Russia is launching an investigation into whether Tsar Nicholas II and his family were killed by Jews in a ‘ritual murder’.
The country’s final emperor was shot with his wife and five children by Communist revolutionaries in 1918 after Vladimir Lenin came to power.
Hardcore elements of the Russian Orthodox Church insist he was murdered in a Jewish ritual – but Jewish groups strongly deny the ‘anti-Semitic and unsubstantiated’ accusations.
Russia is launching an investigation into whether Tsar Nicholas II and his family (pictured) were killed by Jews in a ‘ritual murder’
The country’s final emperor was shot with his wife and five children by Communist revolutionaries in 1918 after Vladimir Lenin came to power. Pictured: Romanov family in Tobolsk
This is the room where the tsar was shot. Nicholas and his family were canonised as passion bearers, a title commemorating believers who face death in a Christ-like manner, by the Russian Orthodox Church within Russia in 2000
The ‘ritual’ claims were dismissed by the Prosecutor General’s Office in the 1990s but will be explored again as part of a new criminal investigation into the killing.
‘We take the ritual murder theory most seriously,’ said Vladimir Putin’s personal confessor, orthodox bishop Tikhon Shevkunov, who reportedly triggered the probe.
Tikhon demanded that the claims of a ritual killing of the imperial family should be ‘substantiated and proven’ by the Investigative Committee which is conducting the investigation.
It has now launched a ‘psychological and historical evaluation’ into the matter as part of the on-going criminal case into the slaying of the Romanovs.
Marina Molodtsova, a senior Investigative Committee official, said the probe would ‘resolve issues of whether the Romanov family murder had a possible ritual component’.
Chief executioner of the Romanovs, Jewish Bolshevik Yakov Yurovsky, was on record as saying a killer had been assigned to each royal but the majority of the bullets hit the tsar because ‘everybody wanted to be part of the regicide’ and ‘it was a special ritual for many,’ said the bishop.
Key members of a church commission linked to the criminal investigation ‘do not have any doubts’ the shooting was ‘ritualistic’, he said.
A staunchly pro-Putin MP, Natalia Poklonskaya, 37, has also claimed the tsar’s killing had ‘evil’ religious motives.
‘They murdered the entire royal family, they killed the children in front of their father, they killed the mother in front of the children,’ said the politician, formerly the chief prosecutor in Crimea.
The ‘ritual’ claims were dismissed by the Prosecutor General’s Office in the 1990s but will be explored again as part of a new criminal investigation into the killing
Left: Empress Alexandra with son Alexei. Right: Yakov Yurovsky who executed the Romanovs
‘This is a crime, a frightening ritual murder.’
‘Many people are afraid to talk about it – but everyone understands that it happened. It is evil.’
Top Bolshevik Yakov Sverdlov – who specifically ordered the killing of the last tsar – was also Jewish, say supporters of this theory.
Alexander Boroda, president of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, said the accusations – tantamount to a conspiracy theory – were plainly aimed at Jews, and risked stirring up hatred.
‘Accusing Jews of a ritual murder is one of the most ancient anti-Semitist slanders,’ he said.
‘It repeatedly causes persecutions resulting in deaths of hundreds and thousands of people.
‘But each time those accusations were considered by people free of anti-Semitic prejudices, it emerged that this slander is false.’
Alexander Boroda, president of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, said the accusations – tantamount to a conspiracy theory – were plainly aimed at Jews, and risked stirring up hatred. Pictured: Romanov family in Tobolsk
Top Bolshevik Yakov Sverdlov – who specifically ordered the killing of the last tsar – was also Jewish, say supporters of the theory. Pictured: Romanov family in Tobolsk
‘It’s regrettable that it is being advanced again, presenting libelous slander as a theory worthy of an inquiry,’ he said.
Judaism was the first religion to abolish human sacrifices and does not know the concept of a ‘ritual murder’, he said.
Tikhon is widely seen as Putin’s personal confessor and spiritual adviser.
The ultra-conservative churchman once said: ‘You can believe those rumours if you want, but they certainly are not spread by me.’
The pair were introduced to one another by exiled Russian banker Sergei Pugachev, estranged lover of British socialite and former BBC Horse People presenter, Alexandra Tolstoy.
Bishop Tikhon demanded that the claims of a ritual killing of the imperial family should be ‘substantiated and proven’. Pictured: Nicholas and Alexei in Tobolsk exile