The Final Days of the Romanovs

Nothing could have been more truly said of the Romanovs. Religion was the glue that had bound them tightly together through all the years of anguish. First over the Tsaritsa's collapsing health then Alexei's near-fatal attacks of hemophilia and now in imprisonment and with all the uncertainty and isolation that that entailed. On 14th, July 1918 three days before they were brutally murdered the Romanov family were allowed a service conducted by an Ekaterinburg priest, father Ioann Storozhev. It had been three weeks since this profoundly pious church-going family had been allowed to worship together. To be denied the ritual of the liturgy that was so much part of their lives had been agony for them. But in captivity in Ekaterinburg they kept each other buoyed up with continuous readings from the Scriptures and other sacred works, for as Russians the spiritual life was as important to them as the physical. Exhausted by their present hardships the Romanovs took great strength in religious consolation and their mutual devotion to God. It helped them transcend the uncertainty of the dangerous and unstable world they now inhabited. During his celebration of the Obednitsa for the Romanov family, Father Storozhev had noticed some profound and telling differences. The imperial family had not participated in the responses in the sung Liturgy as all Russians normally did. More disturbing had been the fact that when as part of the service his deacon had come to recite the traditional prayer for the dead: "With the Saints give rest, o Christ, to the soul of your servant where there is neither pain nor sorrow nor suffering but life everlasting", instinct had prompted him to sing it instead, upon which the Romanovs had all silently fallen to their knees. Storozhev had sensed in that moment the great spiritual comfort It had given the family to share in that particular prayer together. It was a necessary part of the Romanovs' Christian faith to be prepared at all times for the life of the soul in the world hereafter. The same profound religious unity was manifested again at the end of the service when Storozhev came to recite the prayer to the Mother of God. At the end of the service, the Tsar, the Tsaritsa, their children and their servants all came forward to kiss the cross. The Romanov girls took the opportunity of their close proximity to whisper a covert "thank you" to father Storozhev He noticed that there were tears in their eyes. When he left the Ipatiev House, father Storozhev did so with a heavy heart. There had been about the family an intangible but overwhelming sense of doom. He and his deacon both sensde that they were now greatly changed, that something had happened to them in there. All the Romanovs could do in confinement was meekly submit to their fate and forgive their enemies. Back in 1918, in March, writing from Tobolsk, Alexandra had observed the overwhelming sense of reconciliation growing within the family: "We live here on earth, she said, but we are already half gone to the next world". Toward the end of his life the Tsarevich's tutor Sidney Gibbs recalled: "They knew that it was the end when I was with them". Writing to a friend from Tobolsk, grand duchess Olga had best expressed the family's sentiments: "Father asked me to tell all who have remained loyal to him and to those over whom they might have influence that they should not avenge him. He has forgiven everyone and prays for them all. That they should not themselves seek revenge, but remember that the evil there is now in the world will become yet more powerful and that it is not evil which conquers evil, but only love". This video is produced within the project for the book: "The Romanov Royal Martyrs, What silence could not conceal," which is an impressive 512-page book, featuring nearly 200 archival photographs, and a 56-page photo insert of more than 80 high-quality images, colorized by the acclaimed Russian artist Olga Shirnina, and appearing here in print for the first time.

Channel: The Romanov Royal Martyrs

Views: 193,134

Keywords: romanovs, romanov, Nicholas II, Tsar of Russia, Royal Family, Romanov execution, Romanov dynasty, Romanov family, Romanoffs, Helen Rappaport, Four sisters, Ekaterinburg, Royalty, British Royalty, romanov family death, romanov sisters, romanov book, National Geographic, the romanovs, romanov execution, national geographic, anastasia romanov, otma, tsarevich alexei, alexandra feodorovna, olga romanov, maria romanov, mystery of the romanovs, rasputin, documentary, history

Id: DD_xdwbV8-I

Length: 12min 15sec (735 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 14 2020