November 3/16, 2020 marks the 125th anniversary of the birth of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearer Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna.
Olga Nikolaevna (b. November 3/16, 1895; d. July 4/17, 1918), one of the New Martyrs of Russia, is the eldest daughter of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna.
She was the honorary colonel-in-chief of the 3rd Elisabethgrad Hussars Regiment.
She was also the Curator of the Needlecraft Workshop of Empress Maria Alexandrovna (1912), and a Full Member of the Imperial Women’s Patriotic Society. In 1914, the Grand Duchess became a wartime nurse, and in 1915 she was awarded the Medal of the Russian Red Cross Society, second class, for her “efforts to care for the sick and the wounded in battle.”
Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna was executed along with the entire Imperial Family in Ekaterinburg on July 4/17, 1918, on orders from the Ural Regional Soviet.
She was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in 1981, and in 2000 she was glorified as a Holy Royal Passion-Bearer by the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate). In 2008, she was recognized by the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation as a victim of political repression.
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The poem by S.S. Bekhteev, copied down by the Holy Royal Passion-Bearer Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna while in confinement:
Give patience, O Lord, to us Thy children,⠀
In these dark stormy days to bear,⠀
the persecution of our people,⠀
the tortures falling to our shores.⠀
⠀
Give us strength, O 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, Christ Savior,⠀
that we may stand the bitter test.⠀
⠀
Lord of the world, God of Creation,⠀
Give us Thy blessing through our prayer,⠀
give us peace of heart, 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.
