A church-goer holds a portrait of Russian Tsar Nicholas II
Tsar Nicholas II and his family in 1909
A Russian stands beside a poster of Tsar Nicholas II's family in Yekaterinburg
The skull of a Romanov family memberYEKATERINBURG, Russia (AFP) — Russian Orthodox believers on Thursday flocked to mark the 90th anniversary of the slaying of Tsar Nicholas II and his family, as controversy mounted over the supposed remains of two Romanov children.
gathered at the Church on the Blood in Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains, on the site where Nicholas, his wife Alexandra, their five children, doctor and three servants were murdered by Bolshevik agents on the night of July 16-17, 1918.
"They were a father and mother -- Nicholas and Alexandra -- and they were also parents to Russia," said one bearded worshipper, Andrei, queueing to have his confession heard, a large wooden cross around his neck.
"We're here to bring them our love," he said, declining to give his surname.
The congregation packed tightly into the glistening church, bowing before the bishops, clad in red and gold robes and sparkling mitres, as they wafted incense and waved a three-branched candlestick over the congregation.
Others stood on the surrounding hillside or camped with children in corners of the church, listening to the chanting of priests and the choir's quavery response carried over loudspeakers.
Many were to make an 18-kilometre (11-mile) dawn procession to the mineshaft where the Romanovs' bodies were initially dumped.
Vladimir Smirnov, holding the banner of a Christian organisation, the Union of Russian People, described the Soviet Union's first leader, Vladimir Lenin, as "Satan" and said that with sufficient prayer tsarist rule could return to Russia in five or 10 years.
"The tsar is God's anointed one on Earth and we should have a tsar," said Smirnov, from the town of Nizhny Novgorod.
The popularity of the anniversary, which was being marked in a more low key way in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, reflects the post-Soviet revival of the Orthodox Church, which has canonised the murdered Romanovs as saints.
But there was controversy over the physical remains of the Romanovs after the prosecutor general announced that exhaustive testing had established the identity of the last two unaccounted-for children, Nicholas' heir Alexei and his daughter Maria.
Russian officials hope to draw a line under speculation that surrounded the fate of the Romanovs for much of the 20th century, including claims that one daughter, Anastasiya, had escaped.
The remains of what was said to be the rest of the family were reburied in Saint Petersburg in 1998.
But the Orthodox Church and some Romanov descendants have refused to recognise their authenticity and some believers on Wednesday voiced the view that the exhumation and testing process dishonoured the remains.
A spokesman for Moscow Patriarch Alexei II said it was too early to draw conclusions, saying that further tests still had to be made.
And there was a sharp reaction to the announcement from an aide to Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, a Romanov descendant who on the basis of her ancestral line claims to be Nicholas' heir.
She has been waging a court battle to have the Romanovs officially "rehabilitated," the only way, she says, that her ancestors will be exonerated from the Soviet-era label of "enemies of the people."
"We can't trust the prosecutor's enquiry. They're capable of all kinds of claims out of political considerations," the aide, Alexander Zakatov, told AFP.
Another descendant, Prince Dmitry Romanov, was more positive, telling Echo of Moscow radio station: "What we had hoped for has turned out to be true."
Prosecutors say the remains of Alexei and Maria were found a little way from the remains of the rest of the family, which were dug up in 1991.
President Dmitry Medvedev's office declined to comment on the anniversary, in line with the cautious approach to the subject taken by his predecessor and mentor Vladimir Putin.
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