmacies in the city. On Sundays, classes were held in the monastery for the illiterate. Orphanage girls, in addition to learning to read and write, received medical training.

The personal life of Elizabeth Feodorovna was, one might say, harsh. She slept on a wooden bed without a mattress, observed a strict fast, and on other days her food consisted of vegetables and a small amount of milk. The Grand Duchess prayed for a long time at night, and during the day she constantly took care of her sisters, distributed assignments - to everyone in her power, monitored the health of the sisters, went around all the hospital wards.

For the most seriously ill, Elizaveta Fedorovna looked after herself and even assisted in operations. In addition to her work and cares in the monastery, the abbess visited and helped the poor locally. People learned from each other with what care and love they treat the sick and suffering here in the monastery, and they petitioned for treatment, for employment, for looking after small children, and even with petitions for help in finding a place to study.

The monastery received more than ten thousand petitions a year. And besides everything, help came from here both in money and in clothes. But most importantly, the suffering and sick needed compassion, and they received it here.

And that was not all. Elizaveta Feodorovna went around the rooming houses of the "famous" Khitrov market, as she revered the soul of any person as immortal and honored the image of God in it. And the inhabitants of this part of the city were far from divine. But the princess tried to touch the heart of everyone, mired in sins and vices, to touch the depths of the soul and turn it to repentance.

Sometimes these same people called themselves: “We are not people, how come you come to us!” She persuaded the parents of little children living in this swamp, as M. Gorky once said - “At the bottom”, to give their children to be raised in a monastery. The girls were brought up in an orphanage, and the boys were placed in a hostel.

The sisters of the monastery needed neither glory nor reward, all their activities were bound by the gospel commandments - love for God and neighbor.

By 1914, there were already 97 sisters in the monastery. The war began, some of the sisters went to the field hospitals, others worked in a hospital in Moscow.

1917 Chaos began in the country. More than once the German ambassador tried to see Elizaveta Fedorovna, offering her a trip to Germany. She did not accept him, but replied that she refused to leave Russia: “I have done nothing wrong to anyone. Be the will of the Lord."

1918 The Chekists arrested several patients from the monastery, then took away all the orphans. On the third day of Easter in April, Elizaveta Fedorovna was also arrested, because all those who bore the name of the Romanovs were doomed to death, and her good deeds were not included in the calculation.

In the dead of night on July 18, 1918, along with other members of the imperial family, Elizaveta Feodorovna was thrown into the mine of an old mine. Before the execution, according to the testimony of an “eyewitness”, she was baptized all the time and prayed: “Lord, forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.” And when, after three months, the bodies of the executed were removed, next to the princess they found the body of the victim with a bandaged wound. So the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna left her earthly life, fulfilling the gospel commandments until the last minute.

After the arrest of the abbess, the monastery, apparently thanks to Krupskaya, still existed for about seven years. Then the sisters of the monastery were deported to Central Asia, and the premises of the monastery were given over to various institutions, and a club was set up in the Intercession Church itself.

The memory of the Grand Duchess will help us find the way for moral and spiritual rebirth.

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 SO 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.

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 is sitting with the Russian Empress Maria Alexandrovna, who has 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 Sergey 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 the mother 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. Nevertheless, she once presided over 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..."

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 have to start a completely 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 ...

"TO BE OF THE SAME FAITH WITH A SPOUSE - CORRECT"

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 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 ‹ ... 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 has become 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" WHICH DID NOT EXIST

It is generally accepted that Sergei and Elizabeth deliberately entered into the so-called "white marriage": they decided not to have children, but to devote themselves to serving God and people. Memories of loved ones and diaries testify otherwise.
“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. It is interesting that 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 SUFFERED - YOU ARE ON THE BATTLE FIELD"

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, filigree able 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 was peering intently into the image of another world.<…>, <она>dedicated to the pursuit of perfection."

"YOU AND WE KNOW HE'S A HOLY"

“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 from him - so the prince was buried, having built a special “doll”, in the Chudov 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 Feodorovna, 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.

Portal for the student. Self-training

Biography

The death of the princess

Canonization

relics

Where and when the shrine will be in Minsk

Children were brought up in the traditions of old England, according to a strict routine. The clothes and food of the children were the simplest. The older daughters did their own homework. Subsequently, Elizaveta Feodorovna said: “They taught me everything in the house”

NOT SO SIMPLE BRIDE

"HE OFTEN TREATED HER LIKE A SCHOOL TEACHER..."

"TO BE OF THE SAME FAITH WITH A SPOUSE - CORRECT"

90 SOCIETIES OF THE GRAND DUKE

"WHITE MARRIAGE" WHICH DID NOT EXIST

WHY DOES HE NEED A CORSET?

"BE SUFFERED - YOU ARE ON THE BATTLE FIELD"

"YOU AND WE KNOW HE'S A HOLY"

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