After Tsar Nicholas II's abdication in March 1917, the imperial family had been held captive in Russia--first by the Provisional Government and then, after the October Revolution, by the Bolshevik regime. The family included Nicholas, his wife Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, and their five children--the Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Marie and Anastasia, and the Tsarevich Alexei.

The experience of Ekaterinburg would be for the family one of both darkness and light. They were imprisoned in three upstairs rooms of the Ipatiev House--ominously termed by the Bolsheviks, "The House of Special Purpose." Here they were subjected to all manner of deprivation and insult. Yet even in this mire of darkness, the light of love defied extinction.

"The dining room is dark . . . There is dust everywhere, we can't figure it out, since there aren't any carpets . . . Even this paper is dirty . . . Eveyone who comes into the house inspects our rooms . . . It's difficult to write about anything cheerful, because there's all too little cheerfulness here. On the other hand, God doesn't abandon us. The sun shines, the birds sing, and this morning we heard the bells sounding matins . . ." - Marie.

"Soon spring is coming to rejoice our hearts. The way of the cross first--then joy and gladness. It will soon be a year since we parted, but what is time? Life here is nothing, eternity is everything, and what we are doing is preparing our souls for the kingdom of Heaven. Thus nothing, after all, is terrible, and if they do take everything from us, they cannot take our souls . . . Have patience, and these days of suffering will end; we shall forget all the anguish and thank God. God help those who see only the bad, and don't try to understand that all this will pass. It cannot be otherwise . . ." - Alexandra.

"Father asks to have it passed on to all that they are not to avenge him. He has forgiven and prays for everyone. They are not to avenge but to remember that the evil which is in the world will become yet more powerful, and that it is not evil which conquers evil, but only love" - Olga.

"The atmosphere around us is electrified. We feel that a storm is approaching, but we know that God is merciful - our souls are at peace. Whatever happens He will look after us" - Alexandra.

On the night of July 16-17, 1918, the family was awakened and told to dress. They were led into a basement room and ordered to wait for vehicles which would evacuate them from the city. For days Ekaterinburg had been under threat by an advancing counter-revolutionary army, so the family no doubt accepted the reason given for their hasty departure. Minutes passed. In time the guards re-entered the room. As revolvers were raised and directed at the family, Nicholas was heard to murmer Jesus's words: "They know not what they do." Within seconds he was shot dead.

A volley of bullets followed. Alexandra's last action was to make the sign of the cross, as was her daughter Olga's. Those that survived this first onslaught were brutally dealt with. Tatiana, Marie and Anastasia were bayoneted to death on the floor of the cellar. The fourteen-year-old Alexei was shot in the head as he lay semi-conscious on the floor clutching his dead father's coat.

In the gray light of dawn the bodies were removed by truck to a deserted area of forest outside of the city where they were stripped and thrown down a mine shaft. Days later, a group of Bolsheviks returned, retrieved the bodies and loaded them again onto a truck. Fearing that the remains of the Romanovs would be discovered, they planned to take them to another abandoned mine shaft deeper into the forest. Enroute, the truck became stuck on a muddy forest track and it was decided to bury the bodies in a shallow grave by the road.

For reasons that remain unknown, two of the bodies were burned--Alexei's and one of the younger Grand Duchess's. The remaining bodies were doused in sulfuric acid and buried. Logs were placed across the grave and later driven over by a heavy vehicle. After the gruesome task of the disposal of the bodies had been completed, a Bolshevik official boasted that "the world will never know what we did with them."

For sixty years this indeed was the case, as the bodies of the Romanovs and the four faithful servants killed with them in the cellar of the Ipatiev House, remained undiscovered in their forest grave. For a further ten years, the bodies' location had to be kept secret for fear of reprisals from the Communist regime. Only in 1991, after the collapse of Communist Russia, was it possible to excavate and begin the long process of identifying the remains of the Romanov family.

In 1995 author Peter Kurth noted that "through all the years since the death of the Russian Imperial family, two images have remained in the public mind. One is the famous formal group photograph taken durin the 1913 tercentenary [celebrations of the Romanov dynasty]. In it Alexandra is seated next to Nicholas, Alexei sits in front in his sailor suit and the four Grand Duchesses, in their white silk and pearls, stand protectively behind their parents. The other is the grisly snapshot of the cellar at Ekaterinburg after the White Army had driven the Bolsheviks out of the city. This photograph shows the pitted wall from which the murderer's bullets had already been dug and the floor where the victims had stood, scattered with debris.

Along with this historical perspective (one that can be challenged in light of the preceeding Armenian genocide of 1915), the events in Eaterinburg during the summer of 1918 also embody a definite spiritual perspective. The Ekaterinburg experience liberated the Romanov family from the privileges that had tended to unrealistically taint their view of life and the human condition. Free from such burdens, their spirituality grew and blossomed in the pit of suffering and brutality that was for them Ekaterinburg.

In Ekaterinburg the Romanovs were no longer exalted royalty, but an abandoned and frightened family who through their response to the chaos and negativity around them, came to perceive more clearly the transformative presence and power of God in their midst.

Virginia Cowles in her book The Romanovs, encapsulates this period of the family's life beautifully and succintly when she writes that "the sixteen months that followed the overthrow of the monarchy revealed a new and noble Nicholas and Alexandra. These lamentable rulers, these tragic, misguided autocrats, who possessed not an inkling of understanding of the swift currents swirling around them, endured the trial and humiliation to which they were submitted with such rare dignity and courage that none but the coldest heart can fail to admire them. Their love for each other, their unquestioning faith in God, gave them a nobility that shines through the mists of time. The vacillating monarch became a man of strength; the censorious consort, a woman of compassion . . ."

The flowering of this love, strength and compassion might never had occurred had the Romanovs remained enthroned, or had they escaped Russia and lived safely and comfortably as exiles elsewhere in Europe. Such is the potential mystery and paradox of crisis and suffering.

The Romanov's experience in Ekaterinburg confirms, I believe, a basic spiritual truth: That sacred force we commonly term God may not always be able to direct or alter our external, physical circumstances. Yet if we open ourselves to its presence--in the depths of our own being, in those around us, and in creation--we can be transformed inwardly. Even the Ekaterinburg experiences of our lives can be radically transformed into events of transcendent beauty--the light of which can not only warm and strengthen us, but guide, comfort and strengthen others.