RIA Novosti was told about this in the Andrew the Protokletos Fund, which initiated an unprecedented procession with a cross along the dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church with the remains of the Alapayevsk martyrs which have been kept since 1921 in the monastery of the Russian Orthodox Church in Jerusalem.
From the railway station, the big ark with the relics where the right hand of Yelizaveta Fyodorovna was brought to the All Saints Cathedral of Tula, where the shrine was welcomed by over 1,000 believers led by Archbishop of Tula and Belev Alexy.
"Today, when the entire Russian Orthodox Church commemorates the new martyrs and confessors that shone in the Russian land we are meeting the relics of Grand Duchess Yelizaveta Fyodorovna and Sr. Varvara, who through their feat showed the victory of the life of Christ over death," said Archbishop Alexy.
In his words, repentance and prayers to the new martyrs of Russia (including Grand Duchess Yelizaveta and her associate Varvara) will help overcome the split of the Russian Church, which happened after the 1917 revolution and the establishment of godless authority.
"At last our people, united in blood and spirit, have come to realize that we should not divide," said the archbishop.
Representative of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, Bishop of Boston Mikhail, who accompanies the relics in their many-month travel in Russia, the CIS and Baltic countries, underlined that "the bringing of relics is an invisible thread that unites the two branches of the Russian Church."
Archbishop Alexy held a divine service before the shrine in Tula's Cathedral. The big ark with the relics will be open for veneration until late February 14.
The small ark (made of the planks of coffins where the remains of the martyrs were delivered in 1920s from China to Egypt, and then to the Holy Land) will visit the Tula region towns of Bogoroditsk, Novomoskovsk, Donskoi and Uzlovaya.
On Monday the relics will leave the Tula region and will then be brought to Lipetsk.
Grand Duchess Yelizaveta Fyodorovna, after the death of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich at the hand of terrorist Kalyayev in 1905, founded the well-known Marfo-Mariinskaya cloister and worked there together with sisters, looking after the sick and helping the poor.
After the revolution she refused to leave Russia and was arrested in spring 1918. On July 18, the grand duchess and her associate Sr. Varvara were thrown down alive into the Nizhne-Selimskaya Pit near the town of Alapayevsk.
The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia recognized Yelizaveta Fyodorovna and Varvara martyrs in 1981. They were canonized as saints of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1992.
