From the rail station, the relics were carried in a religious procession on to Belgorod's Transfiguration Cathedral of the Savior. Curiously enough, the procession walked down Grazhdansky Avenue, previously known as Imperatorsky, thus named in 1911 to commemorate a visit by the Romanov family. Princess Yelizaveta Fyodorovna was among the visiting royalty then.
Belgorod's church-goers will be provided with round-the-clock access to a large shrine with the remains of Princess Yelizaveta's right hand. A smaller shrine, made with boards from the caskets in which her remains and those of the nun Varvara were transported to Jerusalem for permanent storage, has been sent on to Stary Oskol already.
On Monday, both shrines are leaving the diocese of Belgorod and Stary Oskol for their next destination, Kursk.
Grand Princess Yelizaveta Fyodorovna was a sister to Alexandra Fyodorovna, spouse of Emperor Nicholas II. An ethnic German, she made Russia her adopted homeland and embraced Orthodox Christianity. After a tragic death of her husband, Grand Prince Sergei Alexandrovich, slain by rebel terrorists, she became a nun and founded a convent of SS. Martha and Maria. Gravely ill people from all across St. Petersburg would be taken to the convent's hospital for medical care. Like other members of her family, Yelizaveta Fyodorovna was exiled by the Bolsheviks to the Urals region and murdered there in July 1918. Her body was thrown into a mine shaft, to be retrieved during the White Army's subsequent retreat. In 1920, the casket with her remains was taken for permanent storage to Jerusalem's Cathedral of St. Maria Magdalina.
