Why does the church not recognize the remains of the royal family? There are no more secrets for the investigation. Why are scientists conducting a new examination of the remains of the royal family? Is it true that the remains of the royal family may not be their remains? They say someone could have survived and escaped

Unholy shrines

According to MK, Patriarch Kirill will hold a meeting of the church commission on June 14 “to study the results of the study of the remains found near Yekaterinburg,” to which representatives of the Investigative Committee and a number of experts who took part in the research as part of the criminal case about the death of the royal family are also invited.

The main and only item on the agenda is the question of the ownership of the “Ekaterinburg remains.” Until now, the church has not rushed to make a decision, but there is a significant reason to speed up: in a little over a year it will be one hundred years since the night of the Romanovs’ execution. If even then the issue remains in its current, suspended state, history is unlikely to remember the current church leadership with a kind word for this.

Long farewell

The secular “vertical”, however, will also get nuts in this case. The ashes of two royal children - Tsarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria - remain unburied to this day, and this issue is within the competence of the government. Almost two years ago, on July 8, 2015, by order of the Prime Minister, an interdepartmental working group was created on issues related to the research and reburial of the remains of Alexei and Maria. The last news about the group's activities arrived on July 5 last year. “We are waiting for the end of the church examinations,” said then the head of the group, head of the government apparatus Sergei Prikhodko. - The timing depends on the church. We are in dialogue and contact and await their decision.”

The official’s statement clearly shows a desire to wash his hands: “this”, they say, is no longer for us. But this is unlikely to happen - from a legal point of view, all responsibility still lies with the authorities. The church, of course, has a lot of obligations to the Lord, but it is not at all obliged to answer for the debts of the state. By the way, initially the participation of the church in this mournful project was not intended at all. Until a certain point, the Patriarchate did not show any interest in the remains of Alexei and Maria. Moreover, the indifference looked downright defiant.

For reference: the ashes of the emperor’s son and daughter were discovered at the end of July 2007. All identification studies were fully completed by mid-2008, and on January 14, 2011, the criminal case was closed. After this, the question arose of what to do next with a handful of charred bones. It was impossible to bury Alexei and Maria next to the rest of the Romanovs, in the Peter and Paul Cathedral, without a government decision, which, as we see, does not exist to this day.

The ashes of two children of the last Russian emperor still remain unburied. In the photo: Alexey and Maria Romanov.

According to existing rules, human remains with which investigative work has been completed should be handed over to relatives, and if they do not show themselves in any way, they should be buried as unclaimed. It is clear that things did not come to this: the State Archives eventually accepted the ashes for storage. However, other options were also considered. The TFR tried to involve the Russian Orthodox Church in solving the problem. After all, we were talking about people recognized as saints. The answer that came from the Patriarchate discouraged the investigators: the Russian Orthodox Church does not lay claim to the remains and “does not insist” on participating in their future fate.

The Patriarchate held the same position in principle at the time of the creation of the government working group. Those in the corridors of power did not really count on the fact that it would undergo fundamental changes. The funeral of the Tsarevich and the Grand Duchess was then understood as a purely state event. Support the church - good. No - well, as they say, God be with her. There was no time for Chinese ceremonies, since the position of Vladimir Putin, on whose initiative the group was created, set a very strict rhythm: the president demanded that the issue be resolved as quickly as possible. This was directly stated by the chairman of the group at its first meeting.

It was the head of state, according to our sources in the government working group, who determined the initial date of the funeral - October 18, 2015, the Tsarevich’s name day. That is, 3 months were allotted for everything. But more, in general, was not required. All departments and institutions that were instructed to present their conclusions on this issue - the Investigative Committee, the FSB, the Russian Center for Forensic Medicine, the Institute of General Genetics. N.I. Vavilova RAS, the State Archive, the Institute of Russian History RAS, were unanimous in their opinion: no additional examinations are needed, the discovered remains were identified with the highest possible accuracy.

At its last meeting, held on September 11, 2015, the working group officially proposed to the government to bury the Tsarevich and the Grand Duchess on the specified date - October 18. But shortly before the final stop of this express, which was racing at full speed, someone seemed to press the stop valve. However, who clicked is clear. The same one who previously commanded “full speed ahead.” But the reasons for the decision remain in the realm of conjecture and assumptions.

Investigative fate

According to the official version, the turnaround was preceded by an appeal from the Russian Orthodox Church to the authorities with a request to take their time and conduct additional research. However, according to our data, in the beginning there was a completely different word. Vladimir Solovyov, a member of the working group, a criminal investigator of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, who was involved in the “royal case” from the early 1990s to the end of 2015, did not want a repetition of the scandalous story of 1998, when the church leadership ignored the burial ceremony. In order to solve this problem, the investigator suggested involving the church in the process of identifying the remains.

The following algorithm emerged: the Investigative Committee resumes the case and conducts several new genetic examinations, taking into account the wishes of the Patriarchate, and representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church will be able to monitor the investigative actions and make sure that there were no tricks or forgeries. It was not at all intended to postpone the funeral at that time - additional research should have been completed before October 18. Looking ahead a little, let’s say that, according to our information, the results of the first two examinations, which were ordered after the resuscitation of the “royal case” (September 23, 2015), were ready by October 10.

The secular authorities liked the idea. What can hardly be said about the top of the church vertical. According to our sources, Patriarch Kirill was “terribly unhappy” that the story with the remains took such a turn. According to informed interlocutors of the MK observer, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church would clearly prefer that this issue remain on the back burner until the end of his patriarchate. According to their information, it was Kirill, then still a metropolitan, who played a key role in the dramatic and scandalous events of 1998, using all his influence to ensure that the church leadership, and primarily Patriarch Alexy II, who was inclined to recognize the remains, ultimately refused this thought.

But it seems that the patriarch received an offer that he could not refuse. At the same time, the church negotiated a number of privileges for itself from the Kremlin: from an outside observer, it turned, in fact, into the main moderator of the process. And she did not fail to immediately show who is boss in this house. Firstly, the Patriarchate achieved the removal of the overly independent Solovyov from the case. Secondly, it sharply expanded the area of ​​its interests. At the request of the church leadership - although it would probably be more accurate to call it orders - a mass of new examinations were ordered: genetic, anthropological, physical-chemical, historical... Thirdly, a parallel investigation was launched - within the framework of the church commission on the remains. Of course, there was no talk of any October 18th. As well as about some other specific deadlines.

In general, work was in full swing. True, neither the Investigative Committee nor the Patriarchate have yet reported anything about any results of these righteous labors. Which is somewhat strange, considering that more than a year and a half has passed. It would not be amiss to remember that one of the main complaints of the church community against the previous investigation was that it was “classified from society.” But against the backdrop of the current closeness, that “character” looks like an example of transparency and publicity. Literally grains of information are now leaking outside the borders of the Investigative Committee and the Patriarchate.

The main and essentially the only official source of knowledge about the investigation into the “royal case” - both its official and church components - is today the Bishop of Yegoryevsk, Patriarchal Vicar Tikhon (Shevkunov). Tikhon is a kind of connecting link between the parts of a two-pronged investigative mechanism: a member of the church commission and at the same time a member of a group of experts conducting a comprehensive historical and archival examination within the framework of a criminal case. The bishop's last more or less detailed report on the progress of the research dates back to March 16 of this year.

It was presented at the International Conference “Veneration of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers and Glorification of the Royal Servants in Russia and Abroad.” In his speech, the bishop said, in particular, that samples of biomaterials provided to the church by the Investigative Committee were sent to two Western European laboratories, “the names of which, with the blessing of His Holiness, we do not disclose.” Each of the scientific centers received 10 samples, among which, “for the purity of the experiment,” there were also tissues that were obviously not related to the “Ekaterinburg remains” - ashes from burials of approximately the same age.

