Friday, August 09, 2013

Russian Orthodox Church still doubts authenticity of Russian royal family remains

Moscow, August 9, Interfax - The head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for Church and Society Relations Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin has said that the Russian Orthodox Church still has doubts regarding secular experts' conclusions that the human remains found near the city of Yekaterinburg belonged to the Russian Imperial Family members.

"In my opinion, a very wide range of competent experts, not necessarily just Orthodox experts, should be allowed to study the discovered remains," Father Vsevolod said.

It is important both to compare the DNA of some individual fragment with the DNA of the remains of other Imperial Family members, assess the wholeness of the skeletons, establish whether or not all of the found human remains have the same DNA and confirm the presence of former injuries, for example the injury that was sustained by Tsar Nicholas II during his trip to Japan when he was the heir to the Russian throne, the archpriest said.

There is also a need to compare different theories describing how the bodies were disposed of and buried, he said.
Read the rest here.

Sigh...

2 comments:

sjgmore said...

Could someone explain to this poor papist why the Orthodox Church doubts the validity of the remains... and furthermore, what the *implications* behind that doubt are?

Whenever I read about this it's always just "The ROC still doubts authenticity of Romanov remains" but clearly this is news because there's something more to it than that. Yet no one ever seems to comment on *what* is more to it than that.

Jason said...

sjgmore,
It's because the remains of the Royal Family were burned and covered in sulphuric acid over the course of 2 days, reducing their bones to powder. As Soviet tyranny was ongoing during the 1930's, there were other murders carried out at the Ganina Yama site where the dismembered Royal Family bodies were desecrated. As it stands, the ROC has good reason to doubt the identification of the remains. I would add that it is also good for them to challenge the veracity of these claims, as this will hopefully pressure the declassification of archives concerning the murder of the Royal Family, both in Russia and abroad.