From: grant%lock.dnet@aio.bitnet
Newsgroups: talk.politics.soviet
Subject: More comments on sanctity of the Royal Martyrs
Date: 23 Jul 92 22:27:29 GMT
Reply-To: "talk.politics.soviet via ListServ" <TPS-L@indycms.iupui.edu>

From:	SDS::"ORTHODOX@INDYCMS.BITNET" 23-JUL-1992 16:47:41.76
To:	9296$SPAN::GRANT
CC:
Subj:	re: Royal Martyrs / Glorification

Received: from VM.USC.EDU by Sdsc.BITnet with BSMTP via BITNET ;
	Thu, 23 Jul 92 21:46:34 GMT
Received: From USCVM(MAILER) by SDSC with Jnet id 1077
          for MAILER@SDSC; Thu, 23 Jul 1992 21:46 GMT
Message-Id: <920723214634.2300017b@Sdsc.Edu>
Received: from USCVM.BITNET by VM.USC.EDU (Mailer R2.08) with BSMTP id 1686;
 Thu, 23 Jul 92 14:45:17 PDT
Date:         Thu, 23 Jul 1992 16:40:00 EST
Reply-To: <ORTHODOX@INDYCMS.BITNET>
From:         GILSTRAP@IUBACS.BITNET
Subject:      re: Royal Martyrs / Glorification
To:           Multiple recipients of list ORTHODOX <ORTHODOX@INDYCMS.BITNET>

        I hope this is not a duplicate. I posted this a couple
        of days ago, but I never got a copy from the listserver
        so I'm resending it. Apropos to Valentine's perspective
        I lead off with an extract from the text - the words of
        Fr Dimitry Dudko:

"The Tsar Nicholas II is in the first ranks of the Russian martyrs. But
when you mention him, everyone for some reason remembers him as a ruler
[only as a political figure]. I speak of him now as a Christian, as a
martyr for Christ, as a Commander [in the Army] of Christ. Let us put it
that way, *finally*."

[*emphasis mine*]

        It was a point of Mark Markish's posting last Friday (4/17)
        which I would like to stress by this reposting:


>From:         Mark Markish x2799 <mmarkish@FEDS46.PRIME.COM>

>No matter how complicated the course of history actually is,
>locally (at every given moment) it seems to be more or less
>the same at all times: faith is cooling down and dissipating,
>the young are disrespectful to the old, traditional virtues
>are being lost, blood is being shed in vain all over the place...
>It takes decades an centuries to see the actual trend of history.

>Yet it has been perfectly clear for everyone since the regicide
>of 4th of July, 1918: this is a singularity on the history curve.

>Holy Royal Martyrs of Russia, pray to God for us!

        Agreeing wholeheartedly with Mark's statements, and with
        regard to the recent postings I thought I would repost the
        following:


first posting:  Date:         Thu, 21 May 1992 13:46:00 EST
                From:         GILSTRAP@IUBACS.BITNET
                Subject:      events of biblical proportions

        "One should know and recognize that the last blessed Tsars of
Russia - Alexander III and Nicholas II - financially supported the
establishment of the Orthodox Church in the United States. During
this time also, Russia was a great world power and a protector of
the Orthodox faith, Orthodox lands, and of Orthodox people."

        "But this peace and tranquility was not to last long. The
revolution put out a great light of the Orthodox Faith when the
Tsar was brutally murdered along with his wife and children and
then countless pious and true-believing Orthodox bishops, priests
and laypeople [including the father and brother of an aged priest
here in Bloomington who were serving at the St Nicholas Cathedral
in Kiev when they were dragged away and shot.] These are New Martyrs
for Christ."

        "With the fall of Russia, all financial support from Russia to
its parishes here in America stopped. Thus the Bolshevik Revolution
was a turning point in the history of Holy Orthodoxy in America. Here
begins the chaos and disorganization of the Church, which has continued
to the present day."

