Biography of Sergey Romanova

The Marfo-Mariinsky Monastery of Mercy ”Grand Duchess Elisaveta Feodorovna in Jerusalem he was dedicated to the knights of the Holy Sepulcher, or, as the Greeks say, to the Hippons-to the defenders of the greatest Orthodox shrine. The Grand Duke really looked like a knight: he was a frying gallant, in a crucial way restrained and beautiful. He, as a valiant warrior, served God, the king and the Fatherland.

The ceremony was held in the temple of the Holy Sepulcher. The Grand Duke then first visited the Holy Land, came to pray for the deceased parents. It was in the year. Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov published his poems under the pseudonym “K. At first Mame died. Smart, sensitive, perfectly educated, it was the spiritual core of the family.

It was said that only by her prayers a crowned spouse was saved - Alexander II survived six assassination attempts. The seventh turned out to be the last - the emperor died of a terrorist bomb on March 1, not even a year passed after the death of Maria Alexandrovna. The Princess Yuryevskaya with the children attended his funeral, the eldest was nine. These were the children of Alexander II, born in a morganatic marriage.

As soon as he handled the forty on the first wife, the emperor legitimized the second: anticipating an ambulance, he was forced to rush to ensure the well -being and status of his descendants. For the first time, Sergey Alexandrovich first met with a lubric brother and sisters at the coffin of his father, their common father. These children of a foreign and unpleasant woman had to love.

Vera, as always, strengthened and directed it. He did not live a day without faith, without Orthodoxy. They had a very religious family. Children attended a service on equalization with adults. Four -year -old Sergei prayed so sincerely that his tears made others cry. He was a prayed child at the crayfish of St. Sergius of Radonezh. That is why they called him Sergey - a name uncharacteristic of the Romanov House.

But so, without saying a word, both the August Parent promised the reverend. By tradition, the military brought up all the heirs of the throne on the male line. Sergey, like the youngest, Paul, entrusted the marine officer Dmitry Sergeyevich Arseniev. Subsequently, he said that any childish prank could be stopped by a promise to notify parents. The children were not afraid of punishment - they were afraid to upset Mama and Papa, to lose their location, they adored them.

Somehow they began to list their beloved holy ascetics, and when the turn came to Sergey, the baby confidently said: Papa-and was embarrassed, seeing the reaction of adults. By the way, the eldest, Alexander, already married to the kingdom, said that he would be glad if the question arose about the canonization of his mother, he sincerely considered her saint. Unquestioned parental authority encouraged children to study success.

Sergei Alexandrovich, recall, was considered one of the most enlightened people of his time. At nine years old, he studied the fourth language, made beautiful watercolors for his mother and courageously forced himself to additional classes of unloved mathematics. From this child, often in response to punishment, one could hear surprisingly submissive: "This is fair." True patriotism is born in the family.

Sincere public service is impossible without the ability to love the neighbor. After the death of his parents, Sergei Alexandrovich took Pavel's younger brother under his care, and after many years - Paul's children left without a mother. He was able to go out a seven -month nephew: he wrapped his baby with cotton wool and wrapped it with hot bottles, creating a semblance of a modern incubator.

And then, becoming the General of the Governor of Moscow, he organized numerous committees of care for children, a nursery, shelters, and registered scholarships for the poorest. And his very consent to the governor's position was made exclusively from spiritual and patriotic beliefs formed by family and Orthodox traditions. What kind of courage this step cost him, perhaps the Grand Duchess Elisaveta Feodorovna knew.

How much tenderness in these lines! But they have been together for seven years - seven years of complete happiness, according to Elizabeth Feodorovna. Love they were an amazingly harmonious couple. Relatives pushed Sergei Alexandrovich for a long time to get to the first beauty of Europe. And the Grand Duke was strangely inactive. Mysteriously silent, he suddenly left Petersburg from time to time ...

Finally, it turned out that the Grand Duke spent all this time in Darmstadt.

