IV. VIDEOS in Russian
DESCRIPTION:
This is a fascinating account of the life of the New Martyr, Grand Duchess St. Elizabeth Romanova (1864-1918), utilizing numerous archival photographs of her and of the Romanov imperial family, and considerable archival film footage. In addition to the portrayal of her place in the imperial family (as the sister of Tsar Nicholas II's wife, Alexandra, and wife of the Tsar's uncle, Grand Duke Sergei Aleksandrovich), we see her extensive charitable works in Russia and in the Holy Land -- building churches and monasteries and personally nursing and caring for the needy.
The assassination of her husband by revolutionaries in 1905 significantly changed her, and several years later she became the founding abbess of the Mary and Martha Women's Monastery in Moscow. She dedicated herself and the sisterhood to charitable work: visiting, nursing, feeding, teaching and caring for the poor -- at the monastery and in the worst Mosow slums -- and nursing the wounded during World War I. The Monastery's Hospital quickly received the reputation of being able to heal those whom the regular hospitals had given up on.
Rejecting many pleas for her to flee Russia and accepting, instead, to follow Christ's path to Golgotha with faith and humility, she was brutally martyred in 1918 by the Communists.
The film concludes with Patriarch Aleksei of Moscow elevating her icon at her glorification (canonization) ceremony. In her icon she wears white and light gray monastic garb and holds a martyr's cross. Her relics are located in the St. Mary Magdalene Women's Monastery in Jerusalem, along with her cell- attendant, Sister Barbara. [Russian production. In Russian.]