A BETTER RESURRECTION

At the brink of death’s dark door,
Grant Your servants grace to pour
From their lips, a prayer divine,
For those who wronged them, love sublime. Grand Duchess Olga Romanov,

Evgeny Aleksanddrovich Rodionov as a child

Evgeny Aleksandrovich Rodionov was born May 23, 1977 in the village of Satino-Russkoye near Moscow in what was then the Soviet Union. When he was eleven years old, Evgeny Rodionov received from his grandmother a little Cross on a chain. He wanted to wear it to school, but his mother, then an atheist, warned him against it, since the communist authorities frowned on such things.

Evgeny refused to ever take it off. His mother, accustomed to the respectful behavior of her young son, was surprised at his resoluteness in his refusal to remove the cross.

In 1995 Evgeny was drafted into the Russian armed forces as required for all Russian men. Just before his draft, Evgeny was baptized in the Russian Orthodox Church - by himself, apart from his atheist parents.

It was near the end of the Russian/Chechnyan war when the new recruit, Rodionov, was stationed in a guard unit at the border of Chechnya near the town of Galashki. - Rodinov was only 18 years old.

Evgeny and the 3 soldiers patrolled the border between the republics of Chechnya and Ingushetia. Their post, a small cabin without any light or wire communications, was located 200 meters from any security detachment. They had no military support, in spite of the fact that the post was on a mountainous road, used by Chechen guerillas for transporting weapons, ammunition, captives, drugs and so on.

On February 14, 1996, just six months into his service, Evgeny and three comrades were captured by Muslim Chechen guerillas who’d come to their checkpoint hidden in an ambulance. When Evgeny’s group stopped the ambulance, ten armed Chechens got out and quickly overwhelmed the young inexperienced soldiers.

The 4 POWs were held in the cellar of an abandoned house in Chechna for 100 days, as ransom demands were sent to their families. The newly baptized Rodinov, was kept hanging by his wrists, beaten and starved. His ransom was set at 50 million rubles (1.6 million dollars) - an impossible sum. The ransom was not met.

‘Evgeny was held captive for three and a half months. The Chechens demanded that he remove the cross from around his neck, deny his Christian faith and agree to become a Muslim to stay alive. Evgeny refused to renounce his faith. Having suffered indescribable tortures and torments, he did not betray his faith, but confirmed it with his blood.

On May the 23^rd 1996, Evgeny’s 19th birthday, they sawed off his head.’ From Pravoslavie.ru

The gruesome act took over an hour. 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.

Back home, Evgeny's mother, Lubov Rodionova, was told that her son had deserted the army. She didn’t believe it; and embarked on a mission to find her son, that took over 10 months and 56 journeys to the very dangerous nation of Chechna.

Evgeny’s Commander was indifferent to her anguish and the fate of her son. They recommended that she return home and not get involved.

Instead, she went to an Orthodox Church where she received Holy Communion as a believer for the first time. Liubov then set off travelling throughout Chechnya searching for her son, showing his photograph, asking questions and continually praying to God for help.

Her journey, which lasted for ten months led through minefields, aerial bombing, and the threat of bandits. She met other Russian mothers searching for sons who had been reported missing in action or were captured by the Chechen rebels, and she met mothers of sons who had been murdered by beheading.

Liubov related “I think that God was watching over me. I was walking along mined roads, but I did not step on a bomb. He protected me from bombings, He did not let me die, because my duty was to find my son, to bury him on his native land, according to Christian traditions. I have realized that recently. When I was walking along those military roads, I just kept silence, praying to God in my heart.”

Chasing down tenuous leads and questioning anyone who would talk to her, eventually Lubov found the Chechens who had held her son prisoner. They told her he was dead. But the Chechen commander, Haihoroev, would not show her where her son was buried. Lubov steadfastly refusing to believe he was dead, kept up her visits and investigations until the Chechens threatened Lubov also, telling her on her 17th visit, that if she came back again, they would kill her too. She came back.

At one point she came with a Russian army officer who wished to help her find her son, or retrieve his body. The Chechens pointed them to a field claiming that ‘he was buried there’. It was a mine field. The officer stepped on a mine and was blown apart - leaving a family with small children behind.

With the indefatigable singleness of purpose, and total disregard for her own life, that is the emblem of the love of a mother, *Lubov (*whose name in Russian means ‘love’) returned again to Chechna, and agreed to pay Haihoroev some 100,000 rubles (about $4000 US) to take her to his gravesite.

She had to sell her apartment to finance the deal, though finally, after her payment Haihoroev took her to the forest of Alexeevskaya and showed her where her son’s body was buried.

