St. Christopher Hellenic Orthodox Church

Peachtree City, Georgia

Adult Religious Education Class

for Sunday, July 12, 2020

Saint Evgenii (Eugene) Rodionov

(Born: May 23, 1977; Died May 23, 1996)

On May 23, 1977, when Lyubov Vasilievna Rodionova gave birth to her only son Evgenii (Eugene), it was a marvelous spring evening outside. The young mother looked through the window and saw a falling star at that moment. Her heart got pierced by an anxious feeling. But after the soothing words of the midwives she forgot about it… only to recall it nineteen years later.

Eugene Alexandrovich Rodionov was born on the above-mentioned date in Chibirley village, Penza region, Russia. Being a calm and relatively healthy child, he was a true joy for his parents. They were concerned about only one thing – while the little one was growing up, he could not yet walk independently. From advice of their relatives, they baptized the boy. Soon after that, Gene, sure-footed, started walking by himself.

He went to church for the second time during the autumn of 1989, for Confession and to receive Holy Communion before the start of the new academic year. But unfortunately, it turned out that the boy had no cross to wear. The Priest gave Gene a cross as a gift, which the future great would never take off. Even his mother was surprised that he wore it constantly, even when taking a bath. She insisted on her son to take it off, mostly because she worried others would bully him at school. However, he always replied to her: “Let it be so! I have decided so and it will be so. I will never take my cross off!” None of his classmates ever dared to bully him. Additionally, his friends gradually started crafting and wearing crosses of their own. Gene was only 14 when he understood the dogma of the Holy Trinity and explained it to his mother. He was a good and diligent student, exhibiting great memory, independence, and 2 responsibility. His mother was a furniture designer and after she got divorced from his father, when the money was not enough, her son who had just completed the ninth grade, left school in order to work with his mother and to support her financially. At work everyone was extremely satisfied with Gene. The lives of the mother and son slowly but surely stabilized. They bought a 2-room flat and lived modestly and happily. The young boy was cheerful and full of life. He was active with sports, he loved cooking, and he was devoted to his mother and enjoyed her youthful and heartfelt poems.

In 1995, Gene got a military summons and without any hesitation, he entered the army. Moreover, he went there with his Christian emblem under his clothes. On July 10, 1995, he pledged the military oath and soon after that he was assigned to the Border military forces.

On February 13, 1996, the young soldier was on duty at the control registration point of the administrative border between Chechnya and Ingushetia. With him were three more soldiers – Andrey Trusov, Alexander Zheleznyov, and Igor Yakovlev. The road which they were guarding was the most important one in the region, especially for the Chechnya terrorists. That evening was dark and cold. There were neither lights nor shelter at the checkpoint, which looked more like a bus stop. At one point, an ambulance approached, and the soldiers stopped it for inspection. There were weapons and many terrorists hidden inside. A fight ensued and despite their stubborn resistance, the four soldiers were captured. When the Russian military officers noticed the absence of the soldiers, it was too late. Although blood traces were found on the spot, the local military management sent letters to the parents of the captured soldiers calling for the “deserters” to come back.

And here began the nightmare of a mother and her 18-year-old son. In vain, Lyubov Rodionova tried to reassure the military officers who came to rummage in her apartment that her son would never ever desert his post and that he had obviously been captured. Valuable time was wasted until finally the military officers confessed that the soldiers had been kidnapped.

The desperate mother went alone to search for her child. She passed through the Caucasus mountains, trenches, and outlying villages, exhausted and hungry, all by herself. She met many of the then still-alive terrorist leaders, who humiliated and beat her. But 3 she always got up and continued forwards. She had with herself a photo of Gene and another photo of herself with the terrorist Hattab, which she used as an access permit through the Caucasian wilds.

