On Monday August 14th, 2000 the Bishops' Council in Moscow of the Russian Orthodox Church declared Nicholas, Empress Alexandra, Tsarevitch Alexei, Princesses Olga, Tatyana, Maria and Anastasia, to be martyrs.

The Russian imperial family had been executed by a Bolshevik firing squad in the spring of 1918 as part of the consolidation of the Soviet Revolution.

According to a Reuters report, "Church officials have recorded miracles associated with the tsar, including icon portraits of him that 'weep' beads of fragrant liquid. Such phenomena led the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, opposed to the Soviet state, to canonize him in 1981."

The decision by the Russian Orthodox Church to follow this with their own canonization is not...how shall I put it?... without controversy.