“All samples were personally numbered by His Holiness the Patriarch,” Tikhon shared the details. “I emphasize that scientists from Western European laboratories do not know what samples were brought to them.” According to the bishop, each of the containers with biomaterials is designated by a certain combination of numbers and letters, and this code is known only to the patriarch himself.

“Genetic examinations are close to completion,” Tikhon reassured. The same cannot be said about other studies, however. According to him, a new anthropological examination is to be carried out - with a complete “audit” of all the bones. A handwriting examination will also be carried out - based on a note from Yurovsky, the commandant of the Special Purpose House, and on a poetic inscription in German found on the wall of the execution room. We are talking about a quote from “Balthasar” by Heinrich Heine: “That night, as the dawn was glowing, the slaves slaughtered the king.” In addition, a special examination was appointed “to resolve the issue related to the possible ritual nature of the murder of the family of Nicholas II.” And so on and so forth.

According to Tikhon, the historical and archival examination is also very far from complete: “As research progresses, previous questions give rise to new questions. So if they gave us another year, we would be grateful.” In general, there is no end to the work.

This is not a royal body

However, answering the traditional question the other day - when the results of the activities of the church commission will finally be presented - Tikhon expressed himself incomparably more optimistically: “When there is the will of His Holiness the Patriarch, the Holy Synod, and perhaps the Local Council.” These words confirm the information from MK sources: all the examinations essential to identifying the ashes were carried out a long time ago. For example, the results of genetic research - both within the framework of the official investigation and those ordered by the Patriarchate - were ready in the spring of last year, 2016. And all of them, according to our information, completely repeat the previous version: the “Ekaterinburg remains” belong to the Romanovs and their servants.

As for historical and archival examination and other similar studies - including testing of various kinds of entertaining conspiracy theories - then, firstly, they no longer influence the solution to the issue of identification, and secondly, they can take an infinitely long time. In a word, no matter what the church hierarchs say on this matter, the amount of information they have is more than sufficient to put a confident end to the “royal matter.” The bagpipes are explained solely for political reasons. More precisely - church-political.

Problems and risks are visible, so to speak, to the naked eye. To recognize the “Ekaterinburg remains” as royal means to admit that 20 years ago the church leadership made the wrong decision. That those whom the radical-conservative wing of the Russian Orthodox Church has called all these years - and still calls them so - “grave diggers”, “swindlers”, “freemasons”, and even “accomplices of Satan”, are filled with greater insight, grace, yes, by and large, and faith, rather than ardent zealots of Orthodoxy. By the way, a serious theological question arises: why did the Lord open the eyes of many unchurched people, but left the official intermediaries between Heaven and Earth blind? There is something for theologians to think about.

But the church authorities are worried, of course, not only about lofty thoughts, but also about more prosaic matters. One of the questions that arises is: what to do with the monastery complex on Ganina Yama? Ganina Yama is an abandoned mine in the vicinity of Yekaterinburg, where the bodies of the Romanovs and their servants were brought after the execution and where the first attempt was made to bury them. Nikolai Sokolov, who led the so-called White Guard investigation into the death of the royal family since February 1919, having not found the remains, came to the conclusion that they were completely destroyed - dismembered and burned - in this place.

Sokolov discovered about 60 bone fragments at Ganina Yama - chopped and burned. The investigator suggested that these were human bones, namely, what was left of the prisoners of the Ipatiev House. However, these finds were never subjected to any examination. And, probably, they will no longer be subjected to this: the material evidence of the “White Guard” case, which Sokolov took with him into emigration, disappeared without a trace during the Second World War. Nevertheless, this story was continued. In 1998, new excavations were carried out at the same site, as a result of which bones were also found - very similar in configuration and size to those found by Sokolov. And, apparently, having the same origin. This time, experts were allowed to examine the finds, and, according to their categorical conclusion, the bones were not human, but cow and goat.

The Russian Orthodox Church to this day adheres to the version according to which the remains of the prisoners of the Ipatiev House were completely destroyed in Ganina Yama. In the photo: Patriarch Kirill during a visit to the monastery in Ganina Yama. Photo: ganinayama.ru

Nevertheless, the Russian Orthodox Church continued - and continues to this day - to adhere to Sokolov’s version. It is significant that the monastery on Ganina Yama, the monastery of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers, was founded in 2000. That is, after the finds were made in Porosenkovo ​​Log (7.5 kilometers from Ganina Yama) and the examinations carried out confirmed that the remains discovered there belonged to Nicholas II and members of his family. And even after the animal origin of the bones collected at Ganina Yama was proven. “The main shrine of the monastery is shaft No. 7, where the remains of the holy royal passion-bearers and their faithful servants were destroyed,” the Patriarchate website reports, as if nothing had happened. - There is a worship cross installed here. Every day after the evening service, the brethren of the monastery perform a religious procession around the mine.”

Along with the Temple on the Blood, erected where the Ipatiev House once stood, the monastery on Ganina Yama is today the main geographical point of the cult of the royal passion-bearers. Porsenkov Log, on the contrary, is completely absent from the church map. Every year on the “royal days”, on the night of July 16-17, several tens of thousands of believers march in procession from the Church on the Blood to what they believe to be the site of the destruction of the remains of the royal family. And these people will undoubtedly be severely disappointed when they find out that in fact, the remains of large and small livestock were destroyed at this place, having been eaten.

Yekaterinburg, religious procession on the “royal days”. Photo: ganinayama.ru

A powerful argument

Another potential “ambush” is connected with the remains of the Empress’s sister, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, who was also killed by the Bolsheviks - not far from Alapaevsk - and also canonized. The church today has no doubts about their belonging: they are revered as holy relics. And they are revered very highly. The icon of Elizabeth Feodorovna with a particle of her relics was received, for example, as a gift from the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, Vladimir Putin. Most recently, the president shared his feelings about owning the shrine: “I placed it at home. Then he walked and walked and forgot about her. Then I looked, and a simple thought came to my mind: she had returned home. Because I live exactly in the residence where her family lived.”

For reference: the “temple of registration” of the remains is the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Jerusalem, which belongs to the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. It is here that the crayfish stand, storing the bulk of the relics of Elizabeth Feodorovna and the nun Varvara Yakovleva, who was killed along with the Grand Duchess and canonized at the same time. The remains of the empress’s elder sister were discovered almost immediately after the Whites occupied the Urals, but their fate also turned out to be very difficult. After the Red Army went on the offensive, the coffins with the bodies of the Alapaevsk martyrs were evacuated further and further to the east and eventually ended up outside the country. The final destination of the mournful wanderings was the Holy City, where the remains of Elizabeth and her faithful companion were brought in January 1921.

In 2003, a group of Russian and American geneticists led by Lev Zhivotovsky (Institute of General Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences) and Alec Knight (Stanford University) undertook to study the DNA of Elizabeth Feodorovna. The task of the international team was to compare the “genetic passports” of the alleged empress and her sister. In theory, these two pictures should have coincided almost one to one. However, it turned out that the compared genotypes belonged to people who were not related. The scientists made a logical conclusion from their point of view: the “Ekaterinburg remains” were identified incorrectly. And critics of the investigation’s version have a new reason to cry out that the people were cruelly deceived by burying an unknown person in Petropavlovka.

However, the Patriarchate wisely refrained from adopting this argument. No, no one doubted the authority and competence of scientists. But the same could not be said about the object of study. This was a fragment of a finger provided by Anthony Grabbe, who headed the Russian Spiritual Mission in Jerusalem from 1968 to 1986 (the representative office of the ROCOR in the Holy Land) and took part in the opening of the coffin of Elizabeth Feodorovna in 1981. Grabbe swore and swore - including, according to some sources, under a judicial oath - that this was a particle of relics taken from that very coffin. But there is no documentary evidence to support his words yet. Officially, the ROCOR did not submit anything for examination; everything was done privately.

