A group of Russian scholars, public figures, and descendants of the last tsar, Nicholas II, have drafted a letter asking the Russian prime minister to authorize the reburial of the remains of two royal children.
The group asked that a special state reburial commission be organized, hoping that the reburial ceremony would take place in 2013, the 400th anniversary of the Romanov House.
Russian forensic scientists announced that DNA tests proved the remains, discovered in the summer of 2007, belong to Tsarevich Alexei and to one of his sisters.
The remains have not been recognized by the Russian Orthodox Church.
Nicholas II, his wife, their four daughters and son, and several servants, were shot dead by the Bolsheviks in a basement in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg on July 17, 1918.
The Romanovs were canonized in 2000. Their remains were interred in St. Petersburg’s Peter and Paul Cathedral in 1998