Commemoration of the Holy Martyrs Elizabeth the Grand Duchess and the Nun Barbara

Saint Elizabeth was the older sister of Tsarina Alexandra, and was married to the Grand Duke Sergius, the governor of Moscow. She converted to Orthodoxy from Protestantism of her own free will, and organized women from all levels of society to help the soldiers at the front and in the hospitals.

Grand Duke Sergius was killed by an assassin’s bomb on February 4, 1905, just as Saint Elizabeth was leaving for her workshops. Remarkably, she visited her husband’s killer in prison and urged him to repent.

After this, she began to withdraw from her former social life. She devoted herself to the Convent of Saints Martha and Mary, a community of nuns which focused on worshiping God and also helping the poor. She moved out of the palace into a building she purchased on Ordinka. Women from the nobility, and also from the common people, were attracted to the convent.

Saint Elizabeth nursed sick and wounded soldiers in the hospitals and on the battle front. On Pascha of 1918, the Communists ordered her to leave Moscow, and join the royal family near Ekaterinburg. She left with a novice, Sister Barbara, and an escort of Latvian guards.

After arriving in Ekaterinburg, Saint Elizabeth was denied access to the Tsar’s family. She was placed in a convent, where she was warmly received by the sisters.

At the end of May Saint Elizabeth was moved to nearby Alopaevsk with the Grand Dukes Sergius, John, and Constantine, and the young Count Vladimir Paley. They were all housed in a schoolhouse on the edge of town. Saint Elizabeth was under guard, but was permitted to go to church and work in the garden.

On the night of July 5, they were all taken to a place twelve miles from Alopaevsk, and executed. The Grand Duke Sergius was shot, but the others were thrown down a mineshaft, then grenades were tossed after them. Saint Elizabeth lived for several hours, and could be heard singing hymns. You can read more details of her life HERE

The bodies of Saint Elizabeth and Saint Barbara were taken to Jerusalem in 1920, and buried in the church of Saint Mary Magdalene.

Click to listen to a 12 minute podcast about her inspiring life and martyrdom.

Christ teaches us that “no one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and mammon”

“‘Who is this mammon?’ It is covetousness, and this you are worshipping.

“But, I do not worship it’, you will say.

Because you don’t bow yourself down you say, I do not worship it?

But you are far more a worshiper in your deeds and practices; for this is the higher kind of worship! And that you may understand this, look at the case of God:

Who is it that more truly worships Him? Those who merely stand up at the prayers, or those who do His will?

Clearly enough, these latter!

The same also applies to the worshipers of mammon; they who do his will are truly his worshipers.”

St. John Chrysostom

Happy 4th! Orthros 9am, Divine Liturgy 10am

“At that time, as Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left their boat and their father, and followed him. And he went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every infirmity among the people.” Matthew 4:18-23

Q. Who are Saints?

St. John of Damascus: “God’s saints reigned over and mastered their passions and kept uninjured the likeness of the image of God, in which they were created; of their own free will they united themselves with God and received Him into their hearts, and so, in this way, having received Him in communion, through grace, they became like Him in their very nature.

The Saints in their lifetime already were filled with the Holy Spirit, and when they died the grace of the Holy Spirit was still present with their souls and with their bodies in the graves, and with their images and with their holy icons not because of their nature but because of grace and its activity… the saints are alive and with boldness they stand before the Lord; because they ‘abide in the hand of God’; that is, in life and in light… and after He Who is Life itself and the source of life was ranked among the dead, we consider no more as dead those who depart with a hope of resurrection and with faith in Him.”

Sunday, June 27: Orthros starts at 9am, Divine Liturgy follows at 10am.  

One of the last sermons at Pentecost of the Orthodox bishop Paul (Yazigi), Metropolitan of the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese Of Aleppo, abducted in Syria since 2013.

“He who doesn’t live in thick clouds, cannot witness God, and the thick cloud is the Church, with its feasts, practices, prayers and services….” Read more HERE