St. Pachomius Library: EUGENE RODIONOV

Evgenij Aleksandrovich Rodionov

XX Century
Russian soldier captured in the Chechen War in 1996, and killed, (according to his mother, who met repeatedly with a Chechen guerrilla leader to retrieve her son's remains), after refusing conversion to Islam. Soldiers and veterans of the War almost immediately began venerating him as a saint; the Church bureaucracy was less enthusiastic, insisting on an elaborate investigation (unconcluded at the time of writing, 2007/09). The incident is a modern example of the tension between ancient customs of canonisation by popular veneration and the more recent (but still ancient) emphasis on formal procedures.
Norman Hugh Redington
Under construction --- far from complete! Read with caution.

ABOUT:
- Boy soldier who died for faith made `saint`. But not officially as of 2004. From The Telegraph, 2004 Jan. 24. --- Telegraph
- Christopher Eger: Evgeniy Rodionov: Soldier Martyr. --- Suite101
- Anatoly Korolev: The First Saint of the Chechen War. From RIA Novosti, 2004 Oct. 5. --- Johnson's Russia List
- Seth Mydans: From Village Boy to Soldier, Martyr and, Many Say, Saint. From the New York Times, 2003 Nov. 21. --- RussNet
- Sergey Stefanov: Russian Soldier Goes Through Chechen Captivity Hell. Read with caution: Pravda in the early XXI Century was a sensationalistic and unreliable publication. --- Pravda
- Ikon of the Soldier-Youth Evgenij: Depicting him in camouflage. --- Web-Box

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