Life of the Holy New Martyr Grand Duchess Elizabeth
by Metropolitan Anastassy
Not every generation is destined to meet along its
path such a blessed gift from heaven as was the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna for her
time, for she was a rare combination of exalted Christian spirit, moral nobility,
enlightened mind, gentle heart, and refined taste. She possessed an extremely delicate and
multifaceted spiritual composition and her outward appearance reflected the beauty and
greatness of her spirit. Upon her brow lay the seal of an inborn, elevated dignity which
set her apart from those around her. Under the cover of modesty, she often strove, though
in vain, to conceal herself from the gaze of others, but one could not mistake her for
another. Wherever she appeared, one would always ask: "Who is she who looketh forth
as the morning, clear as the sun" (Song of Solomon 6:10)? Wherever she would go she
emanated the pure fragrance of the lily. Perhaps it was for this reason that she loved the
color white—it was the reflection of her heart. All of her spiritual qualities were
strictly balanced, one against another, never giving an impression of one-sidedness.
Femininity was joined in her to a courageous character; her goodness never led to weakness
and blind, unconditional trust of people. Even in her finest heartfelt inspirations she
exhibited that gift of discernment which has always been so highly esteemed by Christian
ascetics. These characteristics were perhaps in part due to her upbringing, which she
received under the guidance of her maternal grandmother, Victoria, Queen of England and
Empress of India. An unmistakable English stamp was placed on all her tastes and habits
and English was closer to her than her native German.
The grand duchess herself acknowledged that a great
influence on the formation of the inner, purely spiritual side of her character was the
example of a paternal ancestor, Elizabeth Turingen of Hungary, who through her daughter
Sophia was one of the founders of the House of Hesse. A contemporary of the Crusades, this
remarkable woman reflected the spirit of her age. Deep piety was united in her together
with self-sacrificing love for her neighbor, but her spouse considered her great
beneficence squanderous and at times persecuted her for it. Her early widowhood compelled
her to lead a life of wandering and need. Later she was again able to help the poor and
suffering and completely dedicate herself to works of charity. The great reverence which
this royal struggler enjoyed even during her lifetime moved the Roman Catholic Church in
the thirteenth century to number her among its saints. The impressionable soul of the
grand duchess was captivated in childhood by the happy memory of her honored ancestor and
made a deep impression on her.
Her rich natural gifts were refined by an extensive
and wide education which not only satisfied her mental and esthetic needs but also
enriched her with knowledge of a purely practical nature, essential for every woman with
household duties. "Together with Her Majesty (i.e., Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, her
younger sister) we were instructed during our childhood in everything,'' she once said in
answer to how she became acquainted with all the details of housekeeping.
Chosen as the future wife of the Grand Duke Sergei
Alexandrovich, the grand duchess arrived in Russia during the period when the country,
under the firm rule of Alexander III, attained the blossoming of its might in a purely
national spirit. With her moral sensitivity and inborn love for knowledge, the young grand
duchess began an intense study of the national characteristics of the Russian people and
especially of their faith which places a deep mark on both their national character and
upon all of their culture. Soon Orthodoxy won her over by its beauty and inner richness
which she often would contrast with the spiritual poverty of Protestantism. ("And
they are so self-satisfied about everything!" she said about Protestants.)
Of her experiences in the Roman Catholic world, the
grand duchess sometimes recalled a trip to Rome which she had taken together with the late
grand duke soon after the jubilee of Pope Leo the XIII. The latter knew well the
unshakable firmness of Sergei Alexandrovich's Orthodox convictions and regarded him
highly, having first made his acquaintance when the grand duke, still a child, was
visiting Rome. This long-standing acquaintance allowed them to converse informally.
Between them there even arose an argument about how many popes were named Sergius. Neither
of these exalted disputants wanted to give way to the other and the pope had to withdraw
into his library to check. He returned a bit upset.
"Forgive me," said Leo XIII, smiling,
"although they say the pope is infallible, this time he fell into error."
The grand duchess, of her own volition decided to
unite herself to the Orthodox Church. When she made the announcement to her spouse,
according to the account of one of the servants, tears involuntarily poured from his eyes.
The Emperor Alexander III himself was deeply touched by her decision. Her husband blessed
her after Holy Chrismation with a precious icon of the Savior, "Not Made by
Hands" (a copy of the miraculous icon in the Chapel of the Savior), which she
treasured greatly throughout the remaining course of her life. Having been joined to the
Faith in this manner, and thereby to all that makes up the soul of a Russian, the grand
duchess could now with every right say to her spouse in the words of the Moabite Ruth,
"Your people have become my people, and your God my God" (Ruth 1:16).
