Joyful Christianity of Alyona Kojevnikova

“I chose as the theme of my talk the life of the parishes of the Church Abroad – the Church of the Dispossessed – as a witness of that life in dispersion for 82 years and 6 months, that is, my entire life from birth and baptism. I will pray to St Roman the Sweet-Singer for support and inspiration for the right words. Wish me luck! With a hug, Alyona.

The death is one thing we can neither prepare for nor control. We arrived in this world only because others cared for us, and when we leave it, others must stand and take care of what remains. All of us who read these words have arrived in this life, and none of us has yet left it. We have no experience of that final passage.

This morning I received news that my dear friend, Alyona (Elena) Kozhevnikova, passed away last night in England. I first met Alyona in 1988 at the celebration of the Millennium of the Baptism of Rus’ in New York. We reconnected many years later, already in this century, and since then our paths crossed again and again – I visited her home in England to interview her, she visited me in Jordanville, and the last time we met was in Serbia in 2021.

Alyona was born in 1943 in Yugoslavia to a family of White Russian