On this day in 1918, the last royal family of the Russian Empire was brutally murdered. On July 2, writing about St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco, I wrote that his was a textbook case of canonization: “Through miracles and widespread veneration, God had been showing that St. John was his chosen vessel.” Similar things can be said about the events leading to the canonization of holy royal martyrs both in the homeland and diaspora. While there is the persona of Emperor Nicholas II as a state leader responsible for implementing the fateful Russian decisions, there is also a person of a Christian man. The one is open for critical historical assessment, but the other belongs to the church. And it is proper to speak on the day of church celebration not about the former but about the latter. St. Nicholas’ tutor, Constantine P. Pobedonostsev, and his father, Alexander III, raised the crown prince as a person of the faith. He had a strong sense of fatalism, that a person could not escape one's destiny. While this sense can generally be problematic from an Orthodox Christian point of view, it can be admirable in particular applications. The tsar, like a captain, did not abandon a ship. However, he abdicated from the Throne and became a private citizen Romanov. He could not escape his figurehead status. Tsar Nicholas trusted his people. He was a noble soul and did not feel threatened among them. Emperor Nicholas’ tragedy was that he believed in a sacred bond between him as a divinely anointed autocrat and his subjects, his children. In the spirit of biblical tragedy, the children rebelled against the father. In his humility before his fate, Tsar Nicholas resembles St. Job the Long-suffering, on the day of whose memory he was born, and Holy Passion-Bearers Sts. Boris and Gleb. We do not have to defend all the decisions made by Tsar Nicholas during the unprecedentedly complicated years of his reign. Still, it is inconceivable that he would have ever unleashed indiscriminate terror against his subjects or would ever put innocent people in GULAG en masse. He always wanted the best for his people, so he abdicated from the throne, and that decision probably cost him his life. With Tsar Nicholas‘ departure from this life, the period of Orthodox Christian monarchy, which began with St. Emperor Constantine the Great (d. 337) has ended. | 
