Martyrs of Alapayevsk

From their first days in power, the Bolsheviks not only continued the Provisional Government's policy of destroying the symbols of tsarist autocracy, but also began to erase any memory of the House of Romanov.

[3] In early April 1918, commissar Yakovlev left Moscow for Tobolsk, , where the Provisional Government had exiled the abdicated Russian emperor and his family, leading an armed detachment with an order from the Bolshevik leadership to deliver Nicholas II to Yekaterinburg.

[6] Upon their arrival in Ekaterinburg in April 1918, the exiles were accommodated in the Atamansky Rooms Hotel (at the beginning of the 21st century the building housed the FSS and the Sverdlovsk Oblast Home Affairs Department).

[11] The "escape" of Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich on June 12–13, 1918, was used as an excuse to transfer all the exiled Romanovs to the Urals under a strict regime of imprisonment.

A little later, Helen of Serbia (wife of Prince John Konstantinovich), who renounced her foreign citizenship to be near her husband, and also left the Napolnaya School.

[17] During the preparation of materials for canonization of new martyrs in the Center of documentation of public organizations of the Sverdlovsk oblast was found Transcript of memoirs of party members of Alapayevsky area 1917-1918.

(The meeting was held on January 6, 1933 and had the purpose of "preserving for history the memories of the Bolshevik Party organization of the Alapayevsky district in the period from the February Revolution of 1917 to 1921").

[19] (Memories of Vasily Ryabov, one of those involved in the assassination).Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich resisted, but was shot in the arm and then placed into the carriage.

Matilde Kshessinska, who later married Grand Duke Andrey Vladimirovich, wrote in her memoirs that in 1920, while in France, Andrey Vladimirovich learned that "the judicial investigator for special cases, Sokolov,[23] who had been appointed by Admiral Kolchak to investigate the murder of the Sovereign and the entire royal family in Ekaterinburg, as well as the members of the royal family in Alapayevsk, was in Paris.

This interested Andrey Vladimirovich due to the persistent rumors at the time suggesting that the victims had been rescued and hidden somewhere, and that Empress Maria Feodorovna was aware of their survival.

Ostroumov, a deputy prosecutor and commander of the Tobolsk regiment involved in the capture, reported that, according to his information, the Alapayevsk prisoners had been buried alive behind the town in a mine that had been detonated with grenades.

He managed to find witnesses who, on the night of July 18, had been returning to Alapayevsk on the Sinyachikha road and saw a “train” of horses heading towards the Verkhne-Sinyachikha factory.

On October 19, the cap of one of the Grand Dukes was discovered, followed by the recovery of the bodies, which were removed from the mine over the course of four days: Elizabeth Feodorovna, the Sister Barbara and Prince John Konstantinovich's fingers of the right hands were folded in the sign of the cross.

At the request of Hegumen Seraphim (Kuznetsov), the abbot of the Seraphimo-Alexeyev skete of the Belogorsk St. Nicholas Monastery, who was in Ekaterinburg, General M. K. Diterikhs received permission from Admiral Kolchak to transport the coffins.

[27] According to the memories of Hegumen Seraphim, recorded by Princess M. A. Putyatina (in monasticism, Seraphima), niece of the last imperial envoy to China, on the way it was hot and humid, and: A liquid was constantly leaking from the crevices of five coffins, spreading a terrible stench.

The coffins were taken to the Bogoroditsky (Pokrovsky) Convent with the assistance of the ataman Grigory Semyonov, where they were placed under the floor of the cell where Hegumen Seraphim resided.

Maria Mikhailovna, Ataman Semyonov's former wife, who had received a divorce settlement in the form of gold ingots, provided financial assistance for the transportation.

The Grand Duchess lay there as if she were alive and had not changed at all since the day I had seen her off in Moscow before I left for Beijing, except for a large bruise on one side of her face from the fall into the mine.

On April 16, 1920, the coffins were met by a procession at the Beijing railway station and transported to the Church of St. Seraphim of Sarov, located in the cemetery north of the Russian Theological Mission, behind the Andingmun Gate, about 2 km from the city.

Shortly afterward, with funds provided by Ataman G. M. Semyonov, an ambon was constructed under the pulpit of the church, where the bodies of the Alapayevsk martyrs were interred.

In November 1920, the remains of Elizabeth Feodorovna and Sister Barbara were reburied in Jerusalem.Before leaving, Hegumen Seraphim entrusted the keys to the crypt to Bishop Innocent, head of the spiritual mission.

№ 33By 1930, the church was in a state of complete disrepair: "The plaster had collapsed, the roof leaked badly, the wooden floor had rotted and settled.

In 1947, due to the threat of the advancing Communist regime, Archbishop Viktor authorized the Vicar of the Assumption Monastery of the Theological Mission, Archimandrite Gabriel, and Hieromonk Nicholas to move the remains of the Martyrs under the pretext of repairing the church.

In 1957, by order of the Soviet Ambassador to the People's Republic of China, P. F. Yudin, the church was demolished and replaced by a playground and embassy buildings.

[31] In the period from February 22 to 25, 2005, work was conducted on the territory of the Russian Embassy in Beijing to locate the site of the former Church of All Saints Martyrs.

[15] The coffins were accompanied by Hegumen Seraphim (Kuznetsov), who was joined in Port Said by Princess Victoria with her husband Luois and daughter Louise.

[15] The Cathedral Act states: Grand Duchess Elizaveta, the founder of the Marfo-Mariinsky Monastery in Moscow, dedicated her pious Christian life to charity, aiding the poor and the sick.

Alongside her faithful companion, Sister Barbara, she received the crown of martyrdom on the day of St. Sergius of Radonezh - July 5 (old style), 1918.

In her statement to the "Interfax" news agency, the lawyer said: "Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna believes that all the above-mentioned members of the Russian Imperial House were victims of the arbitrary rule of the totalitarian state and were subjected to political repression on social, class and religious grounds".

The official report stated that the analysis of archival documents "allows us to conclude that all of the above persons were subjected to repression in the form of arrest, expulsion, and being under the supervision of Cheka bodies, without being charged with a specific crime for class and social reasons".