[ad_1]
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill on Sunday, March 14th, 2009, at 9:00 pm The Church of the Holy Trinity that commemorates the victims of Yekaterinburg (19659003) Another 20,000 people joined the commemorations when the procession arrived at the monastery in Ganina Yama after covering the distance of 21 kilometers (13 miles)
The monastery was built to honor the site where the burnt bodies of the last russian tsar and his family were thrown after their execution in the aftermath of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, regional authorities
The Bolsheviks shot the abdicated Tsar, his German-born wife and their five children along with their servants and doctor on the ght from July 16 to 17, 1918 as they were living under guard in the Urals city of Sverdlovsk, now Yekaterinburg.
Addressing the pilgrims, Patriarch Kirill said Russia should draw lessons "from this difficult and bitter experience."
"We must have lasting immunity against any of the ideas of the world." President Vladimir Putin
The state planned no official commemorations.
But the regional authorities said the popularity of the annual event has grown steadily over the past years, adding that just 2,000 people took part in a similar procession in 2002.
The Russian Orthodox Church is still divided over the authenticity of the remains of the family, whose members were all sainted in 2000.
The bones of Nicholas, his wife and three of their children were interred in Saint Petersburg in 1998 but the Orthodox Church refused to give them a full burial service
The bones of the Tsar's only his Alexei and his daughter Maria were found separately in 2007.
Tsar Nicholas II's family were all sainted in the year 2000
Source link
