St. John of KronstadtPosted on 11/07/2015 7:30:21 PM PST by NRx
In 1905, twelve years before Emperor Nicholas II’s abdication and three years from his own repose, St. John of Kronstadt, who had served as confessor to Nicholas II’s father Emperor Alexander III (r. 1881-94, d. 1894), spoke these prophetic words:
We have a Tsar of righteous and pious life. God has sent a heavy cross of sufferings to him as to His chosen one and beloved child, as the seer of the destinies of God said: ‘Whom I love, those I reproach and punish’ (Rev. 3.19). If there is no repentance in the Russian people, the end of the world is near. God will remove from it the pious Tsar and send a whip in the person of impure, cruel, self-called rulers, who will drench the whole land in blood and tears.
St. John of Kronstadt
Nicholas himself made a similar observation about his fate when speaking to his Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin. In his diary, Stolypin noted with some degree of incredulity that Nicholas spoke these words without any hint of alarm or distress. This must have taken place sometime before the latter’s 1911 assassination at the Kiev Opera House in the presence of the Emperor and his eldest daughters, the Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana. Immediately after the assassin, Dmitri Bogrov, shot him twice, causing panic to erupt among those around him, Stolypin calmly rose from his chair, removed his gloves and unbuttoned his jacket, exposing a blood-soaked waistcoat. He sank into his chair and loudly exclaimed, “I am happy to die for the Tsar,†before motioning to Nicholas in his imperial box to withdraw to safety. Nicholas remained in his position, and in one final gesture Stolypin bowed to his sovereign, blessing him with a sign of the cross and saying “May God save him!â€. Bogrov then attempted to stab Stolypin, but tripped and was subsequently caught and hanged.
I have a premonition. I have the certainty that I am destined for terrible trials, but I will not receive a reward for them in this world… Perhaps there must be a victim in expiation in order to save Russia. I will be this victim. May God’s will be done!
Nicholas II smiling in a signed photo taken in 1898, his fourth year on the throne.
A signed portrait of the Empress from 1899, five years into her reign with Nicholas II.
According to Anna A. Vyrubova, the Empress’ closest confidante, best friend and lady-in-waiting, in Her Majesty’s Lady-in-Waiting, p. 171 (reprinted in Orthodox Word, St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, Platina, Ca., Vol. 34, No.5 (202) Sept-Oct, 1998,p. 215), a Russian holy woman by the name of Maria blessed the Empress in December 1916 when she visited her cell and foretold her eventual martyrdom:
In December of 1916, Her Majesty traveled from an emotional rest to Novgorod for a day, with two Grand Duchesses and a small suite. She visited field hospitals and monasteries and attended the Liturgy at the St. Sophia Cathedral. Before her departure the Tsaritsa visited the Yurievsky and Desyatina Monasteries.
In the latter she visited Eldress Maria Mikhailovna in her tiny cell, where the aged woman had lain for many years in heavy chains (this was self inflicted – Editor’s notes) on an iron bed. When the Tsaritsa entered, the Eldress held her withered hand out to her and said, “Here comes the martyr, Tsaritsa Alexandra!†She embraced her and blessed her. In a few days the Eldress reposed.
In 1917, the venerable St. Metropolitan Makary Nevsky of Moscow beheld the Savior speaking to the Tsar in a vision:
“You see,†said the Lord, “two cups in my hands: one is bitter for your people, and the other is sweet for you.†In the vision the Tsar begged for the bitter cup. The Savior then took a large glowing coal from the cup and put it in the Tsar’s hands. The Tsar’s whole body then began to grow light, until he was shining like a radiant spirit. Then the vision changed to a field of flowers, in the middle of which Nicholas was distributing manna to a multitude of people. A voice spoke: “The Tsar has taken the guilt of the Russian people upon himself and the Russian people are forgiven.â€
As the First World War dragged on with mounting casualties and no conclusive end, causing a decline in morale and furthering discontent among those disposed toward revolutionary sentiment in the armed forces and urban factories, the Empress and her older daughters continued to serve actively as hospital nurses. Numerous historical accounts of the Empress’ life during the war years, especially the memoirs of the women who perhaps knew her best, her dear confidantes the Countess Anna A. Vryubova and Baroness Sophie von Buxhoeveden, recall her dedicated service in the blood and disease-filled hospitals of wartime Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Despite that Nicholas and Alexandra disliked her cousin, the blustering Kaiser Wilhelm II, and had decidedly English cultural sensibilities (Nicholas II and Britain’s King George V were first cousins, as their Danish mothers were sisters, while the Empress Alexandra and her older sister Ella, the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, had grown up at the court of their grandmother Queen Victoria), as the war dragged on, communist and anarchist groups working to subvert the monarchy and undermine the war effort at the same time began to circulate pamphlets and scrawl graffiti attacking the Empress as a German “imposterâ€, “traitorâ€, “spyâ€, and worse. According to this Pravmir article from May 2006 on “Tsar Nicholas and His Familyâ€,
As soon as the war broke out, the Empress and the four Grand Duchesses (Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia) became nurses; and hospitals were opened at Tsarskoye Selo, near the family’s residence, where wounded soldiers were brought. They worked long hours, diligently and tirelessly following the commandment of Christ to visit the sick, since inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me (Matthew 25.30).
