Our Patron Saint, Elizabeth The New Martyer 

St. Elizabeth the New Martyr (February 24, 1864 - July 18, 1918) was born in Hesse-Darmstadt, a German province, into the grand ducal family of Hesse and by Rhine. She was the maternal granddaughter of Queen Victoria of England and the elder sister of Tsaritsa-Martyr Alexandra, the wife of Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II. Her family was composed of pious Lutherans and, despite being a princess, she lived a very austere life. She was not unfamiliar with suffering and death even from a young age: her younger brother died when she was only eight, and her mother and youngest sister died when she was only fourteen.

She was later betrothed to Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich Romanov of Russia, who was the fifth son of the Russian Emperor, Tsar Alexander II, the brother of Tsar Alexander III, and the uncle of Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II. They both loved each other very much, but their genuine devotion to their respective faiths, she to Lutheranism and he to Orthodoxy, was a source of sadness between them, as they wished to be unified in prayer and worship more than anything else. After much prayer and patience on the part of both husband and wife, she finally decided to convert of her own will and was baptized into the Orthodox Church on Lazarus Saturday, 1891. Her devotion to Christ, which was already strong before her conversion, was fanned into an unquenchable, flaming desire to deepen her relationship with God.

After the assassination of her husband by a violent Socialist revolutionary in 1905, Grand Duchess Elizabeth resolved to become a nun, giving away all her worldly possessions in exchange for heavenly riches. With the proceeds of the sale, she established a women's monastery, the Marfo-Mariinsky (Martha and Mary) Convent, in Moscow. It was a unique convent dedicated to charity and love through caring for others, operating on the basis of serving people like St. Martha while still maintaining contemplation and worship of God like St. Mary. For many years, she and the sisters of the convent helped the poor through providing them food, instructing adults and children free of charge, saving orphans from the slums, and tending to wounded Russian soldiers and German POWs during the height of World War One.

Her service continued even through the bloody street battles of the communist revolution, when the cacophony of cannons, rifles, and machine guns echoed throughout Moscow. Despite the fact that her selflessness and love warmed the hearts of even the most bloodthirsty revolutionaries, the newly formed Soviet government exiled her and her faithful novice, St. Barbara, first to the city of Yekaterinburg, and finally to Alapaevsk. There, she and St. Barbara were tossed down a mine shaft along with fellow prisoners Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, his private secretary Fyodor Remez, Prince Vladimir Paley, and the brothers Prince Igor, Prince Konstantin, and Prince John Konstantinovich.

Her executors leaned over the mine shaft to hear the wounded St. Elizabeth consoling those who had not yet died, and leading them in hymns to God. To silence the survivors (as well as their consciences), they tossed grenades into the shaft until all went silent. St. Elizabeth and those with her were martyred on July 18th, 1918. The relics of Ss. Elizabeth and Barbara were eventually taken to Jerusalem, where they now remain interred in the famous Church of St. Mary Magdalene on the western slope of the Mount of Olives, just a few minutes walk from the Garden of Gethsemane.

In 1981, St. Elizabeth was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, and her fame has only increased since then. The tender, compassionate voice that was silenced on that fateful day has "gone out into all the earth, even to the ends of the world," and continues to offer help through intercessions to God on behalf of us all.