The Inner Things

Queen Victoria didn’t like Russians. Imagine how she felt, then, when her favorite granddaughter Alexandra fell for the Tsesarevich. Victoria had hoped that “dear Alicky” would marry her cousin “Georgie”—the future King George of England. But it was no good. She had been in love with Nicholas Alexandrovich Romanov since she was twelve years old.

Nicholas and Alexandra met in 1884, at the wedding of her sister, Elizabeth, to the Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. Victoria hadn’t approved of this match, either. But at least Elizabeth didn’t have to become Orthodox. If Alexandria was to be Tsarina, she would need to renounce the Protestant faith and join the Russian Church.

The girls’ father, Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse, had his own reservations. Sure, these matches were tremendously advantageous. But he was a direct descendant of Philip of Hesse, who protected Martin Luther during the first years of the Reformation. Louis was a staunch Lutheran, and that’s how he had raised his daughters.

In fact, Alexandra nearly refused to marry Nicholas if it meant becoming Orthodox. Her sister Elizabeth convinced her, however. Nicholas and Alexandra were married in 1894, exactly ten years after Elizabeth and Sergei.

What’s strange is that Elizabeth herself had converted only three years earlier—seven years after she married Grand Duke Sergei. Again, this was never demanded of her. Elizabeth didn’t have to. She wanted to.

The Germans were scandalized. Kaiser Wilhelm II (a former suitor) said that she had acted from “an inordinate pursuit of popularity, a desire to improve her position at court, a great lack of intelligence, and also a want of true religiousness.” He also accused her husband of pressuring her to convert.

It wasn’t like that. “I am sure God’s blessing will accompany my act which I do with such fervent belief,” she explained, “with the feeling that I may become a better Christian and be one step nearer to God.” “Above all,” she concluded, “one’s conscience must be pure and true.” To “remain outwardly a Protestant” would mean “lying before God.”

Elizabeth’s parents assumed that she had simply fallen for all the smells-and-bells. They didn’t get it, either. “Many will, I know, scream about it, yet I feel it brings me nearer to God,” she told them. “You tell me that the outer brilliance of the church charmed me,” but “in that you are mistaken: nothing in the outer sign attracted me. No: the service, the outer sign, are only to remind us of the inner things.”

On February 18, 1905, the Grand Duke had lunch with Elizabeth at Nicholas Palace. Sergei left first. As he got into his carriage, he was killed—blown up by a man called Ivan Kalyayev. Kalyayev was a socialist, a member of the “Terrorist Brigade,” as they called themselves. Elizabeth rushed outside and helped to gather the pieces of her husband’s body.

Sergei’s coachman had been mortally wounded in the explosion. Elizabeth visited him in the hospital. Sergei had survived, she lied, and sent his regards. The coachman was elated and died peacefully. Elizabeth then visited Kalyayev in prison. She forgave him and gave him a Gospel, begging him to repent. “My attempt was unsuccessful,” she recalled. “But, who knows? Perhaps at the last minute he will understand his sin and repent.” She petitioned the Tsar to pardon Kalyayev, without success.

Elizabeth’s life was her own now. She had a title. She was independently wealthy. Her brother-in-law was Tsar of Russia; her cousins were King of England and Emperor of Germany. She could have remarried and lived comfortably, perhaps somewhere other than Russia—somewhere more familiar, less dangerous.

But she remembered how Sergei had wept when she told him that she wanted to become Orthodox. He had blessed her with an icon and quoted the Book of Ruth: “Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.” Elizabeth belonged to the Orthodox Church. She belonged to the Russian people. She was theirs. They were entitled to her.

And so she sold everything—clothes, jewels, the lot—and gave the money to the poor. The only thing she kept for herself was her house, which she converted into a convent, which also functioned as a hospital and an orphanage. Elizabeth received the monastic tonsure. She spent the next thirteen years in the slums of Moscow, caring for the least of her brothers and sisters.

Then, on July 17, 1918, Elizabeth was arrested by the Cheka along with a couple of her fellow nuns and a few noblemen. They were brought to an abandoned mine shaft several miles outside the city, beaten, and thrown in. The fall didn’t kill Elizabeth: the Cheka could hear her singing hymns somewhere down in the darkness. So, they threw a few hand grenades into the hole. Her last words were, “Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

In 1981, Elizabeth and Alexandra were raised to the altars by the Holy Synod of the Russian Church Abroad.

