Pravoslavnaya:
I completely agree with you regarding the relics of St. Elizabeth. If ROCOR was willing to allow them to test her remains why were they not willing to allow testing on the blood, finger (of Nicholas I believe) and other fragments of the bodies they have custody of in Brussels? These are actual remains of the family and would have been of great help to the investigators...
Bob
On this subject, Bob, I have serious doubts that the Church of St. Ioann still has these remains. In researching our book, Penny and myself met Maurice Philip Remy, a German producer who had done extensive work on the Romanov case back in the 1990s. During our time with him in Munich, he told us that officials at the Church of St. Ioann no longer had the actual human remains (which amount of 13 drops of blood, the severed finger, two pieces of skin, Dr. Botkin's false teeth, and a number of small bones-never identified as human-which, having come from the Four Brothers Mine area couldn't have anything to do with the missing remains from the actual grave [my bet, as Peter Sarandinaki, who has led a number of searches of the area, also believes is that these represent what remains of Ortino]).
Mr. Remy let us read through his file of official correspondence (which, being intended for his documentary, was intended to be made public) with one of the Deacons and I believe an Archbishop whose name I cannot recall, though I wrote it down someone, and these letters confirmed that the human remains, as above, were turned over to Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich at some point. Further, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna confirmed that her father had negotiated the return of these remains. The correspondence she provided us on the subject dated from the 1930s, so it seems that the human remains were in Vladimir's possession from that time on; they seem, from all indications, to have been buried in the Cemetery of Ste. Genevieve des Bois outside Paris, though the Grand Duchess wouldn't confirm this except to say that the human remains were not in Brussels.
Officials at the Church gave some contradictory stories about this, and then claimed to have them in 1998 when the Russian Government wanted to undertake testing, but given the above it seems they don't hold them any longer.
Additionally, Mr. Remy shared what he had been given by the church officials at St. Ioann's, which was a complete inventory, with individual photographs of every item, of what they had bricked up in their wall. The inventory and photos seemed, if I recall, to date from the late 1960s or early 1970s-the photos were in color, and showed every item there. The human remains were not among them, corresponding to the letters from Grand Duke Vladimir and the information from Grand Duchess Maria, and from the photos we saw and the letters from the officials at St. Ioann we were allowed to read.
My guess is that HIH Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna knows exactly where the remains are buried, but as her correspondence intimated, wants them left in peace.
The idea that the heads were taken to Moscow, incidentally, comes from General Michael Deterikhs, whose book included an account given by Iliodor asserting that he saw Nicholas II's head in the Kremlin under a glass dome! It's absurd, and why the so-called Expert Commission believes this nonsense is beyond me!
Greg King