It is possible, of course, that Grabbe, to put it delicately, distorted the facts, or that he himself was deceived by someone. There is, however, another explanation for the discrepancy: the problem is not in Grubb, but in the coffin - in the relics themselves, for which, according to this version, the remains of another person are passed off. At best, nuns Varvara. It is believed that during movements around the world, during which the bodies of the martyrs were repeatedly reburied, they could have been confused with each other. But it cannot be ruled out that the confusion went even further. And, apparently, the patriarchy also has certain concerns in this regard.

Otherwise, it is difficult to explain the fact that among the numerous examinations ordered at the request of the Church by the Investigative Committee and carried out by the Church itself, the one that suggested itself in the first place is missing - the study of the remains of the Empress’s sister. Such foresight, by the way, is further confirmation that the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church really has no doubts about the authenticity of Alexandra Fedorovna’s ashes and other “Ekaterinburg remains.” But the official recognition of these ashes as holy relics opens the way to doubt about the authenticity of the relics kept in the Church of St. Mary Magdalene.

Reliquary with the relics of Elizabeth Feodorovna in the Church of St. Mary Magdalene (Jerusalem).

Revelation from the Romanovs

In essence, power and patriarchy have driven each other into a trap. By loudly declaring that nothing would be decided without the church, officials made themselves hostage to the patriarchy’s policies. The latter found itself in a position “between a rock and a hard place.” On the one hand, there is the government, which is showing obvious signs of impatience. On the other hand, there are Orthodox fundamentalists, threatening almost a schism if the church leadership prefers the familiar and beloved Ganina Yama to the Porosenkov Log - some vigilant true believers hear the word “forgery” in the name of the tract - and forces them to worship “false relics.”

“The church leadership has a very great responsibility,” says Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, a member of the government working group. “If believers refuse to venerate these remains as relics, it will be a difficult situation.” On the other hand, at some point you still need to have an honest, direct conversation with both the authorities and society.” Formally, by the way, Chaplin is also a member of the church commission on remains, but does not have any information about its activities. According to the archpriest, who was fired in December 2015 from his post as head of the Synodal Department for Relations between Church and Society and who subsequently entered into an open conflict with the church authorities, for obvious reasons he is not invited to meetings.

Nevertheless, it seems to him that “enough time has passed to achieve certainty.” According to the archpriest, next month the patriarch plans to come to Yekaterinburg for the “royal days.” And this will, apparently, not be a duty trip. “Tsar’s Days,” explains Chaplin, gathers a certain part of the Orthodox community, with which problems may arise in this regard: “Tens of thousands of ultra-conservative, monarchist-minded people come there. It’s important to feel the mood of these people: to enter into a direct dialogue with them, and right there, in Yekaterinburg, to listen to what they think about the remains.”

“The patriarchy has no choice but to recognize the remains,” says philosopher and politician Viktor Aksyuchits. Let us clarify that Aksyuchits is also directly related to this topic: in 1997–1998, he was an adviser to Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov and de facto secretary of the then government commission on remains. Another option, the MK columnist’s interlocutor believes, would be “simply nonsense.”

In addition, the patriarchy is unlikely to dare to enter into open conflict with the authorities. The government working group was created on the personal instructions of Putin, recalls Aksyuchits: “The position of the president is known, and I think it has not changed fundamentally.”

True, Aksyuchits foresees that in order to save its face, the Patriarchate will accompany the recognition with criticism of the actions of the previous government commission and the previous investigation: “They say that many mistakes were made then, but we did everything as it should. And adequate results were obtained. But they will keep silent about the fact that these results are completely consistent with the previous ones.”

If these assumptions are correct - and there are many reasons to believe so - then the meeting convened by the patriarch on June 14 can be considered the beginning of the recognition procedure. The Patriarch’s July trip to Yekaterinburg also fits well into this picture. You don’t even have to say anything to Kirill on this topic. An important symbolic and, in fact, explanatory gesture would have been just one visit to Porosenkov Log. Further, apparently, the issue will be submitted to the “Politburo” of the Patriarchate - the Holy Synod. Well, then - to the “plenum”, the Council of Bishops, which will be held at the end of the year, from November 29 to December 2. But, I think, it is not at all accidental that Bishop Tikhon mentioned the Local Council - an all-church congress - among the authorities with the relevant competence. It seems that the church leadership is not averse to sharing responsibility with the clergy and flock. And this, perhaps, would be a wise decision.

The work plan of the government working group may also undergo certain adjustments. It’s a paradox, but the church’s recognition of the “Ekaterinburg remains” contradicts the group’s ultimate goal: according to Orthodox traditions, holy relics should not be buried, but, on the contrary, placed in an elevated place in the church - for universal veneration. Which means: a) the remains of Alexei and Maria are not subject to burial; b) the ashes of their parents and sisters, resting in the Catherine's chapel of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, must also be brought to the surface. How this problem will be solved is not yet clear.

Perhaps the relics of the royal passion-bearers will still remain, as an exception, “resting under a bushel” - in the current tomb. Church practice, in principle, allows for this option.

By the way, based on mystical considerations, the last scenario seems to be the most preferable. The posthumous history of the Romanovs indicates that every time their ashes change their location, some disasters happen to the Russian state. A month after the opening of the burial in Porosenkovo ​​Log - July 1991 - the country was shocked by the August putsch, which ultimately led to the collapse of the USSR.

A month after their burial in the Peter and Paul Cathedral - July 1998 - a default was declared.

After the discovery and identification of the ashes of Alexei and Maria - the examinations were completed in the summer of 2008 - a new devastating crisis hit the country...

However, if we think from the point of view of the same mysticism, perhaps all these are hints from higher powers that the royal martyrs should quickly reunite and rest in peace. But in this case, it is better not to delay resolving the issue. God, he sees everything.

That the Church has not yet formed its position regarding the Yekaterinburg remains.

According to him, the investigation carried out in the 1990s was characterized by opacity and a complete reluctance to let the Church into this process. Therefore, the Patriarch, discussing this topic with the President of Russia, raised the question of a re-investigation, where “from the very beginning to the end the Church should not observe from the sidelines, but it should be included in this process.”

“And as a result of a new investigation, conducted anew according to all the rules of conducting an investigative case, we received some results,” said the Primate of the Church.

He emphasized that the results of the examinations are not tied to any dates or deadlines, so there can be no haste here.

“For us, this is not just a question of how this murder was committed, what it all meant, whether the remains found are the remains of the royal family. This is also a question related to the spiritual life of our people, because the royal family is canonized and is very deeply revered by the people. Therefore, we have no room for error,” he emphasized.

Deputy Administrator of the Moscow Patriarchate, Archimandrite Savva (Tutunov), said that the issue of the authenticity of the Ekaterinburg remains will be considered at the Council of Bishops, which will be held in Moscow from November 29 to December 4.

“The people who are responsible for studying this issue will probably say something. But it’s too early to talk about what conclusions will be drawn,” he said, emphasizing that the examination will take as long as necessary to complete it.

Chairman of the Synodal Department for Relations of the Church with Society and the Media, Vladimir Legoyda, noted that the completion of the examination is also “only a stage: you need to see how the results of one examination are combined with another.”

“This process will be as open as possible,” he promised.

Interrogations and examinations

Marina Molodtsova

Senior investigator for particularly important cases of the RF Investigative Committee, Marina Molodtsova, said that after the resumption of the investigation into the murder of the royal family, more than 20 people who discovered the burial of the remains and participated in the excavations were interrogated.