The grand duke's extended tenure of office as
Governor-General of Moscow, the true heart of Russia, where he and his wife were in
living contact with the ancient, holy shrines and the immemorial Russian national way of
life, must have bound the grand duchess even more to her new homeland.
Even during these years she dedicated much time to
philanthropic activities, though this was considered one of the main obligations of her
high position and therefore did not earn for her much public merit. As part of her social
obligations the grand duchess was forced to participate in social life which was already
beginning to oppress her because of its frivolity. The terrible death of the grand duke
Sergei Alexandrovich, who was torn apart by a bomb in the holy Kremlin itself (near the
Nicholas Palace where the grand duke had moved after he left his position as
Governor-General), began a decisive moral change in the soul of his spouse which caused
her to forsake her former life once and for all. The greatness of spirit with which she
endured her trial evoked for her the deserved admiration of everyone. She even found in
herself the moral strength to visit Kaliev, the murderer of her husband, in the hope of
softening and healing his heart by meekness and complete forgiveness. These Christian
feelings she also expressed, through the person of the slaughtered grand duke, by having
the following touching words of the Gospel inscribed upon the memorial cross, erected
according to the plans of Vasnetsov, at the site of his death, ''Father, forgive them for
they know not what they do..."
However, not everyone was capable of understanding
the change which had taken place in her. One had to live through such a staggering
catastrophe as this, in order to be convinced of the frailty and illusory nature of
wealth, glory and the things of this world, and about which for so many centuries we have
been warned by the Gospel. For the society of that time, the decision of the grand duchess
to dismiss her court in order to leave the world and dedicate herself to serving God and
neighbor, seemed as scandal and madness. Despising both the tears of friends, gossip and
mockings of the world, she courageously set out on her new path. Having earlier chosen for
herself the path of the perfect, i.e. the path of ascetic struggle, she began with wisely
measured steps to ascend the ladder of Christian virtues.
The advice of wise instructors was not foreign to
her, guiding those starting out on the path of Christian activity to learn from others the
way of life so as "not to teach oneself, not to go without a guide along a path which
one had never traveled and hence quickly lose one's way; not to travel more or less
correctly, nor become exhausted from too swift a run or to fall asleep while resting"
(Jerome, A Letter to the Monk Rusticus).
Therefore she strove to understand nothing without
the direction of spiritually experienced elders, especially the elders of the Zosima
Hermitage under whom she placed herself in total obedience. As her heavenly guides and
protectors she chose St. Sergius and St. Alexis of Moscow. She was entrusted to their
special protection by her late spouse whose remains she buried at the Chudov Monastery in
a magnificent tomb, styled after those in the ancient Roman catacombs. The extended period
of mourning for the grand duke, during which she retired into her interior world and was
continually in church, was the first real break to separate her from what up until then
had been her normal everyday life. The move from the palace to the building she acquired
at Ordinka, where she allotted only two very modest rooms for herself, signaled a full
break with the past and the beginning of a new period in her life.
From now on her main task became the building of a
sisterhood in which inner service to God would be integrated with active service to one's
neighbor in the name of Christ. This was a completely new form of organized charitable
Church activity, and consequently drew general attention to itself. At its foundation was
placed a deep and immutable idea: no one could give to another more than he himself
already possessed. We all draw upon God and therefore only in Him can we love our
neighbor. Natural love so-called or humanism quickly evaporates, replaced by coldness and
disappointment, but one who lives in Christ can rise to the heights of complete
self-denial and lay down his life for his friends. The grand duchess not only wanted to
impart to charitable activities the spirit of the Gospel but to place them under the
protection of the Church. Thus she hoped to attract gradually to the Church, those levels
of Russian society, which up until that time had remained largely indifferent to the
Faith. Highly significant was the very name the grand duchess bestowed upon the
institution she established—the Martha and Mary Convent, which name contains within
itself the mission, the life of its holy patrons.
The community was intended to be like the home of
Lazarus which the Savior so often visited. The sisters of the convent were called to unite
both the high lot of Mary, attending to the eternal word of life, and the service of
Martha, to that degree in which they found Christ in the person of His less fortunate
brethren. In justifying and explaining her thought, the ever-memorable foundress of the
convent said that Christ the Savior could not judge Martha for showing Him hospitality,
since the latter was sign of her love for Him. He only cautioned Martha, and in her all
women in general, against that excessive fussing and triviality which draw them away from
the higher needs of the spirit.
