British royal family invited to Ekaterinburg for centenary of Romanov martyrdom

Moscow, June 16, 2017

Tsar Nicholas II (left), King George V of England (right). Photo: ru.pinterest.com

Ekaterinburg mayor Evgeny Roizman has sent an invitation to members of the British royal family to attend events commemorating the centenary of the martyrdom of the last Russian royal family, which will be celebrated in 2018, reports Interfax-Religion.

The invitation was delivered through the British ambassador in Russia Laurie Bristow.

“Inasmuch as the British and Russian crowns were bound by blood, Roizman conveyed through the ambassador an invitation to the members of the British Royal Family to attend the ‘Royal Days’ events in the Ural capital,” reads a message on the mayor’s site.

Interestingly, it was King George V of Britain himself, the cousin of Tsar Nicholas II, who denied asylum to the Russian royal family after the Mensheviks overthrew the tsar. The Romanovs remained in Russia, going to their martyric end.

The meeting of the Ekaterinburg city head with the British representative took place in Ekaterinburg’s Misha Brusilovsky Museum.

There will be many commemorative events connected with the execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his family throughout 2018 in the Sverdlovsk Region. As previously reported, an All-Russian pilgrimage route will be opened, bringing travelers to the Church on the Blood in Ekaterinburg, built over the spot of the Ipatiev House, where the family was martyred.

The “Royal Days” festival of Orthodox culture is an annual event timed to coincide with the date of the execution of the Imperial family in July 1918 in Ekaterinburg. The program begins in June, culminating in the procession in the night of July 17 from the Church on the Blood to the place where the family’s holy relics were discarded in Ganina Yama, which gathers thousands of pilgrims from around the world.

Members of the Royal family, as well as Dr. Eugene Botkin, and three other servants accepted a martyr’s death on the night of July 17, 1918 in the house of engineer Ipatiev in Eekaterinburg.

The Royal Martyrs and their servants were canonized on November 1, 1981 by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, and on August 20, 2000 by the Moscow Patriarchate.