A saint's day

The Royal Passion-Bearers

Also called The Royal Martyrs

The Church keeps St Nicholas II, St Alexandra and their five children, St Olga, St Tatiana, St Maria, St Anastasia and St Alexei, who lived as one household of the Church. The Church's hymns praise how they built their home on love, kept their marriage honorable and raised their children in the faith; held in captivity, they prayed together and forgave their persecutors, and in 1918 they were killed together at Yekaterinburg. The Church glorifies them as passion-bearers, who imitate Christ by meekly accepting suffering and death.

The dates

Kept on: 17 July on both calendars
Next: 17 July 2027

The New Calendar (the Greek, Antiochian, Romanian and Bulgarian churches, the OCA and most converts) keeps fixed feasts on the church date; the Old Calendar (the Russian, Serbian and Georgian churches, Jerusalem and Mount Athos) keeps them 13 days later. Pascha and the feasts that follow it are kept on the same day by both.

How the day is kept

Orthodox Christians pray to them for love and unity in the family, for a faithful marriage, for the healing of sick children and for patience in suffering.

Devotion to them is strongest in the Russian Church and among Serbs; the Greek, Antiochian and other churches accept them, with smaller popular devotion.

The Russian Church Abroad glorified them in 1981 as the Royal Martyrs, and the Moscow Patriarchate in 2000 as passion-bearers; Russian Church Abroad usage also honors their faithful servants, martyred with them.

Since 2000 many Russian women named Alexandra keep this feast as their name day, alongside the Holy Martyr Alexandra of Rome.