DID YOU KNOW

One of the justifications for the Russian Revolution, which destroyed the last great Orthodox Empire on earth, was the invocation of images of "Bloody Nicholas" and his wife, the "consort" of Rasputin the "Mad Monk." The Bolsheviks distorted, twisted, and misrepresented history to attain their ends. They also spread rumors about those whom they wished to overthrow. And their version of history, especially in the United States, still stands, thanks to an American historiographical tradition, with regard to Russian history, that traces to the social unrest of the 1930's, when scholars sympathetic to the Eastern European revolutions were in the ascendancy.

As more recent and intellectually palatable historic works would aver, the Tsar Nicholas was anything but bloody. What actually emerges from accurate history is the image of a very sober man, misled by those around him in some instances, who was quite aware of his role in history and in the fate of his Orthodox nation -- something which non-Orthodox historians could never understand. Fluent in English, Russian, French, and German, he was anything but the dullard the Bolsheviks portrayed him to be. His moral life was something that he ever consciously attempted to improve and perfect, and his religious sensitivities were keen, as those who bother with primary sources quickly learn. The effete, half-educated scholars who have often come to condemn and to "hate" this monarch are perfect examples of how mediocrity and poor education, puffed up by the pride of our modern age, can serve the ends of anti-Orthodox views of man and of the world.

That Rasputin, who was probably more clever than mad -- and who was never a monk, but married, -- should remain a mystery in Russian history is silly. He entered the court with the introduction of a Bishop, who did not at the time know of Rasputin's darker side, and, as verified by court physicians, many times controlled the bleeding of the Tsarevich, who suffered unbelievable torment from haemophilia.

Because of this miraculous power over the young boy's disease (probably accomplished by hypnosis, which some modern observers claim is effective in the treatment of the ailment), the Tsarina [sic.], a wholly moral and upright woman, became dedicated to Rasputin. If anything at all, she is guilty of blindness to his problems caused by an admirable love for her child and by pain at the child's sickness that often incapacitated her. Not a shred of evidence exists for the filthy, perverted slander of those purveyors of lies -- the same lowly scum who resent all that is noble -- who claim that there was an immoral relationship between the Tsarina [sic.] and the peasant Rasputin.

As objective scholars in the West have begun to re-examine the available documents -- the Bolsheviks burned much of the material pertinent to this era in Russian history, -- a new image of the Royal Family is beginning to emerge. There is attention to the family's deep religious life, this attention untainted by the prejudice of those scholars who level against traditional Orthodox piety the charges of "occult" preoccupations and "weird" mysticism. Historians are also beginning to discount the reports of many of those around the Royal family who were jealous of them, who had xenophobic reactions to a non-Russian Tsarina [sic.], and who were involved in political intrigue which at least in part contributed to the fall of the Empire. Looking at personal correspondence, objective data, and the facts in proper perspective, the Tsar and his family are of late, even to the most anti-Orthodox scholars, more striking individuals than they had before been taught. Everywhere in the recent literature there is reference to the extent to which the Royal Family was deeply committed to an order which they considered divinely established and to the fearful fate that the family always somehow sensed was to befall it.

As for the martyrdom of the Tsar and his family, one must understand the forces which were in conflict in Russia: an Orthodox state and a political system which was, by its own admission, dedicated to the destruction of religion. Could anything be more clearly spiritual in nature than such a conflict? And how, then, could the principals in such a scenario be anything but martyrs, if they lost their life in the deepest throes of the conflict? How simple this is, yet how resistant a generation of duped Westerners seems to it! How difficult it is for us to shake ourselves away from the silliness of what we have been taught in our colleges and universities.

Toward the end of their struggle, the members of the Royal Family saw the deeply religious nature of the conflict in which Russia was involved. In fact, they became champions of the spiritual realm which they were called to rule. They suffered for their Faith. They were mocked and persecuted. Yet they did not renounce their Faith, even though they may have abdicated political power. And herein lies their witness: as peasants would cross themselves when passing the places where the family was under arrest, as guards would find themselves drawn to the family and unable to mistreat them in captivity, the Royal Family witnessed to the spiritual core of their political power, never once abdicating that to which God, not the State, had called them for the benefit of the State.

The demonic force which is communism -- materialism and anthropocentrism gone mad -- could not tolerate the spiritual witness of the Royal Family. Thus it is that they were brutally murdered (with the sign of the cross hastily made as their last acts on earth), their bodies burned for days, and the remains dissolved in acid. Hacked to pieces were the worldly remains of the Royal Family. And yet even this has not deadened their spiritual witness, as evidenced by their Glorification. Let the world say "politics" and call this inane; in the end, however, let the world explain the witness of these great people in our days -- these people whose personal faults (and they had them, like all Martyrs and Saints) were wiped away by their witness of Orthodox zeal, Christian love, unbelievable courage, and great patience.

If anyone would wish to know truly what the Royal Family means for our age, then let him hear, not the empty words of classroom professors duped by their own teachers and [their] own blindness, but the words of one who knew the Royal Family from daily life, the tutor of the Tsarevich, Pierre Gilliard:

"The Czar and Czarina [sic.] died believing themselves martyrs to their country: they have died martyrs to humanity. Their real greatness is not to be measured by the prestige of their Imperial dignity, but by the wonderful moral heights to which they gradually attained. They have become a force, an ideal; and in the very outrage they have suffered we find a touching testimony to that wonderful serenity of soul against which violence and passion can avail nothing and which triumphs unto death."

Let us all rise to the height of moral virtue in these monarchs, putting aside the arrogant vulgarity which we have been taught in our educational institutions about Orthodox monarchies and those who struggled to rule under the guidance of the Church, granting to our past Orthodox rulers forgiveness for their weaknesses and honor for their strengths. And let us also bow down humbly -- whatever our political views -- to the multitude of miracles flowing forth from the New Martyrs of Russia, chief among them, the Royal Family.