July 17, 2010, on the feast day of the Holy Royal Passion-bearers in the church of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker in the city of Shanghai, there has been a festive worship service.
Memorial Church of Tsar-martyr Nicholas II and his Augustus family, a masterpiece of architecture and one of the major attractions of Shanghai, was built by funds of Russian immigrants in 1934. The start of Nicholas Church, which became the first Russian émigré church in Shanghai, was held in 1932. Its construction was done in record time - 15 months.
July 18 this year, the feast day of St. Sergius of Radonezh, Martyr Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna and Nun Barbara in St. Nicholas church they conducted a Divine Liturgy.
July 18, 1918 in the Urals, near the town of Alapayevsk were killed and thrown into one of the abandoned iron mine of Lower Selimskaja members of the Romanov family - Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, Grand Duke Ivan, Constantine and Igor Konstantinovich Prince Vladimir Pavlovich Paley; Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna and her assistant Barbara Yakovleva, managing director of Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich F.M.Remeza, valet of Prince Paley Ts. Krukovsky, Doctor of Grand Duke of Sergei Mikhailovich Gelmersen and lackey of Prince John Konstantinovich Kalinin.
After finding the bodies of martyrs from Alapaevsk, the remains were sent with the retreating units of the White Army to China. To Beijing, the bodies were protected by Chinese military authorities.
April 16, 1920 coffins with the bodies of the members of the imperial family and close friends perished in Alapayevsk arrived in the Chinese capital. The remains were met by the head of the 28th Russian Ecclesiastical Mission (RDM) in China, Metropolitan Innokenty (Figurovsky) of Beijing and China. They were buried in the crypt of the Church of St. Seraphim of Sarov, which was located in the center of the cemetery of the Mission, located outside the city wall near the gate of Andingmen.
Thanks to the efforts of the English royal house, coffins of Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna and Nun Barbara were sent from Beijing to Tianjin, then to Shanghai and later to Jerusalem, where they were buried.
Burial sites of Alapaevsky martyrs in Beijing remained in the care of Head of RDM and Higher Chinese leadership. They were subsequently transferred to the crypt of the Church of All Martyrs, located on the Mission territory. After the abolition of the Mission in 1954 and the transfer of its territory to the Soviet Embassy, the fate of the relics of the Alapayevsky martyrs is unknown.
At the time of the Shanghai World Expo 2010 from May to November this year, Nicholas Church resumed operations. The temple is open on Sundays and public holidays for all the Orthodox World's Fair visitors.