-------------
above from 'A Letter to the Orthodox Faithful' Hieromonk Kallistos
-------------
below from a speech of Archbishop (now Metropolitan) Vitaly in 1983 in
'Orthodox Life' 1991
-------------

Our pastors and flocks currently live under unique conditions which
without the slightest exaggeration or mystical passion can be referred
to as pre-apocalyptic. Already throughout the world there is not a
single leader or government that leads its people with any reference to
God's mercy or the grace of the Holy Spirit. The Anointed oF God has
been taken from the world. The epoch of Constantine, of government by
God's grace has come to an end. The last book of Scriptures has opened,
that of St John the Theologian.

We were given rulers and governments graced by God's providence, in
order that we could peacefully and responsibly pursue the salvation of
our souls. The Anointed One protected us from powerful, fiery
temptations, which descended upon us in the form of Communism and
Freemasonry....All careless and carefree people uill sooner or later be
faced with the question: who are you with? Christ or the devil? The
question will not be posed by the clergy, from whom we are used to
hearing these questions and to whom we no longer listen, but by the
devil and his emissaries, from whom proceed all the successes in life,
the wealth,and the earthly glory of the masses of people who occupy
themselves in such trivia.... The Lord has willed the demons to
bring out the true spiritual essence of this egotistical world...No
longer will it be possible to be neutral, noncommittal...

------------
below from Orthodox America 1981 (w/permission)
-------------

"The battle against Tsar Nicholas II was clearly bound up with the
battle against God and faith...He became a Martyr, having remained
faithful to the Ruler of those who rule, and accepted death in the
same way as the martyrs accepted it."  Archbishop John Maximovitch

     Very soon after Russia accepted the seed of the Gospel (in the
year 988) her soil was sanctified by the blood of the martyrs. The
pure young sons of Grand Duke Vladimir, Boris and Gleb, accepted
death at the hands of a political assasin in order to save their
people from civil war and terrible upheaval. They became sufferers
for righteousness (I Peter 3:14); being conformed to the innocent
suffering of Christ, they became true "Passion-Bearers."

     As in the beginning of Holy Russia, so at the end: it pleased
God to reveal Himself to the Russian people through the innocent
suffering of Boris and Gleb; now, in these latter times, He has
again unveiled Himself through the purifying suffering of a Tsar,
the Anointed of God and supreme Protector of Christ's Church in
Russia, Nicholas II.

     Western writers do not understand Orthodox monarchy. And
because America rebelled against the King of England, Americans in
particular have no sympathy for the idea of Monarchy. Indeed it is
almost a sacred tradition to applaud any nation that "comes to its
senses" and overthrows its king! The Tsars of Russia are viewed in
this same man-centered rather than God-centered light.

     But, in Orthodox Russia there once existed a society composed
not of "church and state" (such as existed in medieval Europe) but
of "government and priesthood" - a holy commonwealth. The Tsar was
never placed outside the Church or "above the law," but always
within the Church and subject to the law of Christ. He was very
much the "servant of the Gospel": he was required to live by it
and rule by it in order to be worthy of the blessings of God upon
himself, his family, and his nation. Such a righteous Father to his
people was the last Tsar, Nicholas II.

     Blessed Archbishop John Maximovitch has written: "Why was Tsar
Nicholas II persecuted, slandered and killed? Because he was Tsar,
Tsar by the Grace of God. He was the bearer and incarnation of the
Orthodox worldview that the Tsar is the servant of God, the
Anointed of God, and that to Him he must give an account for the
people entrusted to him by destiny..."

     In Orthodox teaching, Tsar Nicholas was the last
representative of lawful Christian authority in the world, the last
one to restrain the mystery of iniquity (II Thess. 2:27). (And,
indeed, from the time of his martyrdom can be dated the
unprecedented lawlessness, godlessness, and apostasy of this final
age: the complete unleashing of the forces of darkness, which now
threaten to completely engulf the world as a preparation for the
reign of Antichrist.)

