Martyr andDuchessElizabethThe Royal Martyr

All Saints of North America

Orthodox Church

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Shrine of the Royal Martyr Elizabeth.

A "martyr" is aperson thatsacrifices their life,and fearlesslyconfesses JesusChrist as the Son ofGod and the Saviorof the world. Suchwas the love forJesus Christ of theHoly Royal MartyrGrand Duchess Elizabeth, and her faithfulcell-attendant St. Barbara, and those whowere martyred with them.

When the Russian Royal family were killedat the time of the Revolution in Russia,Grand Duchess Elizabeth, sister-in-law ofthe Tsar, was murdered as well. Elizabethwas an Orthodox nun, a convert fromProtestantism. Here is the story of her death,from the words of her murderer, Ryabov.

* * *We knew that the fate of the Tsar and hisfamily in Ekaterinburg, and of the othermembers of the Imperial family inAlapaevsk, had already been decided inMoscow, and were only waiting for the order

None of them, it seems, drowned, or choked inthe water and after a short time we were able tohear all their voices again.

Then I threw in a grenade. It exploded andeverything was quiet. But not for long.

We decided to wait a little to check whetherthey had perished. After a short while we heardtalking and a barely audible groan. I threwanother grenade.

And what do you think - from beneath theground we heard singing! I was seized withhorror. They were singing the prayer: 'Lord,save your people!'

We had no more grenades, yet it was impossibleto leave the deed unfinished. We decided to fillthe shaft with dry brushwood and set it alight.Their hymns still rose up through the thicksmoke for some time yet.

When the last signs of life beneath the earth hadceased, we posted some of our people by themine and returned to Alapaevsk by first lightand immediately sounded the alarm in thecathedral bell tower. Almost the whole towncame running. We told everyone that the granddukes had been taken away by unknownpersons!

to be taken to a safe place because of thepossibility of an armed attack.

They obeyed without a murmur. We tied theirhands behind their backs there and then,blindfolded them, and led them out to the cart,which was already waiting by the school, satthem in it and sent them off to their destination.

After that, we went into the room occupied bythe men. We told them the same thing, as we hadto the women. The young grand dukesKonstantinovich (KR's sons) and Prince Paley(Vladimir) also obeyed meekly. We took themout into the corridor, blindfolded them, boundtheir hands behind their backs and put them inanother cart. We had decided earlier that the cartsshould not go together. The only one who tried tooppose us was the Grand Duke SergeiMikhailovich.

Physically he was stronger than the rest. We hadto grapple with him. He told us catagorically thathe was not going anywhere, as he knew theywere all going to be killed! He barricadedhimself behind the cupboard and our efforts toget him out were in vain. We only lost precioustime. I finally lost my patience and shot at thegrand duke.

I only fired with the intention of wounding himslightly and frightening him into submission. Iwounded him in the arm. He did not resistfurther. I bound his wound and covered his eyes.We put him in the last cart and set off. We werein a great hurry: the dawn already heralded themorning.

Along the way, Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovichagain repeated he knew they were all going to bekilled.

to carry out the sentence.

We had already been searching for a suitableplace. We quickly found such a place, sometwelve from the town, where the bodieswould not be found immediately. We chose anabandoned half-flooded mine. Upon receivingthe news of the execution of the Tsar and all hisfamily from Ekaterinburg, we immediately putour plan into action, without losing a moment'stime.

It was night of the 17th to 18th July, 1918. Whenwe were sure the whole town was asleep, wequietly stole through the window into the schoolbuilding. Nobody there noticed our presence;they were already all asleep. We entered throughthe unlocked door into the building where thewomen were sleeping, and woke them up, tellingthem quietly to get dressed at once, as they were

versts

‘Tell me why' heasked me. 'I havenever beeninvolved inpolitics. I lovedsport, playedbilliards...wasinterested innumismatics.'

I reassured him asbest I could,although I wasmyself veryagitated byeverything I hadbeen through thatnight.

Despite his wounded arms and the pain,the Grand Duke did not complain.

At last we arrived at the mine. The shaftwas not very deep and, as it turned out,had a ledge on one side that was notcovered by water.

First we led Grand Duchess Elizabeth upto the mine. After throwing her down theshaft, we heard her struggling in the waterfor some time. We pushed the nun lay-sister Barbara down after her. We againheard the splashing of water and then thetwo women's voices. It became clear that,having dragged herself out of the water,the Grand Duchess had also pulled herlay-sister out. But, having no otheralternative, we had to throw in all the menalso.