Over the weekend the remains of Eastern Orthodox Archbishop Dmitri, who died in 2011, were moved from a cemetery to be interred in a crypt at St. Seraphim Cathedral in Oak Lawn. Rod Dreher of the American Conservative — a former editorial writer for for the Dallas Morning News — wrote of how Dmitri inspired him as he and his family converted to Orthodoxy from Catholicism in 2005:
He died in the summer of 2011, and was buried unembalmed, according to Orthodox tradition. On Friday his body was disinterred for transferral to his new tomb in St. Seraphim Orthodox Cathedral in Dallas, which was his own. When the cemetery personnel opened his coffin, they found Vladyka Dmitri incorrupt.
That is to say, his body had not decayed. He has been buried for four and a half years under the Texas ground, and his body looks like it did the day he died.
This is a miracle. In Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christianity, it is seen as a sign that the deceased was, and is, a saint. If you read The Brothers Karamazov, you may remember that whether or not the deceased Elder Zosima was incorruptible was a feature of the narrative.
In Dallas today, they found their incorruptible. I don’t suppose a soul who knew Vladyka Dmitri is surprised. I knew him in the last five years of his life. What a dear and holy man he was.