“With their participation, inspections of the crime scene were carried out - both Ganina Pit and Porosenkov Log, where they spoke about the circumstances known to them in the case,” Molodtsova said.

She also reported that the investigative authorities, after resuming the investigation into the death of the royal family, ordered 34 different examinations.

“The examination is not completed. There are only intermediate results on some issues,” the investigator said.

According to Molodtsova, “thorough research is being carried out on the remains of people found in two burials in Porosenkovo ​​Log. The experts were asked questions about the causes of death, establishing gender and family ties, and identifying various injuries.”

We are talking about the remains of nine people found in the area of ​​​​the Old Koptyakovskaya Road in 1991 and subsequently buried in the Romanov tomb in the Peter and Paul Fortress in 1998, as well as a find in 2007. Then, during archaeological excavations to the south of the site where the supposed remains of members of the Romanov family were discovered, burnt fragments of bones and teeth of a woman and child were found.

Molodtsova noted that the molecular genetic examination has not been completed, as well as the examination of the soil in order to establish the likelihood of their burning.

Version about ritual murder

The investigator said that a psychological and historical examination would also be carried out “to resolve the issue of the possible ritual nature of the murder” and an examination “on all versions of Yurovsky’s notes (Yakov Yurovsky is the immediate leader of the execution of the family of Nicholas II in the Ipatiev House. - Ed.), since there are doubts about the authorship of these notes."

“Carrying out examinations requires considerable time,” she concluded.

Bishop Tikhon (Shevkunov)

The secretary of the Patriarchal Commission for the study of the results of the examination, Bishop Tikhon (Shevkunov) of Yegoryevsk, also stated that the murder of Nicholas II and his family could have been of a ritual nature.

“We take the version of ritual murder very seriously. Moreover, a significant part of the church commission has no doubt that this was so,” he said.

The secretary of the commission emphasized that this version must be proven and justified. “This needs to be proven and justified. The fact that the emperor, even if he had renounced, was killed in this way, that the victims were distributed according to the killers, as evidenced by Yurovsky (one of the participants in the execution), and that many wanted to be regicides. This already suggests that for many this was a special ritual,” added Bishop Tikhon.

Denial of rumors

Vasily Khristoforov

Chief researcher at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, researcher of the history of Russian intelligence services, Doctor of Law Vasily Khristoforov denied rumors that the Bolsheviks allegedly cut off the head of Nicholas II and sent him to the Kremlin. According to the historian, this information was not confirmed during the investigation into the circumstances of the death of the royal family.

“We do not have not only a single document, but not a single indirect evidence of a participant in the events regarding the beheading,” said Khristoforov, who is a member of the Patriarchal Commission for studying the results of the study of Yekaterinburg remains.

The search must continue

Victor Zvyagin

The head of the department of forensic medical identification of the Russian Center for Forensic Medicine, Viktor Zvyagin, believes that the search for possible burial places of Emperor Nicholas II, his family members and servants must be continued.

According to the expert, this conclusion was made based on the mass of discovered bone and dental fragments of the burial, which presumably belongs to Tsarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Anastasia. “A total of 46 bone objects were delivered, most of which were less than a gram in mass,” he said, noting that this was significantly less than what experts estimated should have been found. In addition, bone fragments were found there that do not belong to humans.

“The results show that only one of several criminal burial sites has been discovered and the search needs to continue. There is information that several places have been discovered where it is possible for them (the remains. – Ed.) to be found using 3D radar methods,” Zvyagin said.

Complete burning is doubtful

Vyacheslav Popov

Chairman of the Forensic Medical Association of North-West Russia, President of the International Congress of Forensic Physicians Vyacheslav Popov is confident that the bodies of the family of Nicholas II and their servants could not have been completely destroyed by sulfuric acid and fire.

“There is no reason to overestimate the damaging effect of sulfuric acid; it, of course, could have been poured onto bodies, but it is impossible to destroy them with this method of exposure to concentrated acid,” the expert noted.

He said that experiments were carried out not only using concentrated sulfuric acid, but also an experiment examining the processes in the cremation chamber, which led experts to the conclusion that it was impossible to completely burn the bodies.

Patriarch Kirill also noted that it is necessary to once again check the version about the possible complete burning of the remains. He told how he himself witnessed the process of cremation of the dead in India.

“I was there and saw with my own eyes how cremations are carried out: they burn all day long, from early morning until late at night, using huge dry firewood. As a result of cremation, body parts still remain,” the Primate said.

At the same time, according to Marina Molodtsova, the investigation is considering all versions of the murder of members of the royal family, including the version of the complete burning of bodies in the Ganina Yama area. As part of the investigation of this version, “soil samples were discovered and taken from the territory of the monastery of the Royal Passion-Bearers.”

How the commission works: two groups

Its secretary, Bishop Tikhon (Shevkunov) of Yegoryevsk, spoke about the work of the Patriarchal Commission to study the results of the examination of the Yekaterinburg remains. According to him, expert groups of church and secular specialists “do not influence each other.”

“The Church Commission, which works with the blessing of the Patriarch, consists of historians, we have a historical part. The investigation involved experts in the field of criminology, anthropology, genetics and forensic experts. Forensic scientists and anthropologists work on their own. For us it is very important. There is no impact on them,” the bishop explained.

At the same time, he noted that the results of the work of different groups of specialists are known to everyone involved in the work on this case. “Historians have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the results of anthropologists and criminologists,” he added.

The last Russian Emperor Nicholas II and his family were shot in the summer of 1918 in Yekaterinburg. In 2000, the Russian Church canonized Nicholas II and members of his family; after opening a burial near Yekaterinburg, the remains of members of the imperial family were buried in the tomb of the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg.

In the fall of 2015, investigators resumed the investigation into the death of members of the Romanov dynasty. Currently, examinations are also being carried out to establish the authenticity of the remains found in 2007, possibly of Tsarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria.

Why this article was posted: Prime Minister Medvedev ordered the creation of a commission to study the remains of Alexei and Maria Romanov, which are still stored in the State Archive and “they should be buried with the rest of the family members.” However, thinking people have long understood that the “royal remains” are a fake. But who benefits from this?

The publication by Japanese geneticists of the results of a study of human remains, which official Russian authorities recognized as the remains of the family of Nikolai Romanov, caused a lot of noise. After analyzing the DNA structures of the Ekaterinburg remains and comparing them with the DNA analysis of the brother of Nicholas the Second Grand Duke Georgiy Romanov, the nephew of Emperor Tikhon Kulikovsky-Romanov, and DNA taken from particles of sweat from the imperial clothes, professor of the Tokyo Institute of Microbiology Tatsuo Nagai came to the conclusion that the remains , discovered near Yekaterinburg, do not belong to Nikolai Romanov and members of his family.

This is how the remains were stored in the Forensic Bureau of Yekaterinburg

This gave special weight to the arguments of that group of learned historians and geneticists who are confident that in 1998, in the Peter and Paul Fortress, under the guise of the imperial family, completely alien remains were buried with great pomp. For almost ten years, the problem of searching for and identifying the remains of Nikolai Romanov’s family executed in Yekaterinburg in 1918 has been dealt with by Vadim Viner, a professor at the Russian Academy of History and Paleontology. For this purpose, he even created a special Center to investigate the circumstances of the death of family members of the House of Romanov, of which he is the president. Wiener is confident that the statement of Japanese scientists could provoke a new political scandal in Russia if the decision of a special commission of the Russian government recognizing the “Ekaterinburg remains” as Romanov’s remains is not canceled. He spoke about the main arguments on this matter and what interests were intertwined in the “Romanov case” in an interview with Strana.Ru correspondent Viktor Belimov.

— Vadim Aleksandrovich, what reasons does Russia have to trust Tatsuo Nagai?

