News Release on the Attendance of the Head of the Russian Imperial House, H.I.H. Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, at the Funeral Services for the Newly-Reposed Patriarch Aleksei II of Moscow and All Russia, 6-10 December 2008

Moscow
10 December 2008
No. 28

On the morning of 5 December 2008, His Holiness, Patriarch Aleksei II of Moscow and All Russia, reposed in the Lord. Having learned this heartrending news, the Head of the Russian Imperial House, H.I.H. Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, immediately postponed all her other plans and on 6 December flew to Moscow to pay her last respects to the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, with whom the Imperial family has for many years been linked in a bond of love, respect, and mutual support.

Immediately on arriving in Moscow, in the evening of 6 December, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirova went to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, to venerate the coffin of His Holiness, the patriarch, and to offer her prayers for the repose of his soul.

On 8 December, the grand duchess attended the All-Night Vigil at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. After the services, the Head of the House of Romanoff met with the locum tenens of the Patriarchal Throne, His Eminence Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad. The Grand Duchess expressed the deepest sympathies of the Russian Imperial House to Metropolitan Kirill, and His Eminence in turn thanked Her Imperial Highness for her support during this period of heavy trial for the Russian Orthodox Church.

On 9 December, the Head of the Russian Imperial House attended the Divine Liturgy, during which she partook of the Holy Mysteries, and participated in the funeral of the newly-reposed Patriarch Aleksei II of Moscow and all Russia that followed at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. She then attended the burial of His Holiness at the Holy Epiphany Cathedral. Later, during the commemoration [trapeza] meal at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, Her Imperial Highness had numerous brief exchanges with numerous other guests, including Metropolitan Kirill; Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople; Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II of Georgia; and with other Church hierarchs, and with President D. A. Medvedev; Prime Minister V. V. Putin; with the Minister of Foreign Affairs S. V. Lavrov; with the Mayor of Moscow, Iu. M. Luzhkov; and other political leaders, during which she noted the enormous service that the patriarch had given to Orthodoxy, to the Russian Orthodox Church, and to the Russian state, and shared the sorrow of the entire Imperial family at the death of their beloved and revered spiritual father and intercessor. In the evening, the grand duchess had a separate meeting with Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II of Georgia, during which Her Imperial Highness and His Holiness and Beatitude reflected on Patriarch Aleksei II’s role in strengthening the friendship between the Russian and Georgian peoples.

On 10 December, the Head of the Russian Imperial House, H.I.H. Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna returned to Madrid.

A. N. Zakatov
Director of H.I.H.’s Chancellery