[mazabotman]

The pronouncement of the Russian supreme court may be seen as the state's counterpart to the Church's glorification of the Tsar and his family. It is interesting also that the supreme court acknowledged that the murders were ordered centrally from Moscow and were not, as apologists for the Bolshevik regime tried to say, a unilateral act of the Urals soviet. It is symbolic but an important symbol since it reflects the reality that, whilst he had abdicated before the October revolution, the Tsar (unlike King Charles I) was nevertheless treated without any sort of due process and never put on trial but summarily murdered. Is it repentance? Can a state repent? I think Robert is right to say that it is an acknowledgement that the state wrongfully killed the Tsar and his family.

I would caution against thinking that the revival of the Church in Russia is a mass movement with most of the population thronging the churches and monasteries. The Church is certainly prominent and services are everywhere well attended. But regular churchgoers are still a very small percentage of the population. Nevertheless, it seems most people in Russia accept Orthodoxy as forming part of the national identity.