On this day — 25th (O.S. 12th) April 1891, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna (1864-1918) converted to Russian Orthodoxy from her native Lutheran religion.
During her years in Russia, Elizabeth Feodorovna was actively engaged in works of mercy. She served as chairman of the Petrovsky Charitable Society in St. Petersburg, the First St. Petersburg Ladies’ Committee of the Russian Red Cross Society, the Tsarskoye Selo Charitable Society, and the Shelter for Weak and Convalescent Children. In 1896, the Grand Duchess founded the Elizabethan Community of Sisters of Mercy in St. Petersburg. In 1908, she founded the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent in Moscow, which exists to this day.
In 1918, Vladimir Lenin ordered the Cheka to arrest Elizabeth. She was sent into exile with Varvara Alexeyevna Yakovleva (1880-1918). They were murdered by the Bolsheviks near Alapaevsk on 18th July 1918, one day after the Imperial Family were murdered in Ekaterinburg.
She was canonised by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia in 1981, and in 1992 by the Moscow Patriarchate as Holy Martyr Elizabeth Feodorovna.
