Troparion to Saint Martyr Emperor Nicholas II

World's Largest Orthodox Church Planned where Russia's Last Emperor was Murdered

The largest Orthodox church in the world will be built in the territory of the female monastery dedicated to the "Bread Dispenser" icon of the Mother of God. This cathedral should be capable of gathering nearly 40,000 faithful within its walls.

The starets of the monastery, Igumen Sergiy (Romanov), announced the project. He is an almost legendary and rather mysterious character, with links to many Russian public figures: the Duma deputy Natalja Poklonskaja (ex-Crimean prosecutor), the hockey champion Pavel Datsjuk, the singer Aleksandr Novikov, and others, including several entrepreneurs and oligarchs, all ready to finance the grandiose project.

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Theophany 1916

Czar St.Nicholas II attending Theophany services with the troops.

Russian Church plans a church and cemetery for the site where the Royal Martyrs were first buried

MOSCOW — Visitors from around the world have turned an isolated ravine in central Russia into a pilgrimage site in recent years. They arrive to gaze at the unadorned earth where the Bolsheviks, in one final act to defile the dynasty that they toppled, are believed to have dumped the remains of Czar Nicholas II and his family in July 1918.

But now the site is being threatened by an unlikely opponent: the powerful Russian Orthodox Church, which to this day has not acknowledged that the bones retrieved there over the last two decades are those of the royals.

The church wants to build a large Russian Orthodox cemetery and cathedral at the site, effectively obliterating its historic and archaeological value, according to professionals who have worked at the site and experts on the royal family. The church hopes to begin construction in April, when its leader, Patriarch Kirill I, visits for a groundbreaking for the project, in Yekaterinburg, in the foothills of the Ural Mountains.

The project will not include memorials or other references to the remains because the church does not believe they are genuine, a position that flies in the face of an overwhelming scientific consensus based on extensive DNA testing by major laboratories in Russia, Europe and North America.

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113 years ago today

The coronation of the Holy Royal Passion Bearer Czar Nicholas II