GRAND DUCHESS MARIA AND TSAREVICH ALEXEI: WILL THEIR REMAINS FINALLY BE ALLOWED TO REST IN PEACE?

 

The reburial of two children of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna has finally been (tentatively?) scheduled for October 18, 2015. The ceremony will take place in the Peter and Paul Cathedral on Zayachi Island in St. Petersburg. This proposal was made by the Special Commission of the Russian government, under the leadership of Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers Sergei Prikhodko.   

The committee has been dealing with research and reburial of the Tsar’s children for several years. Currently the skeletal remains of (what is now accepted to be) Maria Romanov and her brother Alexei Romanov are kept at Russia’s State Archives. The other members of the imperial Romanov family were previously entombed at St Peter and Paul Cathedral, where all Russian Tsars and members of the imperial family  had been traditionally buried. 

 

 

 

The original burial place of Tsarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria was discovered by archaeologists in 2007 in the Sverdlovsk region of the Urals. Experts then established through DNA testing that these remains belonged to Romanov family members. However, the Russian Orthodox Church considered this conclusion of experts insufficient to accept the results and demanded exhaustive additional expertise on the subject.  Reportedly more studies are expected to be conducted by ROC before the remains are buried. 

 

 

Read about the original DNA study of the remains of Maria and Alexei Romanov, children of Tsar Nicholas II: Romanov Family Mystery Solved

 

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