Anna A. Vyrubova, the Empress’ closest friend, wrote: “I have personally seen the Empress of Russia in the operating room, assisting in the most difficult operations, taking from the hands of the busy surgeon amputated legs and arms, removing bloody and even vermin-ridden field dressings.†Vyrubova says that she was a “born nurseâ€, who “from her earliest accession took an interest in hospitals, in nursing, quite foreign to native Russian ideas. She not only visited the sick herself, in hospitals, in homes, but she enormously increased the efficiency of the hospital system in Russia. Out of her own private funds the Empress founded and supported two excellent schools for training nurses, especially in the care of children.â€
Unsurprisingly, this is the same Empress who wrote in her diary at some point during that fateful year of 1917, “In order to climb the great heavenly staircase of love, we must ourselves become a stone, a stair which others will climb.â€
In this deeply moving poem to Empress Alexandra, “To My Beloved Mamaâ€, which she composed at Tsarskoye Selo on April 23, 1917, just over a month following her father’s abdication, the 22-year old Grand Duchess Olga wrote:
“You are filled with anguish.
For the suffering of others.
And no one’s grief
Has ever passed you by.
You are relentless
Only toward yourself,
Forever cold and pitiless.
But if only you could look upon
Your own sadness from a distance,
Just once with a loving soul-
Oh, how you would pity yourself.
How sadly you would weep.â€
The Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna as a young girl.
These are the qualities of a saint, ones which the young Princess discerned in her own mother. Grand Duchess Olga, clearly a beautifully gifted writer possessed of praiseworthy talent as a poet, evidently perceived the devastating combined impact that her father’s abdication and the Tsarevich Alexei’s incurable hemophilia continuously wrought on her mother’s emotional, physical and spiritual health.
As the following letter from the Princess indicated, Grand Duchess Olga, as the oldest of the children in the Imperial Family, consciously served as a kind of envoy for her beleaguered parents to the outside world beyond their prison walls:
Father asks the following message to be given to all those who have remained faithful to him, and to those on whom they may have an influence, that they should not take revenge for him, since he has forgiven everyone and prays for everyone, that they should not take revenge for themselves, and should remember that the evil which is now in the world shall grow even stronger, but that it is not evil that will conquer evil, but only love. . .
Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna, writing from Tobolsk in the Urals during the Royal family’s exile there in summer 1917, about a year before their brutal execution.
Emperor Nicholas II sawing wood with Alexei during the Imperial Family's winter at Tobolsk.
The change in the Grand Duchess’ tone is remarkable: from an already highly perceptive young woman, it is evident that the several harrying months spent under house arrest confined to a few small rooms at the old Governor’s House in Tobolsk had caused the close-knit Imperial Family to keep a more eternal perspective. We read of a young woman both clearly aware that her words would eventually be read by many people who heartily supported the Romanov monarchy and the cause of their liberation from the Bolsheviks, and acutely aware that her father abhorred the continued bloodshed of the civil war between Whites and Reds.
Nicholas’ exhortation for his supporters to refrain from further bloodshed in the cause of his liberation is at first glance surprising (though not when we take into consideration the Emperor’s profound concern for his people, whom he loved as much as he did his own children), and indeed, extraordinary, all the more so given the successes so many White army forces were having against the Bolsheviks at the time the Grand Duchess wrote this letter. One can only infer that the Imperial Family were permitted to receive little to no news of ongoing political developments outside the walls of their prison. Nonetheless, for the former Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias to write that “he has forgiven everyone and prays for everyone, that they should not take revenge for themselvesâ€, one comes away with a clear sense that the Imperial Family anticipated their eventual martyrdom.
The Imperial Family depicted in traditional Russian costume as New-Martyrs and Saints of the Orthodox Church.
