Rasputin and Sainthood

Factual Questions
1

I was watching the account of Rasputin life on the History Channel a couple nights ago and several things that were said made me wonder. They said that it was rumored that Rasputin was ultimately drowned so that he couldn’t attain sainthood. His killers were worried that Czar Nicolar and the Czarina would make him a saint. Also after the Royal family was murdered they were made the lowest level of saints (Passion saints?) in the Russian Orthodox church.

So may questions are:
[ul]
[li] Why can’t you become a saint if you are drowned? Is this just an Orthodox view?[/li][li] Are there any other provisions that would disallow a person from sainthood?[/li][li] What are the levels of sainthood? Does the Catholic church have levels of sainthood?[/li]
[/ul]

2

This question came up before a couple of days ago, but this question has a lot more context.

In the Roman Catholic Church, there have been saints who have been drowned, most notably St. John Nepomuk, patron saint of bridges, who was bound up by some prince or king he ticked off and then thrown off a bridge. I’m sure that some other saint must have died at sea sometime.

However, that’s not the Russian Orthodox Church, so that’s not relevant.

As far as I know in the RCC, once you’re canonized, you’re a saint and you’re in the same league with people like St. Peter.

It’s like the Baseball Hall of Fame. Babe Ruth and Jesse Haines are considered equals in that building.

3

I doubt that was the reason-considering their first plans were to poison/stab/shoot him. If you believe the poison story, which I really don’t. Felix Yussoupov was a pretty colorful character-it wouldn’t suprise me if he made up most of it.

4

In the RCC, there aren’t specific levels of sainthood, but some saints are considered holier or worthier or whatnot than others. Mary is considered to be in a class by herself, and outranks even the archangels in the heirarchy of Heaven. Other VIPs include John the Baptist, Francis of Asissi, and Peter. There’s no real category for these folks, though, just a few scattered individuals.

There are, however, a few levels below proper sainthood. I believe that a person is declared to be “Venerable” and then “Blessed” before being canonized (the Venerable Bede is an exception; he’s a saint, but carries the “venerable” title for other reasons). I’m pretty sure that most folks who get started on this process eventually get canonized, so it’s not a permanent classification.

As for Rasputin, if they were worried that the Tsar would canonize him (or have him canonized), the simplest solution would be to protect his life, to ensure that he outlived the Tsar. You can’t canonize someone until they’re dead.

5

I can tell you that the main reason he was killed was to protect the throne. Grand Duke Dimitri, a cousin of the Tsar, and Yussoupov, who was married to the Tsar’s niece, Princess Irina Alexandrovna, were worried that Rasputin would bring down the entire family.

6

As a follow-up question to the OP, did the Czar and Czarina even have the authority to declare someone a saint? Isn’t that something that the church would have to decide?

7

there are quite a few hoops you have to jump through to be a saint in the orthodox church. rasputin wouldn’t clear them all. you can be a saint if you drowned. there are martyr saints that had been drowned. i’m sure that the czar could have suggested people to the church hierarchy, however they would not be a shoe in.

there are ranks of saints from martyr to equal to the apostles. where you fall in depends on what you did in your life and how you died. for example: martyrs get in by refusing to turn from their faith and dying for it, ie st. katherine. st vladimir got in for “ensuring” that christianity became the religion of his country, his rank is equal to the apostles. cyril and methodious are also equal to the apostles for giving the slavic lands a common written language for service of the church, church slavonic.

i believe in rasputin’s case his lifestyle would prohibit his becoming a saint, not his rather interesting death.

so mongrel_8, to recap:

you can become a saint no matter what vehicle you take to pass on. the drowning thing was not an orthodox rule.

there are many prohibitions to becoming a saint. that’s why saints are looked up to as an example of how to live.

there are levels of saints, just like levels of angels. from martyr to equal to the apostles. some saints just went the extra mile and they get credit for it.
i’m not sure about the catholic church. i’m orthodox.

darwin’s finch, not only would the church have to decide on a saint, but all the orthodox churches would have to decide on the person. ALL of them from a to z. if a person is a saint in greece, he or she is a saint in russia, serbia, antioch, israel, japan, china, finland, america, etc.

8

It would have to be left to the church, but the Tsar could put pressure on the church, as they did with Saint Seraphim of Sarov.

9

well, guinastasia, when a man starts to float up in the air, and drift about the alter during divine liturgy; not to mention float above the ground while walking in the woods; you figure he’ll be a saint no matter who puts his name in the hat, unless he does a “crazy ivan” before his death. the tsar’s pressure may have speeded things up a bit.

in an interesting twist, st seraphim did tell the tsarina that she would have a son finally, but if she did it would be the end. sometimes you should listen to saints and hold where you are instead of going for the gold ring. the tsar could have changed the rules and had his daughter reign after him, instead of having the son he was vaguely warned against.

