A Portrait of Tsar St Nikolai Aleksandrovich with the Order of St Vladimir
Genrikh Manizer
1905
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American experts are certain that the “first” burial site near Yekaterinburg contained the authentic remains of Tsar Nikolai II of Russia according to Dr Michael Coble, the research director at the US Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory, “We examined three types of DNA and compared them to the DNA of Tsarevich Aleksei, the son of Nikolai II, and Andrei Romanov, a cousin of Nikolai II. If we look at the results of all three DNA tests, there can be no more doubt [as to the authenticity of the remains]“, Professor Coble told journalists in Yekaterinburg. He also noted that tests on the DNA of the tsar’s remains and the DNA found in a bloodstain on a jacket worn by Nikolai II, preserved at present in the Hermitage in St Petersburg, are now complete, but, the Sverdlovsk oblast forensic medical bureau shall issue its report at a later date. The bloodstain on the jacket was a result of an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Nikolai II in 1891. At that time, he was still the Tsarevich and was in Japan as part of a world tour. Whilst he was there, a deranged Japanese policeman attacked him with a samurai sword. Eleven people, the family of the last Russian tsar, Nikolai II, and their servants, were executed in the early hours of 17 July 1918 on the order of the Presidium of the Ural Regional Soviet. A burial site containing the remains of nine people was found on Staraya Koptyakovskaya road near Yekaterinburg in July 1991. These were the remains of Nikolai II, his wife Aleksandra Fyodorovna, 46, daughters Olga, 22, Tatiana, 21, Anastasia, 17, as well as his servants Yevgeni Botkin, 53, Anna Demidova, 40, Aleksei Trupp, 62, and Ivan Kharitonov, 48. However, the remains of two members of the imperial family, Tsarevich Aleksei, 14, and Grand Princess Maria, 19, were not found at this time at this site. Years later, fragments of bones and teeth were recovered from a so-called “second” burial site during an archaeological dig on 29 July 2007. Russian and international experts confirmed the hypothesis that what the archaeologists found were the remains of Tsarevich Aleksei and Grand Princess Maria.
5 December 2008
Interfax-Religion
http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=27630
Editor’s Note:
DUM-DA-DUM-DUM… Yes, it’s the theme from Dragnet. One can hear Jack Webb now, “What you are about to see is true. The names were changed to protect the innocent”. Take a guess, loyal friends and readers… it’s BIG GREEN WEENIE AWARD time again. I know that it is probably a quixotic and forlorn quest, but, if the material exists in the Russian original, it should be translated into English IN ITS ENTIRETY. The material on the bloodstain and its testing were left out of the Interfax English translation.
FOR SHAME!
However, to return to the topic of the post above, this now allows the Church to claim the remains as genuine. I believe that it shall come out in future that the only reason the MP did not embrace the authenticity of the relics in 1998 was that Patriarch Aleksei Rediger and the then-Archbishop (later, Metropolitan) Laurus Škurla came up with a dodge so as not to upset the senescent Vitaly Ustinov, then, the First Hierarch of the ROCOR. Such manoeuvres are sometimes necessary, and those who commit them are guiltless of any sin. Do reflect on the fact that the burial site of the imperial family in St Petersburg has a decidedly provisional air; so, one could rightly surmise that the relics shall be transferred to and reburied in Yekaterinburg, the site of their martyric podvig.
One should also mention that Orthodox in America have a special reason to revere Tsar St Nikolai Aleksandrovich the Royal Martyr and Passionbearer. If it were not for the very generous financial aid that he extended from his personal purse, the Orthodox Church in the US and Canada (that is, the part outside the established Church in Alaska) would never have got off the ground. All those who babble about an “American church”, “not being under the thumb of the state”, and “personal responsibilty” should hang their heads in shame and repent of their ungrateful foolishness and folly. If this holy tsar had not shown his open-hearted generosity and hearty support in a very tangible way, truly, there would be no Church here, full stop. Symfonia is an central and indispensible Orthodox concept, after all…
BMD