Reading the following poem, another one beautifully composed by the Grand Duchess Olga, its meaning is unmistakable: by the time that she wrote these words, it is certain that the Imperial Family expected to be martyred. The Princess’ poem here is both hymn and dirge, a psalm of praise and one of sorrow and fear, but above all, a canticle of deep faith and a discernment of God’s will in all things. True of saints’ writings, we see that the centrality of the Princess’ poem is not her dwelling on her own anguish or horror at the thought of a potentially agonizing death, or lamentation at the thought of her earthly life cut short so abruptly, but a profound trust in God’s providence that His purpose guides all things and that, ultimately, He would work good out of evil.
I do not know how many months or weeks before her death the Grand Duchess wrote this haunting poem, but I come away thinking that it is truly astonishing—and almost unheard of today—for a young woman my age to be so accepting of a possibly imminent death or any manner of torture. So long as the Imperial Family, with God’s aid, continued to endure and persevere in faith, withstanding all evil and, above all, forgiving “our neighbors’ persecutionâ€, the Grand Duchess prays, above all, to receive strength to “pass the last dread gate†into eternal life.
Grant us Thy patience, Lord,
In these our woeful days,
The mob’s wrath to endure,
The torturer’s ire;
Thy unction to forgive
Our neighbors’ persecution
And mild, like Thee, to bear
A bloodstained Cross.
And when the mob prevails
And foes come to despoil us,
To suffer humbly shame,
O Savior aid us!
And when the hour comes
To pass the last dread gate,
Breathe strength in us to pray,
Father forgive them!
Here is a beautiful quote from Saint John the Wonderworker (1896-1966) on the Emperor, which the younger saint said in July 1963, the 45th anniversary of the martyrdoms:
Why was Tsar Nicholas II persecuted, slandered and killed? Because he was Tsar, Tsar by the Grace of God. He was the bearer and incarnation of the Orthodox world view that the Tsar is the servant of God, the Anointed of God, and that to Him he must give an account for the people entrusted to him by destiny, for all his deeds and actions, not only those done personally, but also as Tsar. . . Thus did the Orthodox Russian people believe, thus has the Orthodox Church taught, and this did Tsar Nicholas acknowledge and sense. He was thoroughly penetrated by this awareness; he viewed his bearing of the Imperial crown as a service to God. He kept this in mind during all his important decisions, during all the responsible questions that arose. This is why he was so firm and unwavering in those questions about which he was convinced that such was the will of God; he stood firmly for that which seemed to him necessary for the good of the realm of which he was head.
Holy Royal Martyrs, pray to God for us that He may save our souls!
From every account I’ve read, the czar was a nice guy and a wonderful father and husband, but he shouldn’t have oppressed the Russians like he did.
What an amazing post. Thanks.
Interesting perspective.
The account of the tsar and family's martyrdom has a special place in my heart. The promise of scripture is true, "what is done in darkness will be revealed". The imposter Anna was revealed by dna, the family's pitiful earthly remains all but confusion between Anastasia and Maria, I believe, were identified using Prince Phillip's dna; there remain some things yet hidden.
Fortunately, much photographic and a few videos remain. There are many on youtube. Some can be found by searching tsar nicholas or OTMA (girls' initials).
There is no one worthy to take the tsar's place. Whatever his shortcomings, they should be put in the context of the times, the war, the trials. They called him Bloody Nicholas. I don't believe that is deserved.
Thank you for posting.
“Whatever their sins, they expiated them throughout their lives.”
Really? I mean, maybe they did, but what kind of proof do you have?
What kind of proof do you have that they didn't? It's just my personal opinion.
Only Heaven knows for certain.
“What kind of proof do you have that they didn’t?”
Is a single actual act of expiation even known about as performed by them? Even one?
“It’s just my personal opinion.”
Then should you have said so?
“Only Heaven knows for certain.”
Yes, but there seems to be little evidence for it. It’s nice to think it, but what evidence is there?
Not under that theological concept or accepting one's sufferings and offering them up to God as Catholics do. They just quietly accepted the fear, anxiety and humility of their last days in captivity together ending in a bloody, brutal martyrdom. That would in my opinion. The only one in all those terrible months and days known to have acted out was the young Alexis who slid down the staircase on a sled, I think at Yaroslavl, where they were confined in rooms of the Governor's mansion. It was almost a suicidal act as it resulted in another bout with his hemophilia. The girls had to endure the guards being able to watch them go to the bathroom with the door open, even when they were on their period. I think I would lose it and rub the filthy rag in his face, but that would have resulted in a reprisal probably on my whole family.
Then should you have said so?
