Martyrs Royal Passion-Bearers

The Royal Passion-Bearers are the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II Alexandrovich, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, and their five children: Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Tsesarevich Alexei. Following the Tsar's abdication in March 1917, the family was placed under house arrest at Tsarskoye Selo, later exiled to Tobolsk, and in the spring of 1918 moved to the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg. On the night of 16–17 July 1918 (4 July, Old Style), the entire family, along with several loyal attendants, was shot by the Bolsheviks in the house's basement. The Church glorified them not as martyrs for confessing the faith but as passion-bearers — saints who, in imitation of Christ, accepted suffering and death from political enemies without resistance, embodying meekness and steadfast faith to the end. ROCOR canonized the family in 1981; the Moscow Patriarchate canonized them at the Jubilee Bishops' Council on 20 August 2000, as passion-bearers within the wider Synaxis of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.