     An Orthodox monarch receives his authority from God, but by
what means and in what manner does it come to him? Authority to
govern in the Name of God and perform the highest earthly ministry
descends upon a Tsar in the Sacrament of Anointing, at the time of
his coronation. After the crowning he is told that "this visble and
material adornment of thy head is to thee a manifest sign that the
King of Glory, Christ, invisibly croweth thee." The Anointing
takes place after the reading of the Gospel in Divine Liturgy. The
chief hierarch annoints the Tsar with Holy Chrism on the brow,
eyes, nostrils, lips, ears, breast, and hands, saying each time:
"The Seal of the Gift of the Holy Spirit." Thus, Nicholas II
received his authority through a Sacrament. The Holy Spirit was
upon him! "By rejecting the Tsar, the people blasphemed the
Sacrament and trampled upon the grace of God".

     In 1917, Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow saw in a vision the
Saviour speaking to Tsar Nicholas: "You see," said the Lord, "two
cups in my hands: one is bitter for your people, and the other is
sweet for you." In the vision the Tsar begged for the bitter cup.
The Saviour then took a large glowing coal from the cup and put it
in the Tsar's hands. The Tsar's whole body then began to grow
light, until he was shining like a radiant spirit. Then the vision
changed to a field of flowers, in the middle of which Nicholas was
distributing manna to a multitude of people. A voice spoke: "The
Tsar has taken the guilt of the Russian people upon himself and the
Russian people is forgiven."

     Nicholas himself once said: "Perhaps an expiatory sacrifice is
needed for Russia's salvation. I will be that sacrifice. May God's
will be done!" He had a very strong sense of his destiny as an
Orthodox ruler. Although he had an opportunity to flee the country
with his family and seek refuge outside Russia, he and his Empress
deliberately chose to stay and accept whatever awaited them. He had
been born on the feast of the Prophet Job and because of this he
often remarked to his advisors: "I have a secret conviction that I
am destined a terrible trial, that I shall not receive my reward on
this earth." No wonder that our Russian Bishops Abroad wrote (in
1968): "Job the Much-Suffering, on the day of whose commemoration
the Tsar was born said in his grievous suffering, concerning the
day of his conception: 'As for that night, let darkness seize upon
it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year' (Job 3:6).
Terrible was the night of the murder of the Tsar!"

     On that unspeakable night, "the prisoners were all in a deep
sleep when they were awakened and ordered to dress in order to
leave the city...The Imperial Family descended to the basement
where the Soverign sat down, with his ill son, on a chair in the
middle of the room. The Duchesses, the doctor, and three dedicated
servants were seated around him. Every one was waiting for the
signal to depart...At the executioners announcement (which stunned
all the prisoners) of the impending execution, the Empress
succeeded in crossing herself. She was killed instantly, together
with the Soverign. God spared them from hearing the groans of the
Tsarevitch and the cries of the wounded Grand Duchess Anastasia.
The first bullets did not bring death to the youngest ones and they
were savagely killed with blows of bayonets and gun-butts and with
shots at point-blank range. The most innocent and holy had suffered
the greatest torture!

     In the words of Fr. Dimitry Dudko, one of the first of that
wave of modern confessors to speak out against the betrayal of the
Church in Russia: "The Tsar is a saint and, moreover, one of the
greatest saints...O great saint of Russia, Great-Martyr Nicholas
pray to God for us!"

----------------
below from: Abbot Seraphim, Beijing, 1920, in Orthodox Russia, 1981, No 1
----------------

     "St Seraphim prophesied in clear words about the tragic fate
foreordained by God for the Tsar who would be present at the Sarov
solemnity [see below] of faith, when there would be Pascha in the midst of
summer (the glorification of St Seraphim in 1903). According to his
prophecy, if there would be repentance in the Russian people, God
would yet have mercy on her, but first He would allow for a time
the triumph of lawless men: the Tsar would be overthrown and
killed, so that the people might know in experience what life was
like under the Tsar anointed by God, and under the rule of men who
have trampled underfoot the law of God. St Seraphim, by revelation
from God, wrote in his own hand a letter to that Tsar who would come
to Sarov and Diveyevo, entrusting it to his friend Motovilov, who
gave it to Abbess Maria, who in turn handed it personally to
Emperor Nicholas II in Diveyevo on July 20, 1903. What was written
in the letter remains a secret, but one can suppose that the holy
elder saw all that was to happen and warned against the frightful
events to come..."

