4 july: the holy royal martyrs of russia

and what has moscow to do with northumbria? or why might i commemorate the murders of the russian royal family on the day most of the united states is setting off explosives to commemorate the american colonial rebellion against england?

some who know me might dismiss me as a recusant tory. they might be right in so classifying me, but i think not in dismissing me. we tend to think of revolutions as an acceptable way of achieving short-term political purposes; we tend not to remember the horrors that most often follow them. the french terror might have been a clue. no one can truly number the millions who were slaughtered following the communist revolution in russia, most of whom were christians, killed for being christians. (to be fair to the leninists and stalinists and their followers, they did not limit themselves to christians, but they did particularly single out christians, both orthodox and protestant.)

they started with the czar and his family, not only murdering them but dismembering the bodies and scattering the remains.

there were of course many jews at the time of jesus' life on earth who wanted a revolution. but our lord insisted his kingdom was not of this earth. and i think it can be demonstrated that the celtic church also recognized the futility of violence as an evangelical tool.

but beyond the question of the politics of "the celtic church," there is also the gift that all christians have of being first citizens of the kingdom of god, in which all our brothers and sisters in christ, whether they be russian or welsh or american, are "very members incorporate in the mystical body of [god the] son, which is the blessed company of all faithful people; and are also heirs through hope of [the] everlasting kingdom," and that this hope is not the result of any political actions which we may make, but it is "by the merits of [our lord's] most precious death and passion."