2025-11-16 The 130th Anniversary of the Birth of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearer Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna

November 16, 2025, marks the 130th anniversary of the birth of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearer Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna (1895).

• The Holy Royal Passion-Bearer Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna The Holy Royal Passion-Bearer Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna
• The Holy Royal Passion-Bearer Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna The Holy Royal Passion-Bearer Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna
• The Holy Royal Passion-Bearer Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna The Holy Royal Passion-Bearer Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna
• The Holy Royal Passion-Bearers Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia The Holy Royal Passion-Bearers Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia
• The Holy Royal Passion-Bearer Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna and Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna The Holy Royal Passion-Bearer Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna and Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna
• Holy Royal Passion-Bearers Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana in a hospital ward during the First World War Holy Royal Passion-Bearers Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana in a hospital ward during the First World War
• The Holy Royal Passion-Bearers Empress Alexandra and Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana with wounded soldiers The Holy Royal Passion-Bearers Empress Alexandra and Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana with wounded soldiers
• The Holy Royal Passion-Bearers Empress Alexandra and Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana with army medical staff and wounded soldiers The Holy Royal Passion-Bearers Empress Alexandra and Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana with army medical staff and wounded soldiers
• The Holy Royal Passion-Bearer Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna The Holy Royal Passion-Bearer Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna
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The Holy Royal Passion-Bearer and Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna (born November 3/16, 1895; died July 4/17, 1918) was the eldest daughter of Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna (née Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt).

She was the honorary colonel-in-chief of the 3rd Elisavetgrad Hussar Regiment.

Among her patronages and positions, she was the Patron of the Empress Maria Alexandrovna Needle Crafts (1912), and an active member of the Imperial Women’s Patriotic Society. In 1914, the Grand Duchess was given the rank of Wartime Nurse. In 1915, she was awarded the Insignia, 2nd class, of the Russian Red Cross Society “for her labors in caring for sick and wounded soldiers.”

She was executed along with the entire Imperial family in Yekaterinburg on July 4/17, 1918, by order of the Ural Regional Soviet.

She was canonized as a Royal Martyr by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia in 1981, and glorified as a Royal Passion-Bearer by the the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) in 2000.

She, along with her entire family, were recognized as victims of political repression and rehabilitated by the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on October 1, 2008.

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A poem by S. S. Bekhteev, copied by the Holy Royal Passion-Bearer Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna while confined with her family in Tobolsk:

Give patience, Lord, to us Thy children

In these dark, stormy days to bear

The persecution of our people,

The torture falling to our share.

Give strength, Just God, to us who need it,

The persecutors to forgive,

Our heavy, painful cross to carry

And Thy great meekness to achieve.

When we are plundered and insulted

In days of mutinous unrest

We turn for help to Thee, O Christ-Saviour,

That we may stand the bitter test.

Lord of the world, God of Creation,

Give us Thy blessing through our prayer

Give peace of heart to us, O Master,

This hour of utmost dread to bear.

And on the threshold of the grave

Breathe power divine into our clay

That we, Thy children, may find strength

In meekness for our foes to pray.

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“Father asks to have it passed on to all who have remained loyal to him and to those on whom they might have influence, that they not avenge him; he has forgiven and prays for everyone; and not to avenge themselves, but to remember that the evil which is now in the world will become yet more powerful, and that it is not evil which conquers evil, but love.”

(A fragment of a letter of Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna in Tobolsk, addressed to an unknown person. The letter was first published in the journal “Pravoslavnaia Zhizn’,” no. 7 (1968): 3-4. It was included in the publication “Pis’ma Tsarskoi sem’i iz zatocheniia” [Letters of the Imperial Family from Captivity], ed. E. E. Alfer’ev, with the assistance of Count D. S. Tatishchev and General S. P. Andolenko (Jordanville, NY: St. Job of Pochaev Press, 1974), 375.