To be not of this world, and at the same time live
and act in the world in order to transform it—this was the foundation upon which she
desired to establish her convent.
Striving to be an obedient daughter of the Orthodox
Church in all things the grand duchess did not desire to make use of the advantages of her
position fearing lest even in the smallest way she take liberties and depart from
obedience, from the rules or specific statutes established for everyone by the Church
Authority. On the contrary, she fulfilled with complete readiness the slightest desire of
the latter even if it did not coincide with her personal views. At one time, for example,
she seriously thought about reviving the ancient institution of deaconess, in which she
was zealously supported by Metroplitan Vladimir of Moscow. Bishop Germogen (at this time
of Saratov, later of Tobolsk where he was martyred), because of a misunderstanding, stood
up against this idea, accusing the grand duchess without any foundation, of Protestant
tendencies (of which he later repented), and counseled her to abandon her cherished dream.
Having been misunderstood in the best of her strivings, the grand duchess did not stifle
her spirit because of this trying disappointment, but rather put her whole heart into her
beloved Martha and Mary Convent. It is not surprising that the convent quickly blossomed
and attracted many sisters from the aristocracy as well as the common people. Nearly
monastic order reigned within the inner life of the community and both within and without
the convent her activities consisted in the care of those who visited the sick who were
lodged in the convent, in the material and moral help given to the poor, and in the
almshouse for those orphans and abandoned children found in every large city. The grand
duchess paid special attention to the unfortunate children who bore within themselves the
curse of their fathers' sins, the children born in the turbid slums of Moscow only to
wither before they had a chance to blossom. Many of them were taken into the orphanage
built for them where they were quickly revived spiritually and physically. For others,
constant supervision at their place of residence was established. The spirit of initiative
and moral sensitivity which accompanied the grand duchess in all her activities, inspired
and impelled her to search out new paths and forms of philanthropic activity, which
sometimes reflected the influence of her first, western homeland, and its advanced
organizations for social improvement and mutual aid. And so she created a cooperative of
messenger boys with a well built dormitory, and apartments for the girls who took part in
this activity. Not all of these establishments were directly connected with the convent,
but they were all like rays of light from the sun united in the person of their abbess,
who embraced them with her care and protection. Having chosen as her mission not only to
serve one’s neighbor in general, but also the spiritual re-education of contemporary
Russian society, the grand duchess wanted to speak to the latter in a closer, more understandable language
about Church art and Orthodox liturgical beauty. All the churches founded by her,
especially the main church of the convent, built in the Novgorod-Pskov style by the famous
architect Shchusev and painted by Nesterov, were distinguished by their austere style and
the artistic unity of the interior and exterior ornamentation. The crypt located under the
arches of the convent church also evoked general admiration for its peaceful warmth. The
church services in the convent were always outstandingly well performed, thanks to the
exceptionally capable spiritual father chosen by the abbess. From time to time she
attracted other fine pastoral strength from Moscow and all parts of Russia to serve and
preach. Like bees gathering nectar from all flowers, according to the words of Gogol, for
her, as a true Christian, there was no ultimate course of study and she remained a
conscientious humble student all her life.
All the external decor of the Martha and Mary
Convent as well the internal structure, and in general all the material creations of the
grand duchess were stamped with elegance and culture. This was not because she conveyed to
it some sort of self-satisfying significance, but because this was the spontaneous action
of her creative spirit. Having concentrated her activity around the convent, the grand
duchess did not sever her ties with those other social organizations and institutions of a
charitable or spiritually enlightening nature with which she had been bound by close moral
ties ever since her first years in Moscow. Among these, the Palestine Society occupied the
first place, so close to her because it called to life the deep Russian Orthodox feeling
of her spouse, Grand
Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, for the Holy Land. Having inherited from him the chairmanship
of this society, she imitated him in holy zeal for Sion and in tireless concern over
Russian pilgrims heading for the Holy Land. Her cherished dream was to go with them,
though she already had earlier visited the holy places together with the late grand duke.
The unbroken chain of activity and responsibilities, becoming more complicated with every
year, prevented her for a long time from leaving Russia for the Holy City. Alas! No one
then foresaw that she would arrive in Jerusalem only after her repose, in order to find
there a place for eternal rest.
Her mind was always in harmony with her heart, and
in the Palestine work she exhibited not only love and zeal for the Holy Land but a great
working knowledge, as if she directly controlled all the institutions of the Society.
