His very name is translated as “blessing.” He was always sent to the most difficult sites on the Church front. He raised Moscow’s Danilov Monastery from the ruins—the first monastery handed over to the Russian Orthodox Church after the tumultuous years of Soviet authority—then he revived Optina Hermitage from the same desolation. Then he spent three decades peacefully ruling the Vladimir and Suzdal Diocese, which he received in a difficult state of division.

On July 22, our Church bid farewell to an epochal man, a metropolitan who could easily kneel in the middle of a working day just to teach humility to his employees and spiritual children—Vladyka Evlogy (Smirnov).

He used to reflect:

“How weary I have grown of all this fuss. I’m so tired”—his face so bright, his gaze far away, as if he were already looking toward the place where he has now gone—to the Lord, where they don’t speak, but sing.

“Life doesn’t stand still, but extends into time like a speeding arrow,” he wrote in his spiritual journal, “and invariably passes into eternity.”

Read more about vladyka Evlogy (Smirnov): https://orthochristian.com/133577.html