Elizabeth Holy Martyr Biography

Life is a brief life of the Martyr Grand Duchess Elizabeth Rev. Martyr Grand Duchess Elisaveta was born on November 1 in the Protestant family of the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt Ludwig IV and Princess of Alice, the daughter of the English Queen Victoria. Seeing the deep faith of her wife, the Grand Duchess with all her heart was looking for an answer to the question - what religion is true?

She prayed warmly and asked the Lord to open his will to her. In the same year, Grand Duke Sergey Alexandrovich was appointed Governor-General of Moscow. Visiting temples, hospitals, children's shelters, a nursing home and prison, the Grand Duchess saw a lot of suffering. And everywhere she tried to do anything to facilitate them. After the start of the Russian-Japanese war, Elisaveta Feodorovna helped the front, Russian soldiers.

She worked until complete exhaustion. From the explosion of the bomb of the revolutionary terrorist, Grand Duke Sergey Alexandrovich died. Elisaveta Feodorovna, who was rushing to the place of the explosion, saw a picture, which in her horror surpassed human imagination. Silently, without a scream and tears, standing on her knees in the snow, she began to collect and put on a stretcher a part of her body beloved and alive a few minutes ago her husband.

At an hour of difficult testing, Elisaveta Feodorovna asked for help and comfort from God. The next day, she took communion of the holy secrets in the temple of the Chudov monastery, where the coffin of the wife stood. On the third day after the death of her husband, Elisaveta Feodorovna went to prison to the killer. She had no hatred for him. The Grand Duchess wanted him to repent of his terrible crime and pray to the Lord for forgiveness.

She even gave the sovereign a petition for the pardon of the killer. Elisaveta Feodorovna decided to devote her life to the Lord through service to people and create in Moscow the abode of labor, mercy and prayer. She bought a plot of land with four houses and a vast garden on Bolshaya Ordynka Street. In the monastery, which was named Marfo-Mariinsky in honor of the holy sisters of Martha and Mary, two temples were created-Marfo-Mariinsky and Pokrovsky, a hospital, which was later considered the best in Moscow, and a pharmacy in which the medicines were released poor for free, children's shelter and school.

Outside the walls of the monastery, a black woman was arranged for women with tuberculosis. The sisters vowed, following the example of a monk, to conduct a virgin life in work and prayer. The next day, Saint Vladimir, Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomensky, entrusted eight -pointed cypress crosses to the sisters, and Elisaveta Feodorovna elevated the abbess of the monastery to the sisters.

The Grand Duchess said that day: “I leave the brilliant world in the Marfo-Mariinsky monastery Grand Duchess Elisaveta Feodorovna led an ascetic life: I slept on a wooden bed without a mattress, often for no more than three hours; I used food very moderately and strictly observed posts; at midnight I got up to prayer, and then went around the whole wards of the hospital, often until dawn, often until dawn.

Remaining the bed of seriously ill, she told the abode to the sisters: “Is it scary that we are trying to euthanize such sufferers from false humanity on their imaginary recovery. We would have provided them with the best service if we had prepared them in advance for a Christian transition to eternity. " Without the blessing of the confessor of the monastery, Archpriest Mitrofan Serebryansky and without the advice of the elders Optina Vvedensky desert, she did nothing of other monasteries.

For complete obedience to the old man, she received inner consolation from God and acquired the world in her soul. Since the beginning of World War I, Grand Duchess organized help to the front. Sanitary trains were formed under her leadership, warehouses of drugs and equipment were arranged, and hiking churches were sent to the front. Her soul was shocked, she could not speak without tears.

Elisaveta Feodorovna saw what kind of abyss Russia flew into, and bitterly cried about the Russian people, about her dear royal family. In her letters of that time there are the following words: “I experienced such a deep pity for Russia and its children who do not know what they do at present. Is this not a sick child whom we love a hundred times more during his illness than when he is fun and healthy?

I would like to bear his suffering, Holy Russia cannot die. But Great Russia, alas, no longer. The Grand Duchess Elisavet Feodorovna was arrested on the third day of the Holy Easter of the year, on the bright Tuesday. On that day, St. Tikhon served a prayer service in the monastery. She was allowed to go to the sisters of the monastery Varvara Yakovleva and Ekaterina Yanysheva.

They were brought to the Siberian city of Alapaevsk on May 20.

Elizabeth Feodorovna was sent to Yekaterinburg and released the companions of Elizabeth. But Barbara’s sister got her to be left under the Grand Duchess. Outside the city, on an abandoned mine, and a bloody crime was committed. With the platform, the martyrs of rifles, the executioners began to throw them into the mine. The Grand Duchess Elisaveta was first pushed.

She was baptized and prayed loudly: "Lord, forgive them, they do not know what they are doing!Strongly wounded, she tore off part of the fabric from her apostolic and made a dressing to Prince John to alleviate his suffering. The peasant, who accidentally turned out to be near the mine, heard a cherubic song in the depths of the mine - it was martyrs who sang.

