Letter From His Holiness Aleksei II Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia To the Head of the Russian Imperial House H.I.H. Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna

Madrid, 26 October 2004 

To the Chairman of the Knights’ Council
Imperial Military Order of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker
Major-General A. V. Kirilin 

Dear Aleksandr Valentinovich!

With all My heart, I thank You and all the knights of the Imperial Military Order of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker for your congratulations on My 90-th birthday. I was deeply touched by your good wishes and by your expressions of heartfelt feelings.

Looking back over My life now of nine decades, I am more than anything thankful to God that He has allowed me to participate in the beginning of the rebirth of My Homeland and in its return to his historical principles. The recent formation and establishment in Russia of the Order of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, founded by My Father-in-Law, Emperor Kirill Vladimirovich and dedicated to the strengthening of the martial spirit of Russia’s military forces and of all those who serve in various capacities in the defense of the Fatherland, is particularly dear to Me.

With enormous spiritual joy, I feel certain that, in the knights of the Order of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, My August Daughter, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, and Her Son and Heir, My Grandson, Grand Duke Georgii Mikhailovich, have true defenders in Russia. My confidence in your support and service to the Russian Imperial House gives me strength in My daily life.

May the Lord keep you by the prayers of His Most Pure Mother and the prayers of St. Nicholas!

I hope to be able to meet with you soon on the soil of Our Motherland, and I remain faithfully yours, 

H.I.H. Grand Duchess Leonida Georgievna