----------------
below from Orthodox Life Sept-Oct 1978:
----------------

"Is the martyred Royal Family of significance only to Russians? While
they do indeed posses a special significance for Russian believers ...
their significance as martyrs and innocent Sufferers in Christ
transcends any particular national context and in many ways they are
worthy examples of Orthodox life and piety which can be emulated by all.
And their innocent suffering, deep humiliation, and cruel death should
indeed evoke the sympathy of everyone of Christian conscience every
where in the world. Also we may recall that the language they used was
English and their blood predominately non-Russian!...[Since both the
Empress Alexandra and her mother-in-law were conscious converts] this
placed the Martyred Royal Family in a particularly close relationship to
converts and to English speaking Orthodox, revealing the universal
nature of Holy Orthodoxy and showing that Orthodox piety and conviction,
even unto martyrdom, are gifts of the Holy Spirit which transcend
'blood', language and other inherited characteristics...

below, Fr. Dimitry Dudko:

"In reply to the slanderous fabrications of the Literary Gazette, I
turned immediately to the radiant and fearless memory of the martyred
Russian peasants and nobility....and when I placed at their head the
Russian Tsar... voices of accusation rained down upon me from abroad -
from the free world - 'What are you doing? It will be difficult to
defend you. Why have you found it necessary to include these monarchist
passages...?"

"The Tsar Nicholas II is in the first ranks of the Russian martyrs. But
when you mention him, everyone for some reason remembers him as a ruler
[only as a political figure]. I speak of him now as a Christian, as a
martyr for Christ, as a Commander [in the Army] of Christ. Let us put it
that way, *finally*."      [*emphasis mine*]
----------
below from Orthodox America 1982 (w/permission)
-----------

The word "canonization" is a Roman Catholic term having to do with the
process by which the Church of Rome formally declares a person to be
among the blessed in Heaven. Very few are familiar with the term
"Glorification". Some think it is merely the 'orthodox' word for
canonization especially since in translations the word has sometimes
been used. The words are not equivalent and refer to different things.

[description (of the lengthy Roman process of investigation and trials with
'promoters' and 'devil's advocates'... and the legalistic understanding
of virtue and sanctity tied up with Roman doctrines of merit and super-
numerary works) deleted]

In the Orthodox Church, however, there is no legalistic weighing of
evidence and examination of merits....a process has been developed by
which a saint is given public recognition with a culminating act called
'glorification'.

In the early Church a martyr's death inspired christians at once to
begin venerating and praying to such holy men and women. Miracles worked
in answer to prayer and from contact with these martyr's relics further
confirmed their sanctity. There was no single formal public recognition
of these saints. A person is in heaven whether or not the Church on
earth makes a declaration on it.

Blessed John Maximovitch explains what happened next in the experience of the
Church:

"the choir of the saints grew unceasingly..., however the spiritual life
of Christians began to decline...there was no longer a clear sense of
what divine righteousness is. ..the general consciousness of the
faithful could not always distinguish who was a righteous man and
pleasing to God. In some places dubious persons attracted a part of the
flock...so the church authorities began to keep a watch over the
veneration of saints...by the time of the Baptism of Rus it had been
established that the acknowledgement of a new saint was to be performed
by Church authority...which only testified of sanctity...."

