St Elizabeth the New Martyr

A German princess and granddaughter of Queen Victoria, Elizabeth married Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia and embraced Orthodoxy with her whole heart. When her husband was assassinated in 1905, she visited his killer in prison and forgave him. She then sold her jewels and possessions and founded the Convent of Ss Martha and Mary in Moscow, where as abbess she nursed the sick, fed the poor, and served the city's most abandoned. Arrested by the Bolsheviks in 1918, she was thrown alive down a mine shaft near Alapaevsk together with her faithful companion the nun Barbara and members of the imperial house, singing hymns until the end. Her relics were later carried to Jerusalem and rest in the church of St Mary Magdalene on the Mount of Olives.