In this article, presented at the 'Celebration of Living Theology' conference in honour of Fr Andrew Louth in Durham this summer, Alison Ruth Kolosova describes the effects of the work of N.I. Ilminskii and his disciples among the Chuvash people from the 19th century to the present day. Were his efforts to promote the use of the native language in schools and churches part of the Tsarist policy of russification, or was he in fact a separatist and nationalist?

In the third and final part of the life of Elder Ilarion (Udodov) we read of his life through the eyes of his spiritual children, from those who lived and worshipped with him in his church in Vinogradovo, to those who later became priests and hierarchs of the Church under his guidance and with his prayers. We end by looking at his spiritual successors, in particular his brother, Protopriest Piotr, and Protopriest Vladimir Zhavoronkov, who became the parish priest of the Vinogradovo church.

In the second part of the life of Elder Ilarion we follow him back to Russia, which was soon to be overtaken by the darkest times in its history. We see him giving spiritual guidance to a dispersed convent of nuns before and after their exile in Kazakhstan, and then learn of  the elder’s part in the extraordinary story of the hiding of the head of Saint Sergius of Radonezh, ending with a moving account of the first Divine Liturgy at the Trinity St Sergius Monastery, which had been closed for 26 years.

Today being the 61st anniversary of the blessed repose of Schema-Archimandrite Ilarion (Udodov; 1862-1951), Bogoslov.Ru is publishing his life, compiled by Fr Vladislav Michin, a priest of the Church of the Deposition of the Venerable Robe of the Theotokos at Blachernae in Leonovo, and translated from the Russian by Yana Larionova. The account of his life will continue in two further parts.