← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · wild_bill
Thread ID: 11730 | Posts: 1 | Started: 2004-01-04
2004-01-04 00:33 | User Profile
[White soldier who was killed by Muslims for refusing to renounce Christ is new unofficial Saint of Russian Orthodoxy.]
From Village Boy to Soldier, Martyr and, Many Say, Saint [url]http://www.rusnet.nl/news/2003/11/21/report07.shtml[/url]
"Portraits of this young man, Yevgeny Rodionov, are spreading around Russia - sometimes in uniform, sometimes in a robe, sometimes armed, sometimes holding a cross, but always with his halo. He is Russia's new unofficial saint, a casualty of the war in Chechnya who has been canonized not by the Russian Orthodox Church but by a groundswell of popular adoration.
The portraits are religious icons, venerated in homes and churches where Private Rodionov has become the focus of a minor cult that seems to fill a nationalist hunger for popular heroes."