Holy oil and history: What Jerusalem means for Britain's monarch

The coronation of King Charles on May 6 could not happen without Jerusalem’s Convent of the Ascension on Mount of Olives.

More than 150 years after its establishment, it fell to the sprawling Russian Orthodox institution to harvest the olives that produced the oil with which Archbishop Justin Welby will anoint the king, officially making him England’s 62nd monarch.

With all the fanfare in London outside Westminster Abbey on the day of the coronation, and in an increasingly secular Britain, the religious profundity and symbolism of the event might be missed by many.

But everything about the Convent of the Ascension’s holy oil, from its consecration in Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre to its final function in Westminster Abbey, is a reminder that Christianity is still at the core of how Britain appoints its head of state.

That fact is not lost on Archimandrite Roman Krassovsky, head of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem.

King Charles with Archimandrite Roman Krassovsky, head of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem, during his visit to the Mount of Olives in 2020. Reuters

He might belong to a different branch of Christianity, and live more than 3,000km away from where the coronation is taking place, but Father Roman feels a great proximity to King Charles and the Anglican ceremony.

“Maybe I’m a rare breed, but I grew up in the US and am still a monarchist,” he told The National. “Monarchy is the God-given way of leading people. It’s goes all the way back to the Old Testament.

“Charles is the anointed of God. His anointment during the coronation is not him being given a special power, rather a spiritual strength to carry his burden as the leader of the British people.”

Father Roman is deeply proud that his branch of Christianity plays such a crucial role in the ceremony.

After all, bringing Jerusalem’s Greek Orthodox Patriarch and Anglican Archbishop together in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to bless the oil was not a simple ecumenical gesture. The relationship between Orthodox Christianity and the British monarchy runs far deeper than that.

The Convent of the Ascension is perfect evidence of these ties.

King Charles’s grandmother on his father’s side, Princess Alice of Battenberg, is buried in the Russian Church of Mary Magdalene, just down the road in Gethsemane.

And the institution had its hardest days when in 1917 the Russians overthrew Tsar Nicholas II, a relative of Britain's Queen Victoria. It was the turning point in Russian history that paved the way for the establishment of the deeply anti-religious Soviet Union.

Some of the Russian pilgrims visiting the Holy Land at the time suddenly had nowhere to go. Many stayed in Jerusalem, joining the religious community for life, trapped by the downfall of a ruling system based on biblical tradition. Some of these victims of circumstance are buried in the grounds of the convent today.

Father Roman believes the king felt a similar burden and entrapment on a visit he made to Jerusalem in 2020, in part to pay his respects at the tomb of Princess Alice, his grandmother, who helped hide a Jewish family from the Nazis in Athens in 1943.

“When Charles was here I showed him Jerusalem from the balcony of our church. I pointed out the Holy Sepulchre, the Tomb of the Virgin, the place where St Stephen was stoned. I did so because Charles couldn’t go and see any of them for himself. With so much political sensitivity around the Palestinian question and the contested status of Jerusalem, people didn’t want him to go inside the Old City,” said Father Romans.

“People don’t understand this. Monarchy is service. It’s not a job. He doesn’t have a life or a free will, because his service is tied to his people.”

Britain is a far more secular country than when the last coronation happened. And despite the happiness and outpouring of patriotism London will see on May 6, the monarchy’s future is less stable after the death Queen Elizabeth II, whose near-universal popularity masked debate about whether the monarchy is still valid in 21st-century Britain.

But as King Charles enters this difficult era, he can be sure of the deepest support from many like Father Roman in a part of the world that his family helped shape and which provides the Biblical foundations on which his rule is built.

Holy oil and history: What Jerusalem means for Britain's monarch

Birthplace of Christianity plays a vital role in the coronation