Evgeniy Rodionov Soldier Martyr
The 19 year old New Russian Orthodox Saint of Chechnya
Much of his story has become legendary in a Russia searching for heroes in a war with few of them.
Evgeniy Aleksandrovich Rodionov was born May 23, 1977 in the village of Satino-Russkoye near Moscow in what was then the Soviet Union. In 1995 he turned 18 and was drafted into the Russian armed forces. He was chosen to work in a frontier guard unit (sometime of a mix between the US Border Patrol and the National Guard) and sent for training in the Kalingrad area of what was formerly East Prussia. After training he was sent to the border of Chechnya and posted near the town of Galashki. On the night of February 14, 1996 he and three comrades were captured by a force of Chechen guerillas in an ambulance. They were held in the cellar of an abandoned house for 100 days as ransom demands were sent to their families. Kidnapping was almost a cottage industry in Chechnya during that time period. Rodionov ransom was reported to be on the order of 50 million rubles- at the time an impossible sum.
Chechen field commander Rusland Haihoroev (also spelled Khaikhoroyev in some sources) slit the throat of the soldier and later beheaded him on May 23, 1996 (his 19th birthday) near the settlement of Bamut. His body, along with four other Russian prisoners were placed in a bomb crater outside the village of Alexeevskaya and covered up with lime and dirt. Haihoroev stated later in an interview that he only killed Rodionov after the soldier denied conversion to Islam and refused to give up his orthodox cross. This was instrumental in the popular movement to have the boy soldier martyred.
Lubov Rodionova, the mother of the executed soldier journeyed to Chechnya on her own accord to try to find her son. She stayed there for ten months chasing down leads and questioning anyone who would talk to her. It was months before she found out that he had in fact been killed. She finally agreed to pay an informer some 100,000 rubles (about $4000 US) to take her to his gravesite in the forests outside of Alexeevskaya. There, with the assistance of the military, she was able to exhume his body. She found her sons headless body complete with his trademark cross and returned to Moscow with it where with the aide of the revived Orthodox Church she buried him and spread his story. The attention to his case has led to several veteran groups and religious organizations to call for his canonization. You can find unofficial prayer cards and icons all over Russia to the young soldier. He was posthumously awarded the Order of Courage by the Army.
Haihoroev himself was killed in 1999 in a fight between his group and rival Chechen band. Lubov Rodionova returned to Chechnya on a second trip and recovered her sons head.
Sources
Orthodox Heritage. The Greek Orthodox Brotherhood of St. Poimen. Florence, Arizona. Volume 01, Issue 1 January 2003 p. 4.
Russian Soldier Goes through…. Pravda, January 8, 2003. Dimitry Sudakov
From Village Boy to Soldier, Martyr and, Many Say, Saint", The New York Times, November 21, 2003 Seth Mydans
