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Bones of
Russia's executed Crown Prince Alexei to be put on display
The bones of Crown Prince Alexei, the only son of Tsar
Nicholas II, are to be turned into an object of worship according to a secret
proposal being circulated within the Russian Orthodox Church.
The controversial plan emerged as Russia officially
confirmed that the charred remains of two corpses found in a pit outside
Yekaterinburg last year belonged to Alexei and his older sister, Maria.
The announcement, which follows months of DNA analysis and
forensic investigation, is likely to convince all but the most diehard
conspiracy theorists that none of the Royal Family escaped the firing squad
that executed them 90 years ago today.
Many royalists would like to see Alexei and Maria reunited
with the rest of their family at the Peter and Paul Fortress in St Petersburg,
where Nicholas II was buried during a state funeral in 1998.
But the likelihood of another royal funeral, something many
Russians believe would play an essential past in righting the wrongs of their
national history, has been called into question after the Church's secret plan
was leaked.
The proposal calls for the 44 body parts of Alexei and his
sister to be sanctified as relics and placed on display for the Orthodox
faithful to worship. According to the reports, the remains are considered to
have more powerful healing qualities because they were children.
Alexei, who suffered from haemophilia, was 13 when the
executions happened, while Maria was 19.
How much support the proposal has within the Orthodox Church
is unclear. Officially, the Church still questions whether the bodies buried in
the Peter and Paul fortress are really the Romanovs.
A spokesman refused to be drawn on the fate of Alexei and
Maria. "It is not proper to anticipate the turn of events when we are
dealing with something that could be classified as an object of worship,"
said Father Mikhail Prokopenko of the Moscow Patriarchy, the seat of Russian
Orthodoxy.
Theories that at least one of the Tsar's children might have
survived were bolstered in 1991 when a mass grave containing nine corpses was
discovered outside Yekaterinburg.
While DNA tests showed that the remains were those of the
Romanov family and their servants, murdered by their Bolshevik captors on the
orders of Lenin, two bodies – those of Alexei and one of his sisters – were
missing.
During the 20th century, several women came forward claiming
to be Anastasia, among them Anna Anderson, a Polish factory worker whose
resemblance to the Grand Princess was so striking that even some close
relatives of the Royal Family were deceived.
Last year, however, the two missing corpses, both charred
and severely dismembered, were found in a second grave.
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