- There are enough of them. It is known that for an examination of this level it is necessary to take not distant relatives of the emperor, but close relatives. This means sisters, brothers, mother. What did the government commission do? She took distant kinship, second cousins ​​of Nicholas II, and a very distant kinship along the line of Alexandra Feodorovna, this is the English Prince Philip. Despite the fact that it is possible to find out the DNA structures of close relatives: there are the relics of Elizabeth Feodorovna, the Empress’s sister, the son of Nicholas II’s sister Tikhon Nikolaevich Kulikovsky-Romanov. Meanwhile, the comparison was made on the basis of analyzes of distant relatives, and very strange results were obtained with formulations such as “there are coincidences.” Coincidence in the language of geneticists does not mean identity at all. In general, we are all the same. Because we have two arms, two legs and one head. This is not an argument. The Japanese took DNA tests of the emperor’s close relatives.

Preparing for the funeral

Second. A very clear historical fact has been recorded that when Nicholas once, while still a crown prince, traveled to Japan, he was hit on the head with a saber. Two wounds were inflicted: occipito-parietal and fronto-parietal 9 and 10 cm, respectively. While cleaning the second occipito-parietal wound, a bone fragment the thickness of an ordinary sheet of writing paper was removed. This is enough to leave a notch on the skull - the so-called bone callus, which does not resolve. On the skull, which the Sverdlovsk authorities, and later the federal authorities, passed off as the skull of Nicholas II, there is no such callus. Both the Obretenie Foundation, represented by Mr. Avdonin, and the Sverdlovsk Bureau of Forensic Medicine, represented by Mr. Nevolin, said whatever they wanted: that the Japanese were mistaken, that the wound could migrate along the skull, and so on.

Nikolai in Japan. 1891

What did the Japanese do? It turns out that after Nikolai’s visit to Japan, they kept his scarf, vest, the sofa on which he sat, and the saber with which they hit him. All this is in the Otsu City Museum. Japanese scientists studied DNA from the blood that remained on the scarf after the wound, and DNA from cut bones discovered in Yekaterinburg. It turned out that the DNA structures are different. This was in 1997. Now Tatsuo Nagai decided to summarize all this data into one comprehensive study. His examination lasted a year and ended recently, in July. Japanese geneticists have proven 100 percent that the examination carried out by Mr. Ivanov’s group was pure hackwork. But the DNA analysis carried out by the Japanese is only a link in a whole chain of evidence about the non-involvement of the Yekaterinburg remains with the family of Nicholas II.

In addition, I note that an examination was carried out using the same method by another geneticist, the President of the International Association of Forensic Physicians, Mr. Bonte from Dusseldorf. He proved that the found remains and doubles of the family of Nicholas II, the Filatovs, are relatives.

The basement of Ipatiev's house, where the murder allegedly took place. Interesting - did you always glue wallpaper “in basements”? In addition, the blood of eleven people from the brutal execution and finishing off with bayonets should be everywhere. And on the door too, and on the fragments of shingles from the wall. And in the photo you can’t tell that the door or floor was washed. And where are the numerous feathers from the pillow that managed to briefly save the maid Demidova (she went down to the basement with the pillow? - why?).

— Why are the Japanese so interested in proving the mistake of the Russian government and Russian geneticists?

“Their interest here is purely professional. They have a thing that is directly related not only to the memory of Russia, but also to the entire controversial situation. I mean the handkerchief with the king's blood. As you know, geneticists are divided on this issue, as are historians. The Japanese supported the group that is trying to prove that these are not the remains of Nicholas II and his family. And they supported it not because they wanted it, but because their results themselves showed the obvious incompetence of Mr. Ivanov and, even more so, the incompetence of the entire government commission, which was created under the leadership of Boris Nemtsov. Tatsuo Nagai's conclusions are the last, very strong argument that is difficult to refute.

— Were there any responses to Nagai’s statements from your opponents?

— There were screams. From the side of the same Avdonin. Like, what does some Japanese professor have to do with it if the governor of the Sverdlovsk region, Rossel, supported us. Then it was said that this was inspired by some dark forces. Who are they? Apparently there are many of them, starting with Patriarch Alexy II. Because the Church initially did not accept the point of view of the official authorities.

— You said that DNA analysis is only a link in the chain of evidence. What other arguments are there to prove that there are no remains of the last imperial family in the Peter and Paul Fortress?

— There are two blocks of arguments. The first block is intravital medicine. Initially, Nikolai Alexandrovich and his family were served by 37 doctors. Naturally, medical documents were preserved. This is the easiest examination. And the first argument that we found concerns the discrepancies between the data from the doctors’ lifetime records and the condition of skeleton No. 5. This skeleton was passed off as the skeleton of Anastasia. According to doctors' records, Anastasia had a height of 158 cm during her lifetime. She was short and plump. The skeleton that was buried is 171 cm tall and is the skeleton of a thin person. The second is callus, which I already mentioned.

Third. In the diaries of Nicholas II, when he was in Tobolsk, there is an entry: “I sat at the dentist.” A number of fellow historians and I began to look for who was the dentist in Tobolsk at that time. He, or rather she, was alone in the whole city - Maria Lazarevna Rendel. She left her son notes on the condition of Nicholas II's teeth. She told me what fillings she applied. We asked forensic scientists to look at the fillings on the skeleton's teeth. It turned out that nothing matches. The Medical Examiner's Office again said Rendell was wrong. How could she be wrong if she, excuse me, personally treated his teeth?

We started looking for other records. And I found in the State Archives of the Russian Federation on Bolshaya Pirogovskaya, 17, the records of physician Evgeniy Sergeevich Botkin. In one of the diaries there is a phrase: “Nicholas II unsuccessfully climbed onto a horse. Fell. Broken leg. The pain is localized. A plaster cast has been applied.” But there is not a single fracture on the skeleton, which they are trying to pass off as the skeleton of Nicholas II. And we did this at minimal cost. Investigator of the Prosecutor General's Office Solovyov, who led this case, did not need to travel abroad and spend budget money, as he did with pleasure. It was enough to look into the archives of Moscow and St. Petersburg. But this does not indicate reluctance, but rather the fact that the authorities very much wanted to ignore these arguments and documents.

The second block of arguments is related to history. First of all, we raised the question of whether Yurovsky’s note, on the basis of which the authorities were looking for the grave, is genuine. And now our colleague, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Buranov, finds in the archive a handwritten note written by Mikhail Nikolaevich Pokrovsky, and not by any means Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky. This grave is clearly marked there. That is, the note is a priori false. Pokrovsky was the first director of Rosarkhiv. Stalin used it when it was necessary to rewrite history. He has a famous expression: “History is politics facing the past.” Yurovsky's note is a fake. Since it is a fake, you cannot use it to locate the grave. This is now a proven issue.

The situation in Ipatiev’s house under Commandant Yurovsky

Ipatiev's house. May 1918

Ipatiev's house before demolition. Photo from the 1970s.

Demolition

Demolition of the house of N.N. Ipatiev. Sverdlovsk, September 1977

- This also has a legal side...

“It is also full of oddities and absurdities.” We originally asked that all of this be displayed in the right margin. In 1991, Avdonin, who found the grave, contacted the Verkh-Isetsky District Department of Internal Affairs of Yekaterinburg with a statement about the find. From there they contact the regional prosecutor's office, and a prosecutor's inspection is ordered. The grave has been opened. Further it is unclear. A criminal case is not initiated, but as part of this inspection, a prosecutorial examination is appointed. This is already an obvious contradiction. That is, they had to initiate a criminal case in connection with the discovery of remains that showed signs of violent death. Article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. As a result, a criminal case is initiated under Article 102. Murder committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy. This is where real politics comes into play. Because a simple question arises: if you are taking a case based on the circumstances of the death of the royal family, then who should you involve as suspects in the murder? Sverdlov, Lenin, Dzerzhinsky - the city of Moscow? Or Beloborodova, Voikova, Goloshchekina - this is Uralsovet, Yekaterinburg. Who will you file a case against if they are all dead?

