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(Redirected from Ioann Konstantinovich of Russia)

'Prince Ivan' or 'Prince Ioann Konstantinovich of Russia' (''Иоанн Константиович'') (July 5, 1886–July 18, 1918), sometimes also known as 'Prince John' or 'Prince Johan,' was the eldest son of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich of Russia by his wife Elisaveta Mavrikievna, née Princess Elisabeth of Saxe-Altenburg. He was described by contemporaries as a gentle, religious human being, nicknamed Ioannchik by his relatives.
Ivan Konstantinovich was born (23.6.1886 in Old Calendar, 5.7.1886 Gregorian time) as an Imperial Highness, Grand Duke of Russia, but at the age of 9 days (on 2 July 1886 Old Calendar/ 14 July 1886 Gregorian) by Ukaz of his cousin Emperor Alexander III of Russia was stripped of that birth title, as the Ukaz amended the House Law by limiting the grand-ducal title to grandsons of reigning emperors, and received the title Prince of the Imperial Blood (Prince of Russia) and qualification His Highness.
He once entertained the possibility of becoming an Orthodox monk, but eventually fell in love with the fair and strong-willed Princess Jelena of Serbia. They married on September 2,1911, and Jelena took the name Princess Elena Petrovna of Russia. They were a very happy couple, blessed on January 20, 1914, with a son, Prince Vsevolod Ioannovich, and on July 25, 1915, with a daughter, Princess Ekaterina Ioannovna, who is the last member of the Imperial Family to be born before the fall of the dynasty, and was ultimately to become the last surviving uncontested dynast of the Imperial House of Russia.
Prince Ioann fought in the First World War, was decorated as a war hero, and was at the front when the Russian Revolution of 1917 started. In April 1918 he was exiled to the Urals by the Bolsheviks, and later murdered in July the same year in an atrocious way in a mineshaft near Alapaevsk, along with his brothers Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich and Prince Igor Konstantinovich, his cousin Prince Vladimir Pavlovich Paley, and other relatives and friends.
His body was eventually buried in Beijing, in the cemetery of the Russian Orthodox Mission, which was destroyed years later to build a park.

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★ Romanov sainthood