This is the second Church of St. Eugene being built in the Ekaterinburg Diocese in four months.
Pervouralsk, October 2, 2018
Photo: ekaterinburg-eparhia.ru In this year of the centenary of the martyric podvig of the Royal Martyrs and their faithful servants, the building of another church dedicated to Dr. Eugene Botkin was begun yesterday.
Photo: ekaterinburg-eparhia.ru His Eminence Metropolitan Kirill of Ekaterinburg and Verkhotursky celebrated the rite of the consecration of the foundation of the new church—the second named in honor of the Romanovs’ doctor in the Ekaterinburg Diocese—yesterday in the city of Pervouralsk in the Sverdlovsk Province, reports the site of the Ekaterinburg Diocese.
Met. Kirill also consecrated the foundation stone of a Church of St. Eugene in Ekaterinburg in June.
Photo: ekaterinburg-eparhia.ru His Eminence was assisted in the rite yesterday by a number of clergy from throughout the Ekaterinburg Diocese. The stone was laid in a grove in the city of Pervouralsk. It is planned to be a single-altar stone church, with a capacity of up to 150 people. The parish community in honor of St. Eugene Botkin was already created in 2015.
Photo: ekaterinburg-eparhia.ru “I have really wanted a church in the name of a great Russian who remained loyal to his oath, loyal to his homeland, loyal to his tsar—a church to our Eugene Sergeevich Botkin, who is the patron saint of soldiers and doctors today—to be built on this spot among the Russian birch trees,” Met. Kirill noted in his archpastoral homily.
Photo: ekaterinburg-eparhia.ru “This man is a model of service for us, because despite all the sorrows, despite all the hardships, he remained with his tsar. He did not betray him, did not betray his homeland, was faithful to his oath, and was even with them unto death, until his last breath,” the Ekaterinburg hierarch added.
“This is how it should be, and normal Russians were always this way—Christians, who always cultivated within themselves the qualities of fortitude, loyalty, bravery, honesty, which we are lacking in our lives today. May this church, which we hope we will see in our lifetime, be a model for us all and a reminder of how we should be in this life.”
Photo: ekaterinburg-eparhia.ru His Eminence then wished God’s blessing for the rector of the new parish and thanked the Pervouralsk administration that allocated land for the construction of the church.
Photo: ekaterinburg-eparhia.ru St. Eugene was canonized as Righteous Eugene the Passion-Bearer by the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church at their February 2-3 session. His glorification was then celebrated on February 7, the day of the feast of the Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russian Church, in the Ekaterinburg Church on the Blood, built on the site of the Ipatiev House, where St. Eugene was martyred along with the Royal Family.
Photo: ekaterinburg-eparhia.ru St. Eugene was also canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia along with the Royal Martyrs in 1981. The Royal Family was canonized by the Moscow Patriarchate in 2000, though St. Eugene was not canonized at that time.
Photo: ekaterinburg-eparhia.ru The first church in honor of St. Eugene was consecrated in Moscow in 2016. Churches in his honor are also under construction in St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk.
There are also plans to build a boulevard in St. Eugene’s name in Ekaterinburg.
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