A few months later, the army of Admiral Alexander Vasilievich Kolchak was occupied by Yekaterinburg, the bodies of the martyrs were extracted from the mine. In the Mentions of Martyrs, Elizabeth and Barbaras and the Grand Duke John fingers were folded for the sign of the sign. During the retreat of the White Army, the coffins with the relics of the Martyrs were delivered to Jerusalem in the year.

Currently, their relics are resting in the temple of Equal -to -the -Apostles Mary Magdalene at the foot of the Eleonian mountain. The Martyr Monki Barbara was a cross sister and one of the first inhabitants of the Marfo-Mariinsky monastery in Moscow. Being a cell and sister, closest to the Grand Duchess Elisaveta Feodorovna, she was not extolled and was not proud of it, but was good, affectionate and courteous, and everyone loved her.

In Yekaterinburg, sister Varvara was released, but she and the other sister - Ekaterina Yanyshev asked them to return to Alapaevsk. In response to intimidation, Varvara said that she was ready to share the fate of her mother-native. Like an older one in age, it was returned to Alapaevsk. She accepted the martyrdom at the age of about 35 years. The memory of the Martys of the Grand Duchess Elizabeth and the nun Barbara is performed on July 5 and on the day of the Cathedral of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian.

The complete life of the Martyr Grand Duchess Elizabeth Holy Rev. Martyr Grand Duchess Elisaveta Feodorovna was the second child in the family of the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstad Ludwig IV and Princess Alice, the daughter of the Queen of English Victoria. Another daughter of this couple - Alice will subsequently become the Empress Russian Alexandra Feodorovna.

Children were brought up in the traditions of old England, their life passed in strict order established by their mother. Children's clothing and food were the simplest. The older daughters themselves did their homework: they cleaned the rooms, beds, drowned the fireplace. Subsequently, Elisaveta Feodorovna said: "I was taught everything in the house." The mother carefully monitored the talents and inclinations of each of the seven children and tried to raise them on a firm basis of Christian commandments, put in the hearts of love for their neighbors, especially for the suffering.

Parents of Elizabeth Feodorovna handed out most of their condition for charitable needs, and the children constantly went with their mother to the hospitals, shelters, houses for the disabled, bringing large bouquets of flowers with them, put them in vases, carried patients in the wards. From childhood, Elizabeth loved nature and especially flowers that she drew enthusiastically.

She had a picturesque gift, and all her life she devoted a lot of time to this occupation. Loved classical music. Everyone who knew Elizabeth since childhood noted her religiosity and love for their neighbors. As Elisaveta Feodorovna herself later said, even in the earliest youth, the life and exploits of the St. Elisabeth Türingenskaya, in honor of which she bore her name, had a great influence on her.

In the year, the three -year -old brother of Elizabeth Friedrich crashed in front of his mother. In the city, mother spent at night at the beds of sick children. Soon, four -year -old Maria died, and after her the Grand Duchess of Alice at the age of 35 fell ill and died and died. That year it ended for Elizabeth's time of childhood. Woe strengthened her prayers. She realized that life on Earth is the path of the cross.

The child tried his best to alleviate the grief of his father, support him, console him, and to some extent his younger sisters and brother to replace his mother. She met her future spouse in childhood when he came to Germany with his mother, Empress Maria Alexandrovna, who also came from the Hessian house. Before that, all the applicants for her hand were refused: Princess Elisaveta in her youth vowed the virginity of celibacy.

After a frank conversation with Sergey Alexandrovich, it turned out that he secretly vowed virgins. By mutual agreement, their marriage was spiritual, they lived like a brother and sister. The whole family accompanied Princess Elizabeth for a wedding in Russia. Together with her came the twelve -year -old sister Alice, who met her future wife, Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich here.

The wedding took place in the Grand Church of the Winter Palace of St. Petersburg in the Orthodox rite, and after it and the Protestant in one of the living rooms of the palace. The Grand Duchess intensely engaged in the Russian language, wanting to study the culture and especially the faith of her new homeland more deeply. The Grand Duchess Elisaveta was dazzlingly beautiful.

In those days, they said that in Europe there are only two beauties, and both were Elizabeth: Elisaveta Austrian, the wife of Emperor Franz Joseph, and Elisaveta Feodorovna. Most of the year the Grand Duchess lived with her husband in their estate Ilyinskoye, sixty kilometers from Moscow, on the banks of the Moscow River. She loved Moscow with her ancient temples, monasteries and patriarchal life.Sergei Alexandrovich was a deeply religious man, strictly observed all the church canons, posts, often went to services, went to monasteries - the Grand Duchess everywhere followed her husband and idle long church services.

Here she experienced an amazing feeling, so unlike what she met in a Protestant Kirk. She saw the joyful state of Sergei Alexandrovich after the adoption of the Holy Mysteries of Christ and she herself so wanted to approach the Holy Chalice in order to share this joy. Elisaveta Feodorovna began to ask her husband to get her books of spiritual content, the Orthodox catechism, the interpretation of Scripture, in order to comprehend with the mind and heart, what religion is true.

Sergei Alexandrovich was already in the Holy Land in the year, where he participated in the foundation of the Orthodox Palestinian society, becoming his chairman.