[St. Pachomius Library]

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.



0

Return to St Pachomius Library.