Olga

The Holy Martyr Olga, Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna, was the eldest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna. She was killed with her family at Yekaterinburg, in the night of 16 to 17 July 1918. She was glorified among the saints, as a passion-⁠bearer, by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia in 1981 and by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000. The Russian Church commemorates her on 17 July (new style), that is, 4 July by the old style.

Childhood

She was born on 3 November 1895 by the old style (15 November by the new style) at Tsarskoye Selo, the first child of the imperial family. The birth was hard and the doctor had to use forceps, but the child was born healthy. Her parents rejoiced in her and said that she was a gift of God. She was baptized on 14 November.

The tsar's children were raised simply: they slept on camp beds, washed every morning in cold water, and the servants called them by first name and patronymic. Olga shared a room with her sister Tatiana, and the two were known as "the big pair". Later she had the siblings Maria, Anastasia and Alexei.

Her character

Those who knew her describe her as an honest and generous girl, of a straight character, sometimes quick-⁠tempered. Her French tutor, Pierre Gilliard, said that she had a very quick mind. She liked to read, loved music and played the piano, and later she also wrote verses. She was very close to her father and wore around her neck a chain with an icon of Saint Nicholas.

From childhood she was drawn to the thought of heaven. At eight she learned of the death of a cousin and asked whether God had taken her for the Christmas feast.

Before her brother Alexei was born, it was said in Russia that her father would name her his heir. Before the war her marriage was the subject of many rumours in Russia and in Europe; Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, Prince Carol of Romania and others were named. Olga said she wished to remain in her homeland, among her own.

The war

In the First World War Olga worked as a nursing sister in a military hospital at Tsarskoye Selo, alongside her mother and her sister Tatiana. After a nervous collapse she took on the administrative affairs of the hospital.

Captivity

After her father's abdication in March 1917, the family was arrested, first at Tsarskoye Selo, then at Tobolsk, and in the spring of 1918 at Yekaterinburg, in the Ipatiev House. At Tobolsk and Yekaterinburg Olga tried to keep the family united and to strengthen those around her. It is known that she was more troubled than her sisters in the years of captivity.

In the night of 16 to 17 July 1918 the family was woken and taken down to a room in the cellar of the house, under the pretext that the town was no longer safe. There the tsar, the tsarina, the five children and four attendants were shot at about half past two. Olga was twenty-⁠two.

The verses "Send us, Lord, patience", sometimes ascribed to Olga, are in fact a poem by Sergei Bekhteev, which she only copied.

Relics and glorification

The bodies were buried in secret in a wood near Yekaterinburg. The remains of the family were found in 1991 and identified by DNA analysis. On 17 July 1998 they were buried in the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in Saint Petersburg, among them those of Olga, her parents and two of her sisters.

The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia canonized the tsar and his children in 1981, as martyrs. The Russian Orthodox Church glorified them at the Council of Bishops in August 2000, as passion-⁠bearers, for the humility, patience and meekness with which they received captivity and death. They did not die for confessing the faith before a persecutor, and the name of passion-⁠bearers says as much. The family is called the Holy Royal Passion-⁠Bearers. Icons and services often call them martyrs.

Olga bears the name of Saint Olga, equal to the apostles, who is commemorated on 11 July by the old style.