WISHES FOR CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR FROM HEIR TO THE ALL-RUSSIAN IMPERIAL THRONE, HIS HIGHNESS PRINCE NIKOLAIY KIRILLOVICH OF RUSSIA & PRINCE OF LEININGEN
I wish all the Orthodox Christians residing on the vast expansion of the former Russian Empire a blessed Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord and a happy coming New Year!
We have gone through one of the hardest and most difficult years over the past two decades since 2000. Many people have lost their jobs, health, some even their loved ones! I am pained to recall this, but this is something that is becoming part of the history of the 21st century.
Despite the previous adversities and ordeals dealt out by Providence, I call upon you not to despair, to live on and believe that the light of Christ’s faith will illuminate our way to better days in the coming year 2021.
For Russian traditionalists and people loyal to the Orthodox Monarchy, the coming year 2021 is not just another year in the calendar, but also the 300th anniversary of the end of the devastating 20 years’ Northern War against Sweden, following which the country got the status of an Empire and my august forefather, Tsar Peter the Great, was titled the Emperor of All Russia.
Without delving into historical details, I only wish to say that never, neither before nor after the existence of the Russian Empire, had there been such a vast continental country stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean and from the Arctic to the deserts of Central Asia and the Black Sea! The Russian Empire was not just a country. It was a civilization in its own right with its own lifestyle, its own state structure and its own faith – Russian Orthodox Christianity under whose auspices she had lived a thousand years! No successes, achievements and affluence of Russia can be understood and succinctly explained without belief in God’s Providence and His special benevolence towards her people on behalf of the Throne of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Most Holy Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary.
In the coming year 2021, I call upon all Russians, adherents of the Orthodox Christian faith, to offer prayers in the name of the Holy Trinity, and beseech the Lord to grant Russia and her people peace, kindness, love and mercy. May He never leave us, sinners, without His care and protection! Let all evil remain in the past year, may we all in the New Year feel again the happiness and joy of God’s being.
My spouse, Princes Ekaterina Fyodorovna, and I wish all Russians and Orthodox Christians a merry Christmas and may all of their most intimate desires and cherished dreams come true in the coming year 2021.
Lord save us all!
Given at Nuremberg,
December 25, 2020 / January 7, 2021
NIKOLAIY