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Why did Elizabeth do what she did? She had no terrible sin to repent of, no secret shame. She remained faithful to her husband even after discovering that he had taken dozens of young men as lovers throughout their married life. She was generous to the poor even before her husband’s death. She was even a vegetarian.

Maybe there’s a political message here. Had the Russian aristocracy been more like Elizabeth, the Bolsheviks never would have seized power. When Sergei became Governor General of Moscow, his first act was to expel the Jews from the city. She begged him to show mercy—just as she begged Tsar Nicholas to forgive Sergei’s murderer. And when her sister fell under the influence of a monk named Rasputin, Elizabeth didn’t hesitate to call him what he was: a drunk, a womanizer, and a fraud.

So, yes: in a sense, Elizabeth was a politician. Lenin knew that, which is why he ordered her death. And when he heard that Elizabeth had been killed, he was elated. “Virtue with a crown on its head,” he quipped, “is a greater enemy to the world revolution than a hundred tyrant tsars.”

That’s just how Lenin wanted to see her, as a kind of P.R. man. The kindler, gentler face of autocracy. That’s why she had to die.

Lenin wanted to see her as a mere royalist. Just as Wilhelm wanted to see her as a mere populist. Just as Louis wanted to see her as a mere ritualist. Because, if that were true, maybe they could understand her. They could fit her into their narratives. They could find some role for her to play in the drama of their ideology.

What’s so terrifying about Elizabeth’s life, though, is how unremarkable it was. She’s one of the most compelling figures in history, who lived during one of the most exciting periods in history—and yet the two have virtually nothing to do with each other. Somehow, the grand drama of the Russian Revolution is incidental to Elizabeth’s life.

Really, she could be any woman who patiently endured her family’s approbation because she joined the One True Church. She could be any woman who remained faithful to a faithless husband. She could be any woman who threw away a life of luxury in order to serve the poor. She could be any woman who forgave her husband’s murderer—and her own. And her story would be no less compelling.

This is what Louis and Wilhelm and Lenin never understood. Elizabeth was a Christian, and Christians don’t belong to history, because they don’t belong to the world.

In the Divine Liturgy, we’re called to “lay aside all earthly cares to receive the King of All.” And this is what Elizabeth did. She laid aside all the criticism, all judgment, all the expectations, all the privilege that had weighed her down for her whole life. Nothing stood between Elizabeth and Christ—nothing but the world. And so she burned it down.

A holy fool is a kind of saint who pretends to be mad in order to disguise his holiness. Elizabeth was a holy fool. She was the worst kind of fool—the kind we don’t pity or fear, but hate. She was a completely sincere human being.

Elizabeth was earnest, above all, in her loves. This was her freedom; it was also her greatest—her only—burden. Yes, she did what she thought was right, no matter the cost. Yet it’s not as though she didn’t care what other people thought. She did. She wanted desperately to be understood by the people she loved. She wanted to share every part of herself with them, with everyone.

But she couldn’t force it. She couldn’t make her father understand why she loved the Orthodox Church. She couldn’t make her husband understand why she loved the Jews. She couldn’t make the Tsar understand why she loved Kalyayev. And she couldn’t make Lenin understand why she loved the Tsar.

The answer was too obvious. It’s because that’s where she saw Christ’s face.

She saw Him in the Scriptures that she and Alexandra poured over as girls. She saw Him in the holy icons. She saw Him in her husband Sergei, the right-wing hypocrite. She saw Him in Kalyayev, the left-wing murderer. She saw Him in the poor rabbi, the the wounded soldier, the prostitute, the drunk, the cripple, the lunatic.

And so she did what any Christian would do. She knelt down and—solemnly; wordlessly—washed His feet.

This is what we see in every photo of Elizabeth, whether she’s wearing the tiara of a German princess or the habit of a Russian nun.

We see a face marked by deep love, but also intense concentration.

Merciful and disciplined.

Heavy with compassion yet utterly free.

A face like Christ’s.