Russian Church urges the state to condemn execution of Nicholas II and his family

15 July 2008, 19:12

Yekaterinburg, July 15, Interfax - Nowadays Russian authorities should state that assassination of the tsar family was a crime and condemn it in compliance with people's will, the Russian Orthodox Church believes.

"The state that hasn't condemned the crimes against the tsar family overburdens itself and its people with the consequences of these crimes," deputy Chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin said speaking at the councilor hearings dedicated to the 90s commemoration of the last emperor execution.

According to the priest, Russia "cannot confidently face the future if the black spot of tsar assassination darkens our history." At the same, time Fr. Vsevolod is against various "orders of public repentance," as he believes they substitute the sacrament of repentance "traditional for the Russian Orthodox Church."

"A person who leads church life and work for the spiritual revival of Russia is free from the sin of regicide. In order not to yoke the country's history, the authorities should condemn it in compliance with people's will," the Moscow Patriarchate representative believes.

Fr. Vsevolod agrees that Russians today can praise "many achievements of the Soviet time," and say that the Soviet Union of the 40s-60s "brought peace to many countries, created a great superpower, educated many people and increased our scientific and cultural heritage."

"However, our great country was ruined just because the very basis of the state was corrupted despite of national heroism. The source of it was poisoned. Group of Bolshevist usurpers who had founded the Soviet state, directed it to perish from the very start," the priest stressed.

He believes today when Russia is searching for basis of its values system we should "refuse being Bolsheviks successors without denouncing positive heritage of the Soviet times and raise our succession to thousand-year tradition of Russian state." To do it the state has "to declare clearly that incarceration and murder of the tsar family was a crime."

The Russian Church representative is convinced that such crimes have "no expire date," and the statements saying that there is no need "to accuse the dead" are irrelevant. The authorities should establish and declare the truth to people. We know those who gave and approved of this orders. It is necessary to assess actions of these people and of those who doomed the tsar family to imprisonment, hardships and humiliation," Fr. Vsevolod said.

According to him, if the state condemns assassination of Nicholas II family, it will become "the last and the final act of our country and nation repentance before the executed tsar passion-bearers."

"Let this repentance open the way to a better future for our nation so that we could never return to the sins of the past and could do good deeds to heel and improve all consequences of the 20th century tragic history," the Russian Church representative said.

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