MOSCOW, November 30. /TASS/. The Russian Orthodox Church community has some questions about the results of the examinations as part of a probe into the murder of Nicholas II, the last Russian Tsar, and his family, Secretary of the Patriarchal Commission for the study of the examination results, Bishop of Yegoryevsk Tikhon (Shevkunov) told reporters on Thursday.
"DNA tests are still underway. They are conducted absolutely independently, but some people have questions about them," he said. According to the commission’s secretary, "the question of the dental examination needs to be clarified thoroughly" too. Bishop Tikhon said, in particular, that Tsar Nicholas II "couldn’t have so seriously neglected the condition of his teeth."
"There are a lot of factors both in favor of the authenticity of the remains and against it," he said. "Due to huge public interest in this case, a critical decision has been made to check all versions," Bishop Tikhon said.
"We are not rushing [to wrap up the investigation] for any anniversary. We are not seeking to report on it, we are just doing what we should do," he concluded.
Romanov family murder
Tsar Nicholas II and his family were shot in Yekaterinburg in 1918. White Army investigator Nikolay Sokolov who conducted the probe in 1919-1922, soon after the Russian royal family’s execution, concluded that all the bodies had been incinerated.
In the early 1990s, a group of researchers found some remains that could have presumably been the ones belonging the Russian royal family. In 1998, they were reburied in the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg, in the Romanov tomb. The Russian Orthodox Church posed a number of questions to the investigators and the state commission, which have remained unanswered. Therefore, it has adhered to the opinion that the probe had been insufficient and the remains found in Yekaterinburg could not have been those of the Romanov family.