In order to prevent the piety of simple people from being exploited,
the church authorities guard over and guide the  procedures leading to
final, full, and public recognition of saints. Thus, in the cases of
St Herman, St John of Kronstadt, Blessed Xenia of Petersburg [and also
in the case of Blessed John Maximovitch, and in the case of the Royal
Martyrs] there had already been a long-standing *private* devotion to
these saints among Orthodox believers. The bishops request a formal
investigation into the lives and miracles of these saints in order to
determine/confirm the sanctity for the *whole* Church. When in the
fullness of God's time it is apparent that an individual's life and
works have been filled with the grace and glory of God, the bishop's
commission the writing of a service to that saint, the painting of an
icon, and the establishment of a feast day on the calendar. The actual
'glorification' takes place on a predetermined day (sometimes the
actual feast day of the saint) when as many hierachs and clergyu as
possible gather for the solemnities. [Tsar-Martyr Nicholas was a strong
supporter and proponent of the sanctity of St Seraphim of Sarov, and his
presence at the solemnities at Sarov was a prophesied event at which he
received the letter St Seraphim had written to him. After this the Tsar
was a 'changed' man whose whole purpose in life seemed to take on a
meaning and purpose which was reflected in his extreme piety and his own
prophetic words (see above).]


To "glorify" the saints is to bestow honor and praise on them.   Why?
Because they are already honored by God, and so filled with His grace
that, as Archbishop John has written,"it flows from them upon those
who associate with them." They have become Christlike - and all those
seeking Christ, and loving Him, instantly recognize this quality in the
saints and are drawn to them for this very reason.

---------

The statements from the still-enslaved hierarchs in Russia (not enslaved
by the power of state control, but by their own co-opted past and failure to
repent even in new-found freedom) besmirching the sanctity of the Royal
Martyrs is not surprising. Sadly they do not see the obvious effects of
the intercessions of the New Martyrs which have brought about the recent
changes in Russia - not coincidentally beginning after the world, by the
action of the Russian Church Abroad, acknowledged their martyrdom
and cried unto them to PRAY TO GOD FOR US. I repeat the title of this mail,
by pointing out that the 20th century martyrdom of the last orthodox
monarch was an event of biblical proportions. It truly initiated the
latter times.

> But let us not try to redeem this guilt by
> wholesale glorification of all victims [Roayl Family] of the Bolshevik terror.
>

The "victims of the Bolshevik terror" are already glorified.
It is now time for the Russian Church inside Russia "to associate with"
her saints, and by the act of repentance, "instantly recognize this
quality" in the righteous victims of the Soviet yoke so that "the grace
may flow onto them."

"The Sovereign of Russia was killed under the vaults of the Ekaterinberg
cellar, deprived of the royal crown by human insidiousness, but not - by
God's justice - deprived of holy anointing... The entire Russian nation
is guilty of the spilled blood of their Tsar. Some partook in the
murder, others just as blameworthy, approved of it, while still others
did nothing to interfere. All are guilty, and truly we must say: "His
blood be on us, and on our children" Betrayal, treachery, the breaking
of the oath of faithfulness to Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich and all his
successors, passivity, coldheartedness, insensitivity - these are the
elements of which the Russian people wove the wreath with which they
crowned their Tsar...

"Now the Emperor has received a martyr's crown. But this does not justify
us, it does not lessen our guilt. In the same way Judas, Pilate,
Caiapha, and those who demanded Christ's death were not justified
but even more severely indicted by Christ's Resurrection.

"It is a great sin to lift one's hand against God's anointed. When news
of Saul's murder was brought to King David, he ordered the messenger to
be killed, although the messenger did not take part in the murder but
only rushed to bring the news, thereby implicating himself in the
king's death. The least involvement in such a sin is not left
unpunished."

from "In Memory of the Martyrs" A Sermon deleivered by Blessed Archbishop
John Maximovitch (then bishop of Shanghai) on July 4/17, 1934,
before a memorial service for the repose of the souls of Tsar Nicholas II
and those killed with him.
Newsgroups: talk.politics.soviet