10

I was under the impression that Seraphim died years before the Tsar even came to the throne. At least according to The Last Tsar, by Edvard Radzinsky.

11

Thanks for answering everyone. So the consensus seems to be that what was said in the show was bollocks.

12

So, why was Tsar Nicholas canonized?

13

Nicholas and his family were very devout and good Christians. They were very deep in their faith.

Also, the idea of the Father Tsar, or Batushka, the Little Father. In his time, the peasants saw him as Father Tsar, the champion. He was God’s representative on earth, etc etc. Thus, the Tsars were always seen as somewhat super human.

Nicholas and his family died tragically, and there are many people who saw them as martyrs. Many people attributed miracles to them. I don’t know all the exact details of the canonization, BUT…I can say that Alexandra’s sister, Grand Duchess Yelizaveta, married to Nicholas’s uncle, was canonized as a full saint. She became a nun after her husband’s assassination in 1905 and started a convent, dedicated to helping the poor. She was murdered the next day after Nicky’s family-she and several other members of the family were thrown into a mine shaft, and grenades were thrown in after them.

Were they saints? I honestly can’t say one way or the other. But whatever their faults as rulers-and they were many, they were very good people. Nicholas was one man you would want on your side, as your friend. And no matter what he did while Tsar, there is no justification for the murders of his four daughters and his son, the Tsarevich. Nor for the four servants killed with them-their physician, Dr. Evgeny Botkin, a maid, Anna Demidova, Trupp, Nicky’s valet and their cook (I can’t remember his name at the moment). Not too mention Anastasia’s little dog Jemmy, who was also killed with them.
Here is a page of links on the Romanovs as saints.
http://romanov.artshost.com/saints.html

http://www.fr-d-serfes.org/royal/
Best Romanov general site:
http://www.alexanderpalace.org

(I hope this isn’t too debatish or IMHOish…)

Good books:
The Last Tsar by Edvard Radzinsky
Nicholas and Alexandra, by Robert K. Massie
The Romanovs: the Final Chapter by Robert K. Massie
The Last Empress by Greg King
Tsar: the Lost World of Nicholas and Alexandra by Peter Kurth
The Romanovs: Love, Power and Tragedy by Alexander Bohkanov (and several others)
Nicholas and Alexandra: the Family Albums by Prince Michael of Greece
A Lifelong Passion by Andrei Maylunas and Sergei Mironenko (This is a book consisting of letters and diary passages from the Imperial family and many of their contemporaries)
Anastasia’s Album by Hugh Brewster
Romanov Autumn, by Charlotte Zeepvat

BTW, I’m also starting to make up my Romanov site again-I’ll let you know when it’s done.

14

Well, we’re getting into GD territory here, but, whether you’d want Nicholas on your side or not, you wouldn’t have him on your side if you were a Ukranian, a Jew, a liberal, a socialist, or a peasant, just to name a few…he wasn’t fond of any of those groups, and did very little of benefit (and a great deal of harm) for any of them.

There also is a very good justification for the murder of his daughters and the Tsarevich. Look at the woman who pretended to be Anastasia and the support she got, and she was a pretender. Any surviving child of the Tsar would be a magnet for royalists and anyone who wanted to restore the old regime. It is unfortunate about the servants, although they did choose to stay with the Tsar after the revolution. They could have left.

15

yep, st seraphim of sarov died in 1833. he is quoted as saying: “when i am no longer with you, come to my tomb , the more often the better. whatever you have on your heart, whatever has happened to you, take it with you and bring it to me. there tell me everything. speak to me as you have done while i am alive, since for you i am and shall remain alive for all eternity.” so alexandra made a pilgramage to his site and prayed for a son. the legend is that he answered her prayers, with the bit i paraphrased. she did go to his site, she did have a son, the part where he “spoke” to her is up in the air. how do you prove a vision? i would be tempted to say the last part about it being the end may have been tagged on after their deaths. although my grandmother who left russia before the revolution would say that russia ended with a mikhail and would not come back to herself until another mikhail comes into power. she died in 1971. so i guess i have to take some of these things a bit more seriously.

as to the canoniztion of the royal family the full weight of the orthodox church hasn’t ruled on this as yet. the russian orthodox church outside of russia has declared them saints, but other churches have not. the sticking point is on whether they died as the head of an empire or because they were orthodox. the easy answer is the tsar and his son could create political instability, so they were killed. the complicated answer has to do with the atheistic regime that followed him and the death of many of the clergy that followed. at this time the patriarchate of moscow is reviewing the case and will come up with an answer at some point. so the tsar, his wife, and children are considered saints in only one part of the orthodox world. elizabeth, the sister to alexandra is considered a saint in all orthodox churches world wide.