Remains of Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna may be included in royal family inquiry - Russian Investigative Committee

Moscow, September 28, Interfax - The Russian Investigative Committee does not rule out that samples of the remains of Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna may be delivered from Israel to Moscow for a new examination within the royal family inquiry but a final decision has yet to be made.

"We are holding negotiations with the Russian Orthodox Church. This is a very complicated matter: international relations and the delivery from a foreign country. A final decision has yet to be made," senior investigator of the Russian Investigative Committee main criminal investigation department Vladimir Solovyov toldInterfax.

Future Great Duchess Elizabeth, the one of British Queen Victoria's favorite granddaughters, was born in Germany and spent her early years in England. She was a sister of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and a daughter of Grand Duke of Giessen Darmstadt. She was brought up in Christian spirit and compassion.

She was a Protestant, but during her pilgrimage to the Holy Land she adopted Orthodoxy and after her husband Moscow general-governor Sergey Alexandrovich Romanov had been killed by the terrorist, she founded famous Sts Martha and Mary Convent in 1909 where nuns combined prayer with active social ministry, helping the sick and wounded, especially during World War I. People called Grand Duchess Elizabeth the White Angel of Russia.

She refused to leave Russia during revolutionary days and was arrested in spring of 1918 and martyred in a duffer Novay Selimskaya not far from Alapayevsk, the Yekaterinburg Region. Elizaveta Feodorovna was canonized as saint by the Russian Orthodox Church.