During that time, the captured boys were imprisoned, beaten on a regular basis, deprived from food, and humiliated. The nightmare had continued for three months in the dungeons close to the Bamut village in Chechnya. All the time the terrorists kept repeating the same thing to the four prisoners – that the tortures would stop immediately, and the soldiers would be freed once they denied their faith in Christ and Orthodox and adopt Islam. Among the four soldiers, only Gene wore a cross on his chest. That is why the Chechens focused on him to take it off and to become a Muslim. And this went on for a hundred days…

All four boys refused to betray the Lord! Three of them were shot. And on May 23, 1996, the very day he was born, Gene Rodionov was decapitated ritually…

In the meantime, his mother kept wandering across the Caucasian mountains and seeking to find him. When she got the news about his death, she could not believe it. For $4,000, local inhabitants would show her the place where her son was buried.

Lyubov Rodionova mortgaged her home, sold all the valuables she had and together with a few soldiers went to that place. They were digging for a long time at night, under the lights of the truck in which they arrived. Suddenly, one of the soldiers shouted: “A cross!” and the mother fainted, as she realized that they had found the body of her only child!...

After the DNA-experts confirmed this, Gene’s body was transported to their home in the Kurilovo village, in the outskirts of Moscow. Soon, Lyubov Rodionova had to go back to Bamut. This time – to pay the ransom for the head of her son. She wrapped it with tender love and travelled back home by train. Her child was buried shortly afterwards. Kind people collected money for a huge wooden cross on his grave. Not long after the funeral, Gene’s father – Alexander Rodionov, died from grief.

In the presence of a representative of PACE, Lyubov Rodionova met briefly with her son’s murderer – Ruslan 4

Hoyhoroev. He confirmed that Gene had been killed because of his refusal to become a Muslim.

Soon after all these events a happened – the rumor about the soldier-martyr spread all over Russia. People started reporting about after calling him in their prayers. Eugene started appearing in visions to many believers and he always was dressed in the ’ red mantle! The news about the feat of the 19- year-old boy spread in all the Orthodox Christian countries and even to non-Orthodox ones. Every year more and more people visit the martyr’s grave. with his image have been painted and some of these icons started gushing forth holy myrrh. Documentary films have been created. Poems and songs have been written. Processions have been organized. And all of them – in his memory.

In 2004, under the laymen’s push, the Holy Synod commission of the Moscow Patriarchate got together to discuss Gene’s . It pronounced the shocking statement that “at the moment there are no proofs that while being alive, Eugene Rodionov had had a regular church life and that the evidence about his heroism are not enough.” The martyr’s death makes the first “argument” senseless. And the evidence is not any less that in the cases of the thousands of already canonized martyrs and new martyrs. Of course, such a spiritual blindness cannot embarrass at all the millions of Orthodox Christians who passionately believe that after the informal canonization in their hearts, Eugene will get officially canonized by the Church as well.

At present, the pectoral cross of the holy new martyr for Christ – Eugene the Warrior – is in the altar of the St. Nicholas Church in Pijah, Moscow. An endless flow of faithful people belong to this church and worship with faith, love, and appreciation of the great feat of the Russian boy, who was devoted up to his death to the Lord.

Lyubov Rodionova grieves about her son with the eternal grief of a mother, but she also is proud of his heroism, his steadfastness, and his faithfulness to God and the Church. When Gene Rodionov was born during that warm May night of 1977, the heart of his mother got anxious when she saw the falling star. Now, however, all of us know that it symbolized his angelic soul, born and coming to us. Nineteen years later, this brave and faithful soul came back to God, in order to lead us and illuminate our way. It is one more star among the Lord’s martyrs. It is a star which defeated evil. It is a star which keeps blinking in our hearts…

Editor’s Note: I would like to thank Galina Koleva for introducing me to the life story of one of the newest Orthodox martyrs, St. Evgenii Rodionov. If alive today he would be only two years younger than Galina. I thank her for translating this account of his life and martyrdom from Russian and Bulgarian sources into English for us to study during our adult religious education lesson on Sunday afternoon, June 12, 2020. Galina mused that “St. Evgenii is confirmation that our Church continues to give birth to even today… and that each one of us is a potential .” His family and friends called him “Jenya” for short in Russian just as we say “Gene” for Eugene in English. His Greek Name is Eugenios. His mother’s name Lyubov means love! Through the prayers of St. Evgenii, may God grant us strength and courage to persevere for our salvation and everlasting life and to love our Lord Jesus Christ always. – Fr. George Tsahakis, 7.7.20