The Reason Why We Venerate the Royal Martyrs

Foma.ru – 18/7/16

Archpriest Igor FOMIN, Rector of the house church of St. Alexander Nevsky of the Moscow State Institute of International Affairs. 

We venerate the Holy Royal Family for their faithfulness to God, for their martyrdom, and for giving us an example of genuine leaders of a country who treated its inhabitants as their own family.  After the revolution there were many opportunities for Emperor Nicholas II to leave Russia, but he did not take advantage of them, because he wanted to share the fate of his country no matter how hard it was.

We see more than the personal martyrdom of the Royal passion-bearers; we see the martyrdom of the Russia that has at one time been called disappearing, but which in fact still exists.  It is still the same here and today as it was then, in 1918, in the Ipatiev house where the royal martyrs were shot.  And when people come face to face with this humble, though majestic Russia, they understand what actually is valuable and what is minor in their lives.

The Royal family are not a model of correct political decisions, that is not what the Church canonised the Royal passion-bearers for.  For us, they are an example of a Christian attitude of the ruler towards his people, of the determination to serve them even at the cost of his own life.

Translated from the Russian by Maria Nekipelov

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