During the last years before the war she was occupied with plans for the construction of a
metochion to St. Nicholas, in Bari, with a church worthy of the Russian name. The project
and model of the building, executed by Shchusev in the ancient Russian style, was
permanently exhibited in her reception room. Countless papers and callers, the examination
of various types of petitions and entreaties which were presented to her from all parts of
Russia, as well as other affairs, usually filled her whole day and frequently brought her
to the point of total exhaustion. This did not hamper her from spending the night at the
bedside of suffering patients or from attending services in the Kremlin and at the greatly
loved churches and monasteries in all parts of Moscow. The spirit strengthened the
weakened body (her only rest was pilgrimages to various parts of Russia for prayer.
However, even here the people took away the possibility of her finding seclusion and
quiet. Greatly honoring her royal birth and great piety, the people ecstatically met her
everywhere. The trips of the grand duchess to various cities of Russia, against her will
turned into triumphant marches).
Concealing her struggles, she always appeared before
people with a bright, smiling face. Only when she was alone or with a few close people,
her face and especially her eyes reflected hidden sorrow—the mark of a great soul
languishing in this world. Having detached herself from almost all earthly things, she
even more brightly radiated an inner light, especially by her love and tenderness. No one
could do an act of kindness more delicately—to each according to his need or
spiritual temperament. She was not only capable of weeping with the sorrowful but of
rejoicing with those who rejoice, which is usually the more difficult. Though not a nun in
the strict sense, better than any nun she observed the great law of St. Nilus of Sinai:
"Blessed is the monk who honors every man as (a) god after God." Find the best
in every man and, "Have mercy on the fallen," was the continual striving of her
heart. A meek spirit did not prevent her from blazing with holy wrath before injustice.
Even more strictly she judged herself if she made some mistake, however involuntarily.
Allow me to present a fact which witnesses to this facet of her character, as well as how
her sincerity won out against an inborn reserve and the demands of social etiquette. Once
during the time I was vicar bishop of Moscow she offered me the chairmanship of a purely
secular organization, not having any activities connected with the Church. I was
involuntarily embarrassed, not knowing how to answer her. Understanding my position, she
immediately said decisively, "Forgive me, I made a foolish suggestion," and thus
led me out of a difficult situation.
The high position of the grand duchess along with
her openness attracted many and various organizations and individual petitioners to her
for her help, protection, or authoritative influence in the higher echelons of both local
Moscovite and the central authority. She carefully replied to all petitions except for
those which bore political overtones. The latter she decisively rejected, considering
dealings with politics to be incompatible with her new calling.
She paid special attention to all institutions of
Church, charitable or artistic and scientific character. She also zealously worked to
preserve the more important daily customs and traditions which made life so rich in old,
beloved Moscow. The anniversary holiday of 1912 gave her an unexpected chance to exhibit
her zeal in this direction.
Here are the circumstances of this activity,
hitherto known only to a few people, including even those who had direct connection with
this work. During the elaboration of the program for the celebration of the hundredth
anniversary of the War for the Homeland, there arose in the special committee organized in
Moscow a heated debate over how to celebrate the Thirtieth of August, the final day of the
anniversary festival in Moscow, where the emperor, according to ceremony was supposed to
arrive from Borodino. The representative of the ministry of the court offered to place at
the center of the festival day a visit by the emperor to the Zemsky Kustarny Museum, which
had absolutely nothing to do with the historical recollection of 1812.
Others supported my proposed offer that this
memorial for Russia, St. Alexander Nevsky's Day, be noted with a festive service of
thanksgiving on Red Square. The ceremonial officialdom refused to put aside its plan,
protecting itself with the impenetrable iron plating of "imperial order," a
being whose existence no one, of course, could verify. As for me, a representative of the
clerical department, and those who were of like mind, all we could do was submit to the
inescapable. At my meeting with the grand duchess I told her all about the conflict that
had come to pass. Having heard out my tale in much distress she said, "I will try to
write about it to the emperor. It's true," she added with a reserved smile, 'for us
women, all is permitted."
Within a week, she informed me that the emperor had
changed the program according to our desires.
When the Thirtieth of August arrived it presented a
magnificent picture of a genuinely national, Church and patriotic festivity which will
never be forgotten by the participants. For this fete Moscow was indebted to the
intercessions of the grand duchess who exhibited in the present circumstance not only her
devotion to the Church but a deeply historical, purely Russian devotion.
