My Kingdom is Not of This World (John 18:36) | Romanov Royal Martyrs of Russia | Tsar Nicholas II | Orthodox Christian Midweight Cotton Tee

Never in recorded history has evil manifested itself so insolently, so blatantly, as it does now. Never before have we heard such revolting abuse, such insane blasphemy of God and all that is sacred, shouted to the high heavens, as we now hear in Soviet Russia...

One must not forget that, in slaying the imperial family, the Communist malefactors intended to wipe out the very memory of how Russia had lived for many centuries of its existence. They tried to tear away, to destroy, to extirpate from the souls of the much-suffering Russian people that radiant spirit which prevailed in holy Orthodox Russia, the spirit of an Orthodox statehood, and implant in its stead the abominable spirit of theomachy and fratricidal Communism.

The criminal murder of the imperial family was not merely an act of hatred and vengeance; it was not only an act of political retaliation—but it was principally a spiritual act aimed at destroying the Orthodoxy of the Russian people and replacing it with an unnatural and evil Communist spirit. That was the purpose of the criminal liquidation of the Tsar and his family.

The last of the Tsars was murdered with his family precrisely because he was the crowned representative and bearer of the lofty ideals of Orthodox statehood. He was killed precisely because he was an Orthodox Tsar, because of his Orthodoxy.

- Statement in Joseph Gambardello's "Czar, 30,000 Canonized," UPI, November 2, 1981, cited in G. King and P. Wilson, The Fate of the Romanovs, pp. 379, 380; as quoted in The Great Synaxaristes of the Orthodox Church: July Volume, p. 72.

+++

Read more about the Royal Martyrs of Russia here.