This paper explores the popular veneration of Evgenii Rodionov—a Russian army private killed in Chechen captivity in 1996 and celebrated as a martyr across the Orthodox world. Even though the Russian Orthodox Church refused to canonize the soldier in 2004, thousands of Orthodox believers continue to make pilgrimages to Rodionov’s grave site, paint icons of him, and pray to the fallen warrior in hopes of intercession. Drawing on field research with the soldier’s popular venerators in Russia and Cyprus, I examine the gendered imaginaries which underpin this new martyr cult as well as the models of military sainthood that feature prominently in both historical and present-day Orthodox Christianity. I argue that Rodionov’s transnational acclaim is driven partly by this new martyr’s capacity to offer a militant model of religiosity that is favored both by Orthodox priests and a new generation of young parishioners looking for contemporary and assertive examples of sainthood.
