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Patriarch Kirill calls for probe to verify if bodies of Tsar and family were cremated

Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill suggested that experts be sent to India where bonfire cremations are a common thing

MOSCOW, November 27. /TASS/. There is a need to look into the possibility that the bodies of Nicholas II, the last Russian Tsar, and his family members were completely incinerated, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill said, suggesting that experts be sent to India where bonfire cremations are a common thing.

"They ought to travel to India, to the city of Varanasi on the Ganges River, where cremations take place," the head of the Russian Orthodox Church said addressing a conference in Moscow’s Sretensky Monastery, dubbed The Royal Family Murder Case: New Examinations and Files. A Debate. "I was there and I saw it with my own eyes: cremations continue all day long, from early morning till late at night, they use large dry logs. However, after the cremation, the arms and legs still remain," Patriarch Kirill added.

Nicholas II and his family members were shot in the city Yekaterinburg in 1918. White Army investigator Nikolay Sokolov, who conducted a probe in 1919-1922, concluded that all the bodies had been incinerated.