Russian Empresses

[SeleucusNicator]

I am reading a book about the Romanovs right now. It's the famous/popular book about them ("Autocrats of all the Russias"), so I'm guessing you're all familiar with it

It seems that every time a foreign princess comes to Russia and marries the Czar, when she is baptized she is given the patronymic "Feodorovna".

I assume that all these foreign princesses were not in fact daughters of a Feodor. Why were they all given this name? Is this some kind of Russian orthodox tradition for female converts?

 

[MAlexander06]

The first Romanov tsar was Mikhail Feodorovich. His father had been forced into a monastery by Boris Godunov during the Time of Troubles as part of the latter's revenge against the Romanovs, who were his challengers on the way to the throne. A Tsar Feodor was also the immediate successor to Ivan IV Groznyy, but he didn't have any children, and it was his death that led to the Time of Troubles in the first place.

I'd imagine that it has to do more with the Romanov Feodor (the first one I mentioned) as the patriarch of the line, but there may also have been some effort to establish continuity with Ivan Groznyy and the Rurikids (of which the elder Feodor was the last).

I doubt it's any sort of church tradition, since there are examples of foreign princesses with other patronymics, notably one Yekaterina Alekseevna.