Not if I didn't want to. Actually I didn't think to do that. I made a declarative statement but now the burden of proof is on me. It's still just my opinion. I read tons of books and articles over the years. Now I see in your profile you are Catholic. Maybe you think because they weren't Catholic, they don't deserve to go to Heaven?
but what evidence is there
Some of it is in the Massies' books, their suffering mostly plus the lead article here speaks of all their good works. I know from the Massies and others that is true. So let's look at the evidence against it. Rasputin. The czar's ballerina mistress before he married Alexandra, the working conditions of the people, their aversion to Jews, some pogroms no doubt not necessarily ordered by the czar. The aversion to Jews was not without some provocation. A Jew threw the bomb that killed the czar's grandfather. I think another Jew attempted to kill the czar's father and failed. I know some American Jews had it in for the czar and raised money for that cause. Jacob Schiff. Al Gore's daughter married his grandson. There is an article in the NYT's archives, can't remember the date, about some wealthy American Jews celebrating in the Opera House what they had long worked for and on the eve of the Revolution see brought to fruition.˜
I don't know if the czar was aware of Jacob Schiff's aid in overthrowing him.
Revolution from Above, Kerry Bolton
I don't know anything about Kerry Bolton; it was in the NYT but now I can't find the date and page. So your God isn't merciful enough to forgive all that if they confessed it? We don't know what they confessed, but they did all the right things the Russian Orthodox way in the end.
Maybe you don't see their deaths as a martyrdom? As punishment from a just God? Was Alexis' hemophilia punishment from a just God? How can we know these things?
NRx, an interesting point of history I stumbled across the other day on youtube. The grand nephew of the first Communist Bolshevik president of Russia, Yakov Sverdlov (the grand nephew spells the surname Swerdlow) is one in charge of the controversial CERN program in Switzerland. I know little about CERN; some think it is evil. Have to save further research on that for another day.
Anyway, it was thought Lenin gave the execution order for the family, but now it appears it may have been Sverdlov in Moscow to Yurovsky in Ekatinburg, at least subsequent telegraph evidence points to that, evidence that came to light after some archives were opened in Russia years later. Sorry, I don't have a link at the moment; you might know or want to pursue it.
You wrote:
“They just quietly accepted the fear, anxiety and humility of their last days in captivity together ending in a bloody, brutal martyrdom.”
Earlier you wrote:
“Whatever their sins, they expiated them throughout their lives.”
So is it that they expiated their sins “in their last days” or “throughout their lives”?
Hey, you can believe whatever you want, but you have no evidence for what you believe and now you’re changing your story.
“Now I see in your profile you are Catholic. Maybe you think because they weren’t Catholic, they don’t deserve to go to Heaven?”
No, it just seems you have no actual evidence for your opinion and you’re now contradicting yourself.
“So your God isn’t merciful enough to forgive all that if they confessed it?”
Is this how you’re going to make up for not having evidence for your opinion?
“We don’t know what they confessed, but they did all the right things the Russian Orthodox way in the end.”
Maybe they did. Maybe they didn’t. We don’t actually know much about what they did.
“Maybe you don’t see their deaths as a martyrdom?”
They were killed because they were the royal family and hated by Communists. If they were nobodies, there’s a good chance they would not have been killed, so it seems tendentious to say this was a martyrdom for faith rather than politics.
“As punishment from a just God?”
You really seem desperate there. Perhaps you really have nothing to say that can bolster your opinion.
“Was Alexis’ hemophilia punishment from a just God?”
Was your inability to offer evidence for your claim punishment from a just God?
“How can we know these things?”
Apparently, you can’t. That apparently isn’t stopping you from saying something happened for which you have not a shred of evidence so far to offer.
And, about Swerdlow, let me help you with a link to this nut since you seem to have difficulty finding things: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpO9Eghln4g
I had a little bit written out but accidently flushed it. Now I think you are just baiting me and anything I would come up with you would pick apart because you are being contentious for your own purposes. You interpret their lives your way, and I'll interpret them my way.
I was being somewhat sarcastic about punishment from a just God. I don't know. I have no way of knowing what is punishment and what is just random or effect from an earlier cause.
Just forget anything I posted. There is no real evidence about expiation but I still can arrive at that opinion by the study of their lives. If I'm wrong, may God correct me in a kinder manner than you have dealt with me. Too many threads on too many subjects today.
Now if you come back at me, I'm going to ignore you.
“If I’m wrong, may God correct me in a kinder manner than you have dealt with me.”
Buddy, if you think I was unkind, then your really do have no clue. All I did was point out the facts and ask questions and you could refute those facts or answer those questions. Nothing I said was any more harsh than anything you said to me.
“Now if you come back at me, I’m going to ignore you.”
Just like the facts.
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