That is, a priori the case was illegal, and it had no judicial prospects. But under Article 102 it is easier to prove that these are the remains of the Romanov family, or rather, it is easier to ignore the arguments. How should one act if everything was done according to the law? You must set a statute of limitations and find out that no one can be held accountable. The criminal case is subject to closure. Next, you need to take the case to court, make a judicial ruling to establish personal identity, and then resolve the issue of the funeral. But this was not profitable for the Prosecutor General's Office. She spent government money, feigning vigorous activity. That is, it was pure politics. Considering that huge amounts of money from the federal budget were poured into this matter.

The Prosecutor General's Office initiates a case under Article 102 and closes it due to the fact that the remains belong to Nicholas II. It's the same difference as between sour and salty. Moreover, the decision about the remains was made not by the court, but by the government of the Russian Federation under Chernomyrdin. The government decides by voting that these are the remains of the royal family. Is this a court decision? Naturally not.

Moreover, the General Prosecutor's Office, represented by Solovyov, is seeking to issue a death certificate. I'll quote him: “The death certificate was issued to Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov. Born May 6, 1868. Place of birth unknown. Education unknown. His place of residence before his arrest is unknown. His place of work before his arrest is unknown. The cause of death was execution. Place of death: basement of a residential building in Yekaterinburg". Tell me, who was issued this certificate? You don't know where he was born? You don't even know that he was an emperor? This is the realest mockery!

-July 26, 1975. KGB Chairman Andropov appealed to the CPSU Central Committee with a proposal to demolish the “Ipatiev mansion” in Sverdlovsk: “Anti-Soviet circles in the West periodically inspire various kinds of propaganda campaigns around the Romanov royal family... recently foreign specialists have begun to visit Sverdlovsk. in the future, the circle of foreigners may expand significantly, and IPATIEV’s house will become the object of their serious attention...”

—What is the position of the Church?

“She does not recognize these remains as authentic, seeing all these contradictions. The church initially separated two issues - the remains separately, and the names separately. And then, realizing that the government will bury these remains, the Church makes the only correct decision from the “God knows their names” series. Here's the paradox. The Church buries under the motto “God knows their names,” Yeltsin, under pressure from the Church, buries some victims of the civil war. The question is: who are we burying anyway?

- What do you think was the purpose of this whole thing? The argument for traveling “abroad” is still weak. The level of the game is still slightly higher...

- Undoubtedly. I only mentioned what lies on the surface. There are several types of arguments here. The first type is based on Governor Rossel’s favorite phrase “to make history.” The essence of this argument is to show off against the backdrop of crowned heads.

But the banal reason is in the other direction. When did interest in the Romanovs arise? It was when Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, and then Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev, tried to improve relations with Buckingham Palace. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II said that she would not come to Russia until they apologize to her for the fate of Nicholas II. Nicholas II and her father are cousins. And she went only after they apologized to her. That is, all stages of the appearance and study of these remains are closely related to political events.

The autopsy of the remains took place a few days before the meeting between Gorbachev and Thatcher. As for Britain as such, there, in the Baring brothers’ bank, lies gold, the personal gold of Nicholas II. Five and a half tons. They cannot release this gold until Nicholas II is declared dead. Not even missing in action. Because no one put anyone on the wanted list. Therefore, he is not missing. According to UK law, the absence of a corpse and the absence of documents on the wanted list means that the person is alive. In this situation, apparently hoping that they will be able to process certain relatives, the authorities decide to search for the remains and conduct a poor-quality examination.

A fragment of wallpaper extracted from the Ipatiev house after the murder of the royal family with blood stains and lines in German from Heine’s poem “Balthasar”: “On this very night Belshazzar was killed by his servants” (kept in the State Archive of the Russian Federation). A very strange story. “Extracted” by whom?

- But even after that, the Baring brothers’ bank did not issue gold...

“It was not by chance that the Prosecutor General’s Office issued a death certificate. And a group of citizens turned to the bank for money. But the bank does not recognize this document. They are demanding a decision from a Russian court that Nicholas II died and these are his remains.

- Why are relatives ready to worship someone else’s grave if only they were given gold?

“For most relatives, of course, finding an authentic grave is more important than gold. They tried to drag them into this dirty game. Many refused, but some of the Romanovs still came to Yekaterinburg for the funeral.

Funny resemblance?

— What do you propose to do now that you have such influential people as Japanese scientists among your allies?

- Let's return the matter strictly to the legal field. We'll take it to court. The court will reject the evidence system of the Prosecutor General's Office. Since there are already two court rulings in Germany on the recognition of the Yekaterinburg remains as relatives of the Filatovs. That is, you still need to determine whose remains these are and hand them over to relatives, let them decide where to bury them. That is, the procedure for removing the remains from the Peter and Paul Cathedral is looming.

- Do you know whose remains these are?

— If you believe German scientists, these are the remains of the Filatovs, doubles of Nicholas II. And Nicholas II had seven families of doubles. This is also a fact already known. The system of doubles began with Alexander the First. When his father, Emperor Paul the First, was killed as a result of a conspiracy, he was afraid that Paul's people would kill him. He gave the command to select three doubles for himself. Historically, it is known that there were two attempts on his life. Both times he remained alive because his doubles died. Alexander II had no doubles. Alexander the Third had doubles after the famous train crash in Borki. Nicholas II had doubles after Bloody Sunday 1905. Moreover, these were specially selected families. Only at the last moment did a very narrow circle of people find out which route and in which carriage Nicholas II would travel. And so the same departure of all three carriages took place. It is unknown which of them Nicholas II sat in.

Documents about this are in the archives of the third department of the Office of His Imperial Majesty. And the Bolsheviks, having seized the archive in 1917, naturally received the names of all the doubles. Next, Sergei Davydovich Berezkin appears in Sukhumi, ideally similar to Nicholas II. His wife is Surovtseva Alexandra Fedorovna, a copy of the Empress. And he has children - Olga, Tatyana, Maria, Anastasia. They covered the king.

— When did they become known?

— People have been talking about Berezkin since 1915. He also lived in Sukhumi during Soviet times. Died in 1957. The KGB used it to work with the monarchist-minded population. They went to see him as if he were Nicholas II, and the authorities found out who went and why they went. The problem of doubles really exists. There, only the child who portrayed Alexei Nikolaevich did not have hemophilia.

— How did you form families?

— There were both real families and national teams. The problem of doubles needs to be identified and studied. The prosecutor's office said "amen" to this version. I have already said that she did not take into account any evidence that was contrary to the official point of view.

— Is there evidence that the Filatovs followed to Tobolsk, to Yekaterinburg?

- We don’t know this yet. Have questions. We have not yet been given these documents. The trail leads to the FSB building. From there, at one time, in 1955, information was leaked that a grave near Yekaterinburg was opened in 1946. Although there is a conclusion by Doctor of Medical Sciences Popov that the grave is 50 years old, not 80. As we say, in the Romanov case, one question was answered - 20 more arose. The matter is so complicated. This is worse than the Kennedy assassination. Because the information is strictly dosed.

— What was the point of going into this grave in 1946?

“Perhaps it was created at that time.” Let us remember that in 1946, a resident of Denmark, Anna Andersen, tried to get royal gold. Starting the second process to recognize herself as Anastasia. Her first trial did not end in anything; it lasted until the mid-30s. Then she paused and in 1946 filed a lawsuit again. Stalin apparently decided that it was better to make a grave where “Anastasia” would lie than to explain these issues to the West. There are far-reaching plans here, many of which we don’t even know about. We can only guess.