As Evgeny's mother tells the story:

“It was nightime - we were digging in the pit where the bodies of four Russian soldiers were thrown. I was praying, hoping, that my Evgeny was not going to be there. I could not believe that he was murdered. Finally, taking out the remnants, I recognized his boots. I still refused to accept the fact of his death, until they found his Cross. Then I fainted.”

Lubov took Evgeny’s headless body along with the bodies of his murdered friends back to Russia. Evgeny’s father died of grief, five days after the funeral.

The Chechen leader, Haihoroev, later reported in an interview, that he killed Evgeny Rodionov because he had refused to denounce his Christianity and convert to Islam .

Additionally, because Evgeny refused to remove the Cross from his neck, to remove the cross himself, Haihoroev slowly sawed the young soldier’s head off.

EPILOGUE

• Russian troops occupied the village where Evgeny was murdered the following day after the execution.

• Lubov Rodionova later returned to Chechnya on a second trip and recovered her sons head.

• Haihoroev himself and his bodyguards were killed on August 23, 1999 in a fight between his group and a rival Chechen band.

AN EPILOGUE OF EVGENY’S FAITHFUL WITNESS

‘As his story has spread, pilgrims have begun appearing in this small village just west of Moscow, where his mother, Lubov, 51, tends his grave on a hillside beside an old whitewashed church.

Some military veterans have laid their medals by his graveside in a gesture of homage.

People in distress have left handwritten notes asking for his intercession.

Aleksandr Makeyev, a paratroop officer who heads a foundation to assist soldiers, said he had seen soldiers kneeling in prayer before an image of Private Rodionov - “Kids in Chechnya don't know who to appeal to for help, but they understand that Evgenia is one of them.' 'You can say he is the first soldier-saint.'

"Among the photographs of her son that Mrs. Rodionov spreads on her kitchen table are laminated cards that she says some soldiers carry with them. They bear his image along with a prayer:

"Thy martyr, Evgeny, O Lord, in his sufferings has received an incorruptible crown from Thee, our God, for having Thy strength he has brought down his torturers, has defeated the powerless insolence of demons. Through his prayers save our souls."

Icons and pictures of this young man Evgeny spread around Russia very quickly and he was hailed as a New Martyr for Christ. The picture distributed of him shows Evgeny wearing the Cross around his neck for which he died.

Miracles have been occurring in connection with Evgeny's relics as well. During a religious procession in commemoration of Martyr Evgeny on November 20, 2002 the icon with the image of the soldier started secreting sweet-scented myrrh.

People come to visit his grave from the most distant parts of Russia. A WWII veteran once came to visit Evgeny’s grave and he took off his military decoration – the Bravery Medal – and put in on the tombstone.

On Evgeny’s grave Cross it is written: “Russian soldier Evgeny Rodionov is buried here. He defended his Fatherland and did not disavow Christ. He was executed on May 23, 1996, on the outskirts of Bamut.”

His own Cross, the one that he refused to give up, his mother has donated to St. Nicholas Church in Ordinka, Moscow.

Evgeny's mother, who never set foot in a church when her son was growing up, is now a Christian believer, saved by the example of her son, the Holy Martyr Evgeny Rodionov. (Eventually the faithful helped her to raise enough money to buy a new home.)

SCRIPTURAL EPILOGUE

‘Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.’ Matthew 10:32

Others were tortured not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.' Hebrews 11:35

“He that loveth his life shall lose it; he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.” John 12:25

MY EPILOGUE

‘… others were tortured, not accepting deliverance;

And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, bonds and imprisonment:³⁷ 

They were stoned, they were sawn asunder,

slain with the sword: wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins;

destitute, afflicted, tormented;³⁸ 

Of whom the world was not worthy..’

WHY? That they might obtain a better resurrection:³⁶ 

Hebrews 11: 35 - 38

What is a better resurrection? The Scriptures say there are 2 resurrections;

1) The resurrection of the Just.

2) The resurrection of the wicked.

The Bible paints a clear picture of those who will be in the resurrection of the just... These are ‘they that imitate Christ, laying down their lives that others might live.’

This IS after all, the example that Christ left us.

But.. What about those who lay down >the lives of others - that they themselves may live?

How about people that will murder innocent men women and children, so that they may occupy their land?

Which resurrection do you suppose they will be found in?

What about the people that say they follow Christ, but support the murderers and the murderers?

I’ll let the Lord Jesus Christ answer that:

 He that is unjust, let him be unjust still:

and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still:

and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still:

and he that is holy, let him be holy still.

¹² And, behold, I come quickly;

and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.

¹³ I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

¹⁴ Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.

¹⁵ For WITHOUT THE GATES are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and MURDERERS and idolaters, and whosoever LOVETH AND MAKETH A LIE.

¹⁶ I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches.

I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.’

Revelation 22:11 - 16

He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly.

Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.