May: Day 15: Teaching 1: Holy and Pious Prince Tsarevich Demetrius of Uglich

May: Day 15: Teaching 1:
Holy and Pious Prince Tsarevich Demetrius of Uglich
 
(The Mysterious Judgements of Justice and God's Goodness)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Three centuries have passed since the terrible event took place – the murder of the innocent eight-year-old boy, the heir to the Russian throne, Tsarevich Demetrius, whose memory is celebrated today. His martyrdom followed, perhaps, at the very same moments in which we now, reverent before the inscrutable ways of God's Providence, recall this sorrowful end of his.

History tells us that Tsarevich Demetrius, while playing a child's game in the afternoon in the white courtyard near his palace, on May 15, 1591, was unexpectedly struck by an assassin's knife and died a martyr's death, covered in his own blood.

II. Who conceived such lawlessness, and what they sought, we leave to inquire of those who are especially called to investigate the past; but now in the temple of the All-Knowing and Almighty, without whose will not a hair of our head perishes, "let us reverently reflect for our edification on the mysterious judgments of His justice and goodness," according to which He allowed such a terrible crime to be committed in our land, which brought with it so many troubles and national disasters. The Providence of God, which especially protects His Anointed Ones and their race, did not this time turn away the blow aimed at the murder of an innocent youth, with whose death the ancient famous race of princes and tsars of Russia was to be cut short and extinct forever.

The judgments of God, brethren, are a great abyss. We confess here with the Holy Apostle the incomprehensibility of the ways of heavenly Providence. "Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!" (Rom. 11:33). Concerning His holy name, we dare only to say that the righteous Judge, the Lord, who passes the sins of the fathers onto the children (Ex. XX, 35), may have desired in this present case to visit the son – the young man – with the rod of punishment for the injustice of the father, who has not without reason been called "Terrible" by all his contemporaries, as well as for the injustice of his servile ministers. On the other hand, perhaps the Lord wanted to allow the troubles and seditions of the interregnum that befell Russia following the murder of the Tsarevich to serve as a punishment for contemporaries for their inclination to troubles and seditions, and as an admonition for us, their descendants, so that we may learn and recognize the great price of autocracy and state welfare, which we inherited from our ancestors, and which in their time cost them severe trials and bloody sacrifices.

The Russian people, seasoned by the visitation of God's wrath, are abundantly consoled by the momentous acquisition of a new royal lineage, which is not foreign to the slain Tsarevich, and is clearly affirmed for all, particularly in our days, marked by divine blessing; and the innocent sufferer, Tsarevich Demetrius, God has glorified in His wonderful judgments through the sanctity of incorruption, so that all may see that the Tsarevich is a sacred lamb, sacrificed for the salvation of legitimate royal authority, and that his regal blood, akin to Abel's, eternally cries out to God for vengeance against the rebels and usurpers of the royal crown. Since that time, the innocent Passion-Bearer Tsarevich Demetrius, by the grace of God, stands invisibly before the throne of the Heavenly King and prays for the blessed new royal family, related to him, and intercedes in heaven for the Russian kingdom and its sovereign rulers. "You have stained the royal diadem," the Holy Church now exclaims, "with your blood, God-wise martyr Demetrius, having taken the cross in your hand for the scepter, you appeared as a victor, and you brought yourself as an immaculate sacrifice to the Master; for like a lamb without malice you were slaughtered by a servant, and now you stand rejoicing before the Holy Trinity, and you pray for the power of your relatives to be pleasing to God, and for the salvation of the Russian people" (Troparion, Tone 2).

III. Let us, brethren, revere the wondrous judgments of God, revealed in the innocent death of Tsarevich Demetrius, and with strong love for our Great Sovereign Emperor Nicholas Alexandrovich, let us offer to the King of kings and the Lord of earthly rulers a prayer of thanksgiving, that He may preserve the life of the Tsar, so precious to us all, and His entire royal House in unshakable health and well-being, and may He preserve all His loyal subjects in faith and piety and unfailing devotion to Him throughout generations. Amen. 

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.