At the beginning of the war she gave herself over
with complete self-sacrifice to the service of the sick and wounded soldiers whom she
visited not only in the hospitals and sanitoriums of Moscow but also at the front. Like
the empress, she was not spared the slander which accused them of excessive sympathy for
wounded Germans, and the grand duchess bore this unwarranted, bitter offense with her
usual magnanimity.
When the revolutionary storm broke out she met it
with amazing self-control and calm. It seemed that she stood on a high, unshakable cliff,
and from there fearlessly looked out at the waves storming around her and raised her
spiritual vision to eternity.
She did not harbor even a shadow of ill feelings
against the madness of the agitated masses. "The people are children, innocent of
what is transpiring," she remarked quietly. "They are led into deception by the
enemies of Russia." Nor was she depressed by the great suffering and humiliation that
befell the royal family who were so close to her: "This will serve for their moral
purification and bring them nearer to God," she noted once with radiant gentleness.
She suffered deeply for the royal family only when the thorns of grievous slander were
woven around them especially during the war. In order not to give impetus to new evil
gossip, the grand duchess tried to avoid conversations on the subject. If it so happened
that because of idle people's tasteless curiosity the subject was broached in her
presence, she immediately killed it by her expressive silence. Only once after returning
from Tsarskoe Selo, she forgot herself and remarked, "That terrible man (i.e.,
Rasputin) wants to separate me from them but, thank God, he will not succeed."
The charm of her whole temperament was so great that
it automatically attracted even the revolutionaries when they first arrived to examine the
Martha and Mary Convent. One of them, apparently a student, even praised the life of the
sisters, saying that no luxuries were noticeable, and that cleanliness and good order were
the rule, which was in no way blameworthy. Seeing his sincerity, the grand duchess struck
up a conversation with him about the outstanding qualities of socialist and Christian
ideals. "Who knows," remarked her unknown conversationalist as if influenced by
her arguments, "perhaps we are headed for the same goal, only by different
paths," and with these words left the convent.
"Obviously we are still unworthy of a martyr's
crown," the abbess replied to the sisters' congratulating her for such a successful
end to the first encounter with the Bolsheviks. But that crown was not far from her.
During the course of the last months of 1917 and the beginning of 1918, the Soviet power
to everyone's amazement granted the Martha and Mary Convent and its abbess complete
freedom to live as they wished and even supported them by supplying essentials. This made
the blow even heavier and unexpected for them when on Pascha the grand duchess was
suddenly arrested and transported to Ekaterinburg. His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon attempted
with the help of Church organizations to take a part in her liberation, but was
unsuccessful. Her exile was at first accompanied by some comforts. She was quartered in a
convent where all the sisters were sincerely involved. A special comfort for her was that
she was not hampered from attending services. Her position became more difficult after her
transfer to Alapaevsk where she was imprisoned in one of the city schools together with
her ever-faithful companion, Sister Barbara, and several grand dukes who shared her fate.
Nevertheless she did not lose her abiding firmness
of spirit and occasionally would send words of encouragement and comfort to the sisters of
her convent who were deeply grieving over her. And so it continued until the fateful night
of 5/18 July. On this night together with the other royal captives striving with her and
her valiant fellow-struggler Barbara in Alapaevsk, she was suddenly taken in an automobile
outside the city and apparently buried alive with them in one of the local mine shafts.
The results of later excavation there has shown that she strived until the last moment to
serve the grand dukes who were severely injured by the fall. Some local peasants who
carried out the sentence on these people whom they did not know, reported that for a long
time there was heard a mysterious singing from below the earth.
This was the great-passion-bearer, singing funeral
hymns to herself and the others until the silver chain was loosed and the golden bowl was
broken (cf. Eccles. 12:6) and until the songs of heaven began to resound for her. Thus the
longed-for martyr's crown was placed on her head and she was united to the hosts of those
of whom John, the seer of mysteries, speaks: "after this I beheld, and, lo, a great
multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and
tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms
in their hands;...And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are
they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white
in the blood of the Lamb" (Rev. 7:9, 14). Like a wondrous vision she passed over the
earth, leaving behind radiant traces. Together with all the other sufferers for the
Russian land, she appeared simultaneously as a redeemer for Russia and as a foundation for
that Russia of the future which is being raised up on the bones of the new martyrs. Such
images have a timeless significance; their memory is eternal on earth and in heaven. Not
in vain did the voice of the people declare her a saint during her lifetime. (It is
noteworthy that soon after the birth of the grand duchess, her mother, the Princess Alice,
a woman with a great and meek spirit, wrote to Queen Victoria about the name given to her
daughter. "We liked Elizabeth since St. Elizabeth is an ancestress of the Hessian, as
well as of the Saxon House." The late grand duchess had kept this name after being
united to the Orthodox Church and chose for her heavenly protectress, St. Elizabeth—5
September.)