Sergei Alexandrovich was previously secretive, but here even a close friend Konstantin Konstantinovich thought: “I do not understand your behavior regarding Darmstadt. The whole world speaks of the inevitability of your engagement. What are you doing there if you don’t count on it, and why don’t you write to me about your intentions? .. Firstly, it is not known what the English Queen Victoria will say-the grandmother of the bride.And the grandmother said that none of the brides of the Hessian house was happy in Russia - neither the distant relative of Countess Wilhelmina after the wedding was the Grand Duchess Natalia Alekseevna, the wife of Emperor Paul I, nor the sister of the cousin Louise of Baden in Orthodoxy Elisaveta Alekseevna, who became the wife of Alexander I, not the cousin of Empress Marya Marya Alexandrovna, the mother of Sergei Alexandrovich ...

But, having met the groom, the grandmother agreed - it was a marriage by love, but with love the queen did not argue. For forty years she wore mourning for her husband and, falling asleep, squeezed his shirt in her hands. There was another reason not to advertise the engagement. Sergei Alexandrovich was well aware of the contents of the gossip, which the metropolitan bomond had entertained.

However, he would not be a worthy son of his mother if he allowed himself to react to them. And he would not be the son of his father if he would not try to protect his lover from them. Fortunately, the young wife immediately took her husband’s position - she did not notice the rumors, as if they were not there. There was not only for her - for everyone who was lucky to drive to get acquainted with this brilliant Grand Duke.

The service of the Fatherland was a sign of high confidence in the sovereign was the appointment of Sergei Alexandrovich for the post of General Governor of Moscow. Alexander III shared the monarchical beliefs of his brother, relied on his love for the Fatherland and believed that his versatile education and religiosity would allow to transform Moscow into a real Orthodox capital.

So it happened. Sergey Alexandrovich had to leave the ministry in the Preobrazhensky regiment, where he commanded the battalion for ten years and completely plunged into a new activity. Do not list societies and committees that he headed or patronized: the chairman of the Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society, the Moscow Society for Charity, Education and Education of Blind Children, the Society for Patronism by homeless and released from the places of imprisonment of the elderly artists; The patron saint of all parish schools, a trustee of a free hospital of military doctors, a trustee of the Society of benefits to needing Siberians studying in Moscow, an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Arts, the Moscow Archaeological Society, the Russian Musical Society-and this is only their small part.

He opened theaters, created museums, organized readings for poorly educated workers, and established the spread of spiritual and moral books. The Moscow Committee of the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, organizing the grass of the Grand Duke, could accuse him of anything. In Moscow, the governor was responsible for everything. Sergei Alexandrovich has already resigned when professional killers from the Savinkov group opened a hunt for him.

The explosion was heard on February 4 after noon, when the crew of the Grand Duke, who was heading to Tverskaya, went to Senate Square ... Giving testimony during the investigation, terrorist Ivan Kalyaev described his crime: “I threw four steps, no more, from the run, point -blank. I was captured by the whirlwind of the explosion, I saw how the carriage was torn. I remember that I smelled of smoke and chips right into my face, broke a hat ...

Then I saw steps at five from myself, closer to the gate, a clod of grand -ducal clothes and a naked body. ” Sergei Alexandrovich was buried in the Miracle Monastery, in the crypt of a specially constructed church of the sons in honor of the Monk Sergius of Radonezh. And at the place of the explosion a white cross appeared-it was set by the 5th Grenadier Regiment, the sponsored regiment of the Grand Duke.

Muscovites came to the cross and left their donations. Elisaveta Feodorovna, appointed by the chief of the regiment on the death of her spouse, ordered artist V. at these funds Vasnetsov is a new cross. It was installed on April 2. An unquenchable lamp burned in front of the monument. In the year, when the first communist subbotniks were carried out in the Kremlin, the cross was demolished.

In G. But the grave of the Grand Duke was destined to be preserved. In the year, during the repair of paving stones on Ivanovo Square, a crypt was discovered with the burial of the Grand Duke. In the year, the remains with honors were transferred to the tomb of the Romanovs in the Novospassky Monastery.