— Did the Filatovs live at that time?

- Don't know. Filatov's trail is lost.

— And what relatives did the scientist Bonte communicate with?

— He talked with Oleg Vasilyevich Filatov. This is the son of Filatov, who portrayed, according to some sources, Nikolai himself, according to others - Alexei. Obviously, Oleg himself heard the ringing, but does not know where it is. The German compared his analyzes with the German relatives of the Filatovs and with the Yekaterinburg remains. And I got a 100% match. Nobody denies this examination. They are silent about her. Although in Germany it has judicial status. No one has ever talked about doppelgängers. I once stuttered in one interview, they told me that I was crazy, although I was raising a problem that really existed.

— What do you intend to do in the future?

— We would like to create some kind of discussion club and hold a series of Internet conferences. In September, the famous scientist-historian Vladlen Sirotkin is scheduled to come to Yekaterinburg. He is collecting documents on Russia's claims to Western debts. According to him, not only do we owe the West, but the West also owes us. The amount of debt is $400 billion. The Czech Republic, England, France, America, Japan, Germany, Italy owe us. A lot of money was sent to the West for the purchase of weapons during the First World War. These were collateral for future deliveries. But there were no deliveries. Our property is there. Here is the price of the issue, which really stands behind all this. We need to show that the problem is multifaceted. It is very important for us that we went against the government, the official authorities, including the government of the Sverdlovsk region. We were persecuted in order to establish historical truth.

And today they are trying to instill in us a cartoon about “the Grand Duchess and so on and so forth” Maria Vladimirovna, who wants a residence in Russia?

Especially for royalists, monarchists and those simply wishing to “join the roots”:

The “queen’s” father, SS Obergruppenführer Vladimir Kirillovich, commanded the Corps of the Imperial Army and Navy during the Great Patriotic War. All monarchists in the French SS division "Charlemagne", the Belgian SS division "Wallonia", and the Danish SS corps were subordinate to him. At the end of the war, he united his Imperial Corps with the 1st RNA of General Boris Smyslovsky, with whom he fled to Liechtenstein.

Maria Vladimirovna's aunt, Maria Kirillovna, was married on November 24, 1925 to a naval officer, Prince Karl of Leiningen. At the end of the war he was captured by the Soviets.

And their daughter Margarita married Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, whose father, Prince Friedrich Victor von Hohenzollern, colonel of the Prussian and Saxon armies, was a division general of the Romanian army and chief of the Romanian 3rd mountain ranger battalion named after Prince Friedrich von Hohenzollern. The units were at Stalingrad!

Maria Vladimirovna’s second aunt, her father’s sister, Kira Kirillovna, is married to Luftwaffe Air Force officer Louis Ferdinand, the grandson of German Emperor Wilhelm II.

Maria Vladimirovna's maternal uncle, Leonida Georgievna's brother, Irakli Georgievich, was Rosenberg's personal assistant in the Third Reich...

Both in words and in pictures:

Dear gentlemen, monarchists and other royalists who sympathize with them! I understand, I can’t wait! But somehow you have to control yourself... At least try...

*Extremist and terrorist organizations banned in the Russian Federation: Jehovah's Witnesses, National Bolshevik Party, Right Sector, Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), Islamic State (IS, ISIS, Daesh), Jabhat Fatah al-Sham", "Jabhat al-Nusra", "Al-Qaeda", "UNA-UNSO", "Taliban", "Majlis of the Crimean Tatar People", "Misanthropic Division", "Brotherhood" of Korchinsky, "Trident named after. Stepan Bandera", "Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists" (OUN)

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The royal family was glorified by the Russian Orthodox Church in the guise of passion-bearers in 2000, but there is still heated debate in society over the royal remains.

Peter and Paul Cathedral. Tomb of the Imperial House of Romanov (St. Petersburg)

"Recent history" of the remains

The “recent history” of the remains began with a study of the burial place of the royal family, which was undertaken in the seventies of the last century by the consultant to the USSR Minister of Internal Affairs, film screenwriter Geliy Ryabov. Thanks to his connections, he had access to special storage facilities and could familiarize himself with the case materials. Together with Sverdlovsk geologist Alexander Avdonin, he determined the location of the search. The film scriptwriter and geologist were based on the so-called “note” of Yurovsky (Yakov Yurovsky - security officer, organizer of the execution of the royal family). According to this document, the bodies of nine people - members of the royal family and four of their servants - after execution were doused with sulfuric acid and buried near the road in Porosenkovo ​​Log, and the remains of Tsarevich Alexei and one of the princesses were “burned and buried nearby.” By the way, the very fact of the authenticity of the “note” has been repeatedly questioned; some claim that this document is a fake.

After three years of searching (from 1976 to 1979), Ryabov and Avdonin discovered the burial of nine people in the area of ​​the crossing of the 184th kilometer of the Gornozavodskaya railway line. However, excavations began only in 1991. They were carried out under the control of the prosecutor's office of the Sverdlovsk region. 700 bones and their fragments were recovered from the burial ground. After the examination, a second opening of the burial ground was carried out, and about 250 more bone fragments were discovered. The state examination confirmed that these remains belong specifically to the royal family. In July 1998, they were solemnly buried in the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg.

In 2007, Yekaterinburg journalist and local historian Vitaly Shitov and retired police captain and historian Nikolai Neuymin discovered the ashes of two people, a man and a woman. The bones were actually found "not far" from those removed from the ground in 1991. Researchers are confident that these are the ashes of Tsarevich Alexei and Princess Maria.

“In our searches, we started from Yurovsky’s “note,” says Neuimin. - It was indicated there that not far from the burial of the “royal remains” after the burning, the ashes of the crown prince and one of the princesses were buried. What does the word “nearby” mean? It could be five meters or fifty. This is not the first time that many have attempted to find these remains on their own; the area near the railway was literally plowed, the entire lowland next to the swamp was dug up. We chose the nearest hill on the south side. The “note” says that the Bolsheviks dug a hole 45-50 centimeters deep and threw the burnt bones there, covering them with earth. Therefore, we looked for a thick layer in the soil. 12 days later we discovered the remains. They can be roughly divided into two parts. Firstly, these are absolutely normal bones, intact, yellow in color. Secondly, black and burnt, of which only a shell remains, crumbling in the hands. I personally explain this by the fact that when the remains were cut up (by the way, characteristic traces of a log house were visible on many bones), some were burned, and some simply did not have time. Such bones constitute approximately 9 percent of the ashes, which we consider to be the remains of Tsarevich Alexei, and 10 percent of the Grand Duchess Maria. Radial bones, lower parts of the skull, pelvic bones, about fifteen perfectly preserved teeth, as well as five bullets were also found. Unfortunately, many of the remains were immediately destroyed, because we removed them from the ground quite spontaneously, and from the charred bones, as I already said, only a shell remained. Now everything we found is stored in the State Archives.”

Academic battles

Opponents recall the civil war and the fact that thousands died in the Ural forests at that time: where is the guarantee that the remains belong to the imperial family, and not to one of the other victims? It is also argued that such a high degree of preservation of skeletons after fire and hydrochloric acid is simply impossible. Proponents appeal to the latest technologies in the field of examination.

Descendants of the imperial family also spoke out against recognizing the authenticity of the remains. The director of the office of the imperial house of Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, Alexander Zakatov, stated that there were no sufficient grounds for recognizing the remains. “No one is saying that it’s not them, but there are a number of serious questions that have not yet been answered,” he said in an interview.