As though in reward for her earthly struggles and
special love for the Holy Land, her martyred remains, which according to eyewitnesses were
found in the mine shaft completely untouched by corruption, were destined to rest at the
same place where the Savior suffered and rose from the dead. Exhumed on the orders of
Admiral Kolchak, together with the bodies of other members of the royal house killed at
the same time (the Grand Duke Sergei Michailovich, the Princes John, Igor, and Konstantine
Konstantinovich, and the son of the Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich, Prince Paley), their
remains and the bodies of the grand duchess and Sister Barbara were taken first to Irkutsk
and then to Peking where they remained for a long time m the cemetery church of the
Russian Ecclesiastical Mission. From there, through the concern of her sister, Princess
Victoria, the Marchioness of Milford-Haven, to whom she was closely bound during life, her
coffin and Sister Barbara's were transferred from Shanghai and sent to Palestine.
On the 15th of January, 1920, the bodies of both
sufferers were triumphantly met in Jerusalem by the English authorities, the Greek and
Russian clergy, as well as crowds of the large Russian colony and local inhabitants. Their
burial took place the next day and was served by the head of the Church of Jerusalem, the
Blessed Patriarch Damianos, together with a host of clergy.
As if destined for the purpose, the crypt below the
lower vault of the Russian church of St. Mary Magdalene was adapted as a sepulchre for the
grand duchess. This church, built in memory of the Empress Maria Alexandrovna by her
august children, was not strange to the deceased, for together with the Grand Duke Sergei
Alexandrovich she had been present at its consecration in 1888. Located on a picturesque
slope of the Mount of Olives, it is the best-styled and most graceful of all the churches
one finds in Palestine, attracting one's gaze even from a distance by its colorful and
purely Russian lines. The martyr herself could not have chosen a better resting place even
if, having foreseen that she would have to repose for a time outside her convent, she had
earlier prepared a grave for herself.
Here, everything reflects her spirit: the golden
domes of the church, sparkling in the sun amidst green olive trees and cypresses; the
artistic interior furnishings, stamped with the inspiration of Vereshchagin, and the very
character of the holy images, pierced through by the rays of Christ s Resurrection. Even
closer and dearer to her heart is the fragrance of the holy places, which breathes upon
her sepulchre from all sides. Below, beneath the tomb stretches out a unique view of the
Holy City with the great cupola of the Life-Giving Tomb rising on high; at the foot of her
tomb, the Garden of Gethsemane where in agony the Divine Sufferer prayed until drops of
blood appeared. Further on, Gethsemane itself, the place of the Mother of God's burial and
to the left one can discern half-concealed by the folds of mountains, Bethany, that true
Convent of Martha and Mary, the sister of Lazarus, whom the Lord called forth from the
grave; and above, the Church of St. Mary Magdalene joyously crowns Mt. Olivet, whence the
risen Savior rose gloriously to heaven in order to crown from there all those who amid
temptations remained faithful to Him until death (see Rev. 111:5, 21).
Jerusalem
5/l8 July, 1925
Originally appeared in Orthodox Life, vol. 31, no. 5 (Sept.-Oct., 1981), pp.
3-14. To read more about the life of this saint, consult Grand Duchess Elizabeth of
Russia: New Martyr of the Communist Yoke by Lubov Millar. Includes over 40
photographs and an extensive bibliography. However, the book is not without its problems.
Following is a short book review by Bishop Auxentios that appeared in Orthodox
Tradition, Vol. IX, No. 1, p. 25: "This book is not written in the pious manner of the traditional
hagiography of the Orthodox Church. One is astounded at the constant descriptions of the
physical beauty of the martyred Grand Duchess Elizabeth, commentaries on her jewelry
collection, and some effete preoccupations with la royaut. As well, the author
shows little knowledge of many Orthodox institutions, including the female diaconate and
monasticism. Nonetheless, the book provides beautiful glimpses into the life of a convert
woman who, having grown much in her Faith at a time when Russian Orthodoxy was not at its
healthiest, gave her life for Christ and the Church. Such glimpses make this handsome book
a treasury."
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