ROMANOV FAMILY REMAINS UPDATE: ALEXANDER III’S DNA STUDY STARTED

3 November, 2015.  The studies of the tissue samples from the tomb of Tsar Alexander III, located at the St Peter & Paul Fortress began today,  announced the Senior Investigator Criminologist on the case, Vladimir Solovyov. He did not mention the exact date of when the actual exhumation of the Tsar’s remains took place.

Before starting this work, the Vicar of Holy Trinity of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, Bishop of Kronstadt Lord Nazariy performed a litia prayer at the fortress.

In July of 1991, on the Old Koptyaki road near Ekaterinburg the remains of nine people were discovered. They were believed to belong to members of the Romanov family: Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Tsarina Alexandra, their three daughters: 22-year-old Grand Duchess Olga, 21-year-old Grand Duchess Tatiana, and the 17-year-old Grand Duchess Anastasia; as well as their retainers: 53-year-old Dr Evgeni Botkin, 40-year-old Anna Demidova, 62-year-old Alois Trupp and 48-year-old Ivan Kharitonov.

In January of 2011, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation completed a criminal investigation of the murders of the Romanov family, recognizing the remains found near Ekaterinburg as genuine.

However, in the autumn of 2015, the investigators resumed the inquiry into the deaths of members of the Russian Imperial House of Romanov. At the end of September,  exhumation of the remains of Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna was carried out to obtain additional samples. Blood samples were also taken from the clothes of the Emperor Alexander II.

In October, the Patriarch of Moscow and All the Russia Kirill addressed the government with a request to once again perform comparative genetic studies of the remains of Nicholas II , using his father’s Emperor Alexander III’s DNA. According to Russian Orthodox Church, positive results of such examination will be the indisputable proof they seek, of authenticity of the Romanov family remains.

Original Russian source