Last year, a press conference was held at the St. Petersburg press center of RIA Novosti, at which the scientific director of the study of the royal remains, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Nikolai Yankovsky, stated that the ashes found near Yekaterinburg undoubtedly belonged to the family of the last Russian emperor. In his statement, the academician placed the main emphasis on the latest methods of genetic research, which were previously unavailable. “The remains can be recognized as authentic with a probability 100 billion times higher than the opposite attribution,” Nikolai Yankovsky said at a press conference.

Historian Nikolai Neuimin has absolutely no doubt that the bones he found belong to Tsarevich Alexei and Princess Maria. Commenting on the incident in Osu, he refers to the words of a scientist from the Institute of General Genetics. N.I. Vavilov RAS Evgeniy Rogaev, who claims that the DNA of Nicholas II could have been preserved in drops of blood on a scarf only under ideal conditions, for example, having been in a dark closet all these years. “If a sample with blood is in the open air, then within five hours the DNA is destroyed,” Nikolai Neuymin cites the opinion of Evgeniy Rogaev. “It’s pointless to look for DNA in a scarf that has been lying around for all these years.”

Position of the Church

Metropolitan Kirill commented on this situation at that time as follows: “I defend to the best of my ability the point of view of the Orthodox Church and consider the position of the state authorities to be erroneous.”

The Church has not changed its attitude to the issue to this day. “In this situation, we are dealing with the private opinion of individual people, even academicians,” Archpriest Maxim Maximov, a member of the Synodal Commission for the Canonization of Saints, told us. - It is now obvious that society is divided in its attitude towards the Yekaterinburg remains, and the Church should not interfere in this discussion. If there is no consensus about the remains in the scientific community, it is all the more early for us to draw any conclusions. In addition, the Synodal Commission did not deal with the issue of the authenticity of the Yekaterinburg remains; they were examined by experts from the State Commission. Research has been conducted since the nineties, but scientists still cannot agree among themselves. What can we say here?

The secretary of the commission for the canonization of saints of the Saratov diocese, a member of the Inter-Council Presence, Priest Maxim Plyakin also believes that for now it is premature and even dangerous to draw any conclusions: “As long as the learned men cannot agree among themselves, the more the Church cannot make any final judgments . Because the price of a mistake for us is false relics. And here the question is not whether the Church allegedly prevents or does not prevent the honoring of these remains. Look at the situation here: the passion-bearers have been glorified for church-wide veneration, canonization has been completed and they are included in the general church calendar. But the question is whether a particular Christian recognizes these remains as relics or not. After all, there were similar disputes around the remains of St. Seraphim. Despite the fact that at that time the Church recognized these remains as authentic, doubts among the children of the Church about this still remain. And if one of the Orthodox does not consider it possible for himself to honor the remains located in Diveyevo precisely as relics, then this does not at all concern the holiness of the saint himself. It’s just that a person believes that these remains are not the relics of St. Seraphim of Sarov. The situation is the same with the remains of the royal martyrs. If the Church does not recognize the Ekaterinburg remains as authentic, and therefore as relics, this in no way affects the veneration of the royal passion-bearers themselves.”

Dmitry BORISOV

05/10/2015

On October 18, the remains of Tsarevich Alexei and his sister, Grand Duchess Maria, are to be buried in the Cathedral of the Peter and Paul Fortress. The Russian Orthodox Church, however, doubts the authenticity of these remains, as well as the remains of all other members of the royal family buried in 1998.

P On her initiative, the ashes of Nicholas II had just been exhumed for new genetic research. The desire to get to the bottom of the historical truth should, of course, be welcomed. It is strange, however, that this interest is so selective. For example, the authenticity of the relics of Alexander Nevsky or any other historical saint does not raise any doubts in the church.

As is known, the remains of Nicholas II and members of his family (with the exception of Alexei and Maria), as well as a doctor and three servants, were discovered in 1991. After numerous examinations in 1998, a government commission chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov recognized their authenticity. The remains were buried with all possible honors in the Peter and Paul Cathedral. The Church, however, did not agree with the experts' conclusions. Patriarch Alexy II did not participate in the ceremony, and the memorial service was served as if they were nameless: “Their names, Lord, you weigh.”

Those who disagree with the authenticity of the remains refer, in particular, to the investigation of Nikolai Sokolov, conducted in 1918. A week after the execution of the royal family, Yekaterinburg was occupied by whites who began searching for the remains. The head of the investigative commission, Nikolai Sokolov, came to the conclusion that the bodies were completely destroyed in the Ganina Yama area. This is seven kilometers from Porosenkova Log, where they were found in 1991.

The remains of Alexy and Maria were discovered in 2007 not far from the first burial. After genetic examinations in 2008, they were recognized as the remains of the children of the last emperor. After which they were stored in the State Archives. In the spring of this year, the idea arose to bury the prince and his sister next to their parents. A specially created commission set the date of the funeral: October 18. The Church, however, once again stated its lack of confidence in the reliability of the examinations. On her initiative, the remains of Nicholas II were exhumed for a new examination.

“Not a single historian from the Institute of Russian History and only one representative of the Orthodox Church was invited to the first commission; there are very big questions for the new commission,” Deacon Vladimir Vasilik outlined the position of the skeptical clergy to City 812. - The official conclusions contain many innuendoes. On the skull, which is conventionally identified as the skull of Nicholas II, there are no traces of a blow from a samurai sword, although there could not have been any. This skull has teeth in a disgusting state, untreated, which is completely impossible. And one more factor, rather of a religious-mystical nature. Everyone knows what level of veneration we have for the king and the royal family today. If these remains were genuine, people would be drawn to them as if they were relics. But the people turn away from them, and this is a spiritual criterion indicating their inauthenticity. We should not forget who did all this in 1998 - the same notorious shaker of Russian statehood, Boris Nemtsov. “Many clerics are skeptical about the authenticity of these remains.”

The church's surprising reluctance to acknowledge the authenticity of the remains has never found an unambiguous interpretation. There were even the most exotic versions - for example, it was not possible to obtain land for the construction of a church in the Porosenkova Log area, so it was necessary to build it near Ganina Yama, so the theory that the remains were destroyed there turns out to be preferable.

The political explanation seemed much more serious: Patriarch Alexy allegedly did not want to strongly link the church with the Romanovs, for fear of losing the audience of communist grandmothers (at that time Orthodoxy and Leninism/Stalinism had not yet learned to coexist peacefully in one head). In fact, they were canonized only in 2000 after much debate, not least in order to get closer to the foreign church, which the Moscow Patriarchate had dreamed of annexing since Stalin’s times.

Finally, there are procedural issues: until the church recognized that the “Ekaterinburg remains” belonged to the royal passion-bearers (the last Romanovs have this status), they are not holy relics. And as soon as he admits it, they will automatically become one. Miracles must be performed over holy relics, miracles must be documented. In general, there are quite a lot of difficulties.

“In 1998, when the Yekaterinburg remains were buried, the Patriarchate officially stated that it did not recognize their authenticity. Therefore, now, in order to be consistent, we need to express doubts further - not all people have a short memory, many remember how things happened,” says Deacon Andrei Kuraev. - And then this decision was largely determined by the choice of experts. Under Patriarch Alexy there was a Mr. Belyaev who assured him that the remains were not real. In addition, the burial commission was headed by Boris Nemtsov, and in the church environment some said that “the Jew is forcing holy relics on us.” This factor must also be kept in mind. Now, of course, these are not times like under Yeltsin, and the patriarchy cannot afford such open opposition to the authorities, but it still shows doubts. That is, there is a question of preserving the honor of the cassock.”

Therefore, it is quite possible that now, after new examinations, the church will be convinced of the authenticity of the remains - both Nikolai and Alexei. After all, now is the right time to find holy relics, not like in 1998: Russia is rising from its knees, Crimea, the Russian world is already in Syria. Miracles just can't help but start happening .