Alexander Men

Alexander Vladimirovich Men (Russian: Алекса́ндр Влади́мирович Мень, romanized: Aleksandr Vladimirovich Men'; 22 January 1935 – 9 September 1990) was a Soviet Russian Orthodox Church priest, dissident, scholar of theology and the bible, and author of works on theology, history of religion, the fundamentals of Christian doctrine, and Orthodox worship.

[1] Men wrote dozens of books, including his magnum opus, History of Religion: In Search of the Way, the Truth and the Life (1970 onwards), the seventh volume of which (Son of Man, 1969) served as an introduction to Christianity for thousands of Soviet citizens.

[5] His grandmother, Cecilia Vasilevskaya, and grandfather, Odessa resident Semyon (Solomon) Ilyich Tsuperfein, met in Switzerland while studying chemistry at the University of Bern.

[5] Yelena Semyonovna Men (née Tsuperfein) was drawn to Christianity from a young age[5] and studied the Orthodox faith at a private gymnasium in Kharkov.

[6][5] As a high school student, she moved to Moscow to live with her grandmother Anna Osipovna Vasilevskaya.

On June 1st, 1958, one month after his expulsion, he was ordained a deacon and sent to the parish of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos [ru] in Akulovo.

[citation needed] In 1964 and 1965, Men's father was investigated due to his acquaintance with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

[10] Men became an influential leader with a good reputation among Christians, both locally and abroad, including those in the Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox.

In 1974, Yuri Andropov wrote to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union about the "ideological struggle of the Vatican against the USSR," stating: "A group of pro-Catholic-minded priests, headed by A.

Men (Moscow Oblast), pushes the idea in their theological works that only Catholicism can be the ideal of church life.

[13] An article in the Trud newspaper in the spring of 1986 accused him of attempting to create an "anti-Soviet underground" under the auspices of Archpriest John Meyendorff; organizing "illegal religious matinees"; and personally voicing "slide films of a religious propaganda nature, which he illegally distributed among believers.

Alexander Kravetsky [ru] noted that "the organizers were completely amazed that a church theme could attract a full hall without any advertising.

[16] On Sunday morning, 9 September 1990, Men was murdered while walking along the wooded path from his home in the Russian village of Semkhoz (near Moscow) to the local train platform, on his way to catch the train to Novaya Derevnya to celebrate the Divine Liturgy.

[citation needed] According to Lieutenant General of Police Vyacheslav Pankin [ru]: When the suspect was detained, he confessed.

And even when the suspect gave investigators the axe with which he allegedly killed the priest, the examination did not confirm that it was the murder weapon.

When the priest, with a head wound, reached the gate of his house and hung helplessly on it, his wife did not recognize him.

In 2014, Alastair Macnaughton (1954–2017), an Anglican priest and Russian scholar, began a project to translate the entire History of Religion into English for the first time.

[20] Two Russian Orthodox churches have been built on the site of his assassination, and a growing number of believers in both Russia and abroad consider him a martyr.

[citation needed] Men's son, Mikhail Men, is a Russian political figure who served as the Governor of Ivanovo Oblast from 2005 to 2013 and subsequently as Minister of Construction Industry, Housing and Utilities Sector in Dmitry Medvedev's Cabinet.

[citation needed] Many Orthodox people positively evaluate Men's activities and works.

In 2010, Arkady Mahler noted: "The number of people who came to the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate thanks to the sermons of Father Alexander Men is always greater than we can imagine.

Orthodox theologian Alexei Osipov and Protodeacon Andrey Kuraev did not recommend Men's books for those seeking to become acquainted with Orthodoxy.

When the islands of Christianity are threatened to be swallowed up by the occult element, there is no time to search for "things in common."

For the Jews, he was a scandal (σκανδαλον) and for the Hellenes, he is madness.An open letter to Men, allegedly written by Metropolitan Anthony (Melnikov) [ru], states: "You are not new to the church, Father Alexander <...> This means that, in your interpretation, when you combine the One God of Christians and Ancient Israel with the "god" of modern Judaism, the devil, you are doing this deliberately, deliberately mixing light with darkness.

In 2002, he identified 9 points in his creed that he considered heretical: "Manichaeism — the doctrine of the complicity of Satan in the creation of the world, the result of which was the supposed evolution that took place", "the doctrine of man as a transfigured ape", "the rejection of the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures", "the rejection of original sin and the postulation of the independence of death from human sin", "the rejection of the existence of a personal Adam and the introduction of the Kabbalistic doctrine of Adam Kadmon", "the rejection of the authorship of almost all Old Testament books", "acceptance of branch theory", "syncretism", "encouragement of magic and extrasensory perception".