Lex Anteinternet: January 30, 1921. Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodoronova of Russia laid to rest.

Lex Anteinternet: January 30, 1921. Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodoro...: 

January 30, 1921. Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodoronova of Russia laid to rest.

Funeral ceremony over the remains of Princess Elizabeth, sister of the Czarina and her maid, in the Russian Church of the Magdalene on the Mt. of Olives. Jan. 30th, 1921

Elizabeth of Hesse and By Rhine, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Elizabeth Feodoronova of Russia, was interred on this day at the Russian Church of the Magdalene on the Mount Of Olives.

She had been murdered on July 18, 1918 by the Communists.

She married into the Russian royal family prior to her younger sister, Alix, who became the Czarina.  Indeed, she met the future Czar Nicholas at the wedding of Elizabeth and Sergei, a Russian Grand Duke.  Sergei and Elizabeth were both deeply religious and while Elizabeth had been born Lutheran, she converted, as would Alix, to Russian Orthodoxy.  Sergei was assassinated by a Russian socialist radical in 1905 and Elizabeth did not remarry.   Reflecting her sincere religious nature, the mother of seven thereafter sold all of her possessions, including her wedding ring, and became a Russian Orthodox nun.

She arrested with members of her family upon the orders of Lenin.  The Cheka murdered her and others by beating them, throwing them in a shaft, and tossing in hand grenades. When even that failed to kill them, evidenced by strains of a Russian Orthodox hymn being sung from below, the shaft was torched.

She was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1981.

Lex Anteinternet: January 23, 1921. The Murder of Микола Дмитрович (Mykola Leontovych)

Lex Anteinternet: January 23, 1921. The Murder of Микола Дмитрович ...: 

January 23, 1921. The Murder of Микола Дмитрович Леонтович (Mykola Leontovych).

Leontovych with his wife and one of his two daughters.

Soviet state security murdered Mykola Leontovych, a Ukrainian composer, in his parents home.

Leontovych was a deeply religious man who had studied to become a Ukrainian Orthodox Priest, a station that was well represented in his family.  Having great musical talent, while a seminary student, he determined to become a composer instead.  He's remembered in the West for his Carol of the Bells, a Christmas piece, but he also composed liturgies.

He was staying at his parents home on the eve prior to Orthodox Christmas.  His parents took in boarders and the Chekist agents asked to stay in the home as well.  They murdered him that night.  The reasons remain vague, but it seems that it was connected with his support for Ukrainian independence as well as his intent to relocate personally to Romania.  Of course, there's also the fact that the Communists were a bunch of homicidal bastards as well.

He is regarded as a martyr in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Another interesting Orthodox figure, Fr. Ingram Nathaniel Irvine, died on this day in 1921.  Fr. Irvine was an Irish born Episcopal Priest who had immigrated to the U.S. For reasons that are unclear, he was defrocked by his bishop in 1900 for "conduct unbecoming a clergyman", but whatever that conduct was, isn't really discernable.  Apparently he didn't accept it as he fought for a period of five years for reinstatement before becoming ordained as a Russian Orthodox Priest.  In that capacity, he was apparently controversial and was an advocate for the use of English in services in the United States.