Church to Investigate Czar’s ‘Weeping’ Icon

The Russian Orthodox Church will investigate the allegedly miraculous properties of an icon of the country’s last czar, Nicholas II, the Itar-Tass news agency quoted a leading clergyman as saying. The icon at Moscow’s Church of the Ascension has reportedly been exuding myrrh since Nov. 7, the anniversary of the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917. The czar and his family were shot by a Bolshevik firing squad in July 1918. Metropolitan Kirill said the icon will be a key factor in determining whether Nicholas, a devout Christian, and his family should be canonized, as many believers wish.