Saturday 23rd March at the Russian Orthodox parish of St Nicholas the Wonderworker, 34 Ferry Road, Marston, Oxford OX3 0EU

9.30 Hours
10.00 Divine Liturgy
12.15 Litya at the grave of Fr Nicholas in Headington Cemetery
13.00 Lunch
13.30 Talks by Metr Kallistos and others
15.00 Tea and departure

In 1934 Archimandrite Nicholas (Gibbes), a Cambridge-educated, Englishman, joined the Russian Orthodox Church, as a result of the martyrdom of the Imperial Family whom he, as Charles Sidney Gibbes, had so devotedly served. In joining Her, he took the name of the Tsarevich Alexis and then, being ordained a priest-monk in 1935, took the name of Tsar Nicholas. Therefore, on Saturday 10/23 March 2013, the day on which Orthodox memorial services are celebrated and the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of Fr Nicholas’ repose, we shall celebrate a memorial service on his grave at Headington cemetery in Oxford.

We shall pray for the repose of his soul and so also honour the saints whose examples converted him to the Orthodox Church. With Fr Nicholas Gibbes, a model of nobility and loyalty, we too shall be witnesses before history and stand firm in telling the Truth. In his life for the Tsar, Fr Nicholas became the first English priest of the multinational Russian Orthodox Church, an English wreath on the invisible graves of the Imperial Martyrs and an act of repentance on behalf of the English Nation.