"He spoke about God in an accessible way": the week of commemoration of the priest Alexander Men begins in Moscow

In Moscow and the region on September 9, a week began in memory of the priest Alexander Men, who tragically died 30 years ago.

Today he is recognized as one of the most popular Christian preachers and theologians of the 20th century.

His books have been translated into several foreign languages.

“Three decades after the death of the archpriest, he is remembered and new generations are already getting acquainted with the creative heritage of a clergyman, missionary and theologian, which is striking in its versatility and breadth of horizons,” said the Alexander Men Foundation, which is engaged in the preservation and dissemination of his heritage.

The priest was killed on the morning of September 9, 1990, when he was going to the liturgy in the Sretenskaya Church.

According to one of the versions of the investigation, a stranger approached the archpriest and handed him a note.

While Men was unfolding the sheet, a second stranger hit him on the head from behind with an ax.

Father Alexander tried to walk to the house, but fell dead at the gate.

The death of Alexander Men caused a huge public outcry in the USSR.

At that time, he was considered one of the most influential Orthodox preachers, his name was widely known not only in the Soviet Union, but also abroad.

We went for help and advice

Alexander Men was born in Moscow in 1935.

After leaving school, he entered the Moscow Fur and Fur Institute, but was expelled from there in 1958 for ties with the local diocese.

In the same year he was ordained a deacon, and two years later - a priest.

The beginning of my activity as a church minister coincided with the Khrushchev anti-religious campaign of 1958-1964.

Since 1970, Father Alexander served in the Church of the Presentation of the Lord in the village of Novaya Derevnya (now a microdistrict of the city of Pushkino).

Unable to publish his works in the USSR, Men sent them abroad, where they appeared under pseudonyms.

According to the recollections of contemporaries, when Father Alexander began to serve in the Sretenskaya Church, mainly grandmothers attended the liturgy, but gradually students and intellectuals began to come here specifically to listen to his sermons.

“I met Father Alexander in 1975.

By the time we met, I had read all of his works, which were then published in samizdat in our country, - tells RT the spiritual son of Me, poet and translator Alexander Zorin.

“Even then, the thought of baptism was stirring in me, and six months after we met, Father Alexander baptized me.”

Zorin recalls that people constantly came to the Menu for advice or help.

“He knew how to listen very attentively and delve deeply into people's problems.

Each of my confessions with him became a very important spiritual conversation, '' said Alexander Zorin in an interview with RT.

Under threat of arrest

Alexander Men himself worked under constant threat of arrest, Zorin notes. 

In 1975, Men prepared Interview in Case of Arrest.

In the preface, he requested that this record be published "only if reliable information about my arrest is obtained."

“Since the 1980s, Father Alexander felt this pressure from the security forces even more - several parishioners from our parish were then arrested.

The KGB, of course, did not like that he continued to publish abroad, and in our country his books were actively distributed through samizdat, ”Zorin recalls.

According to him, then not only Father Alexander, but also every active believer in the parish feared arrest.

“For example, we never openly discussed church affairs over the phone.

If they wanted to gather at someone's home to pray and discuss the Bible, they would use encryption, saying, for example: "Come to your birthday."

"Perestroika" marked the beginning of a revision of the state's religious policy.

By 1988, Men gets the opportunity to give lectures in universities, in 1989 he was invited to the central television.

In 1990, shortly before his death, he became one of the co-founders of the Biblical Society of the USSR (now the Russian Biblical Society).

Meanwhile, Natalya, the wife of Alexander Menya, told reporters that in the last year of his life her husband received threats from unknown persons several times, and in the last weeks before the tragedy he had anxiety - he asked her to carefully monitor whether the door to their house was locked.

Despite the fact that the investigation into the death of the priest was under the control of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, and then Russian President Boris Yeltsin, the crime was never solved. 

In 2000, the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation suspended the investigation into the death of the archpriest, since the investigation had exhausted "all possible investigative actions that can be carried out in the absence of a person to be prosecuted."

Spiritual heritage

By 2020, the total circulation of Alexander Men's books in Russian exceeded nine million.

His contemporaries note that he was able to talk about religion and faith in an interesting and understandable way.

Among his books are "History of Religion" in seven volumes, "A Practical Guide to Prayer", "How to Read the Bible?", "Why Is It Difficult for Us to Believe in God?"

“To date, almost all the works of Father Alexander have been published.

His personal letters and some of his sermons remain unpublished.

The fact is that we still find audio recordings of his speeches and sermons, which were done by the parishioners of his church.

In the 90s, there was an opinion that gradually interest in the books of Father Alexander will disappear, but time proves the opposite, '' My nephew, Archpriest Viktor Grigorenko, rector of the Church of St. Sergius of Radonezh, which was built on the site of the priest's murder, told RT.

- Father Alexander is still relevant, and I, as an active minister, can still see that his books help people come to church.

I think this happens because Father Alexander knew how to write and speak about God in a language accessible to modern people. "

Father Victor recalls that he himself consciously came to the faith thanks to the sermons that he heard from Me.

“I was baptized as a child, but my conscious coming to God happened later - when I read the Gospel, and then, after the army, the books of Father Alexander.

Gradually, he became for me not just "Uncle Alik", but also a spiritual mentor.

At the same time, he did not cease to be a relative for me.

Father Alexander was generally a very whole person.

He reminded us, too, that you cannot divide your life into secular and ecclesiastical, because the Lord acts where he sees fit, ”the source says.

Commemorative events will take place from 9 to 14 September.

The main platform for them will be the Library of Foreign Literature named after M.I.

Rudomino in Moscow.

Last year, a museum exposition "Alexander Men - a witness of the Way, Truth and Life" was opened here.

On the morning of September 9, on the day of the assassination of the archpriest, in the Church of the Presentation of the Lord in Pushkin near Moscow, where Father Alexander served, Metropolitan of Krutitsky and Kolomna Juvenaly celebrated the liturgy.

On Wednesday evening, at the Moscow International House of Music (MMDM), conductor Vladimir Spivakov will give a concert, which will begin the XVIII season of MMDM.

Within the framework of the memorable week, the international scientific and practical conference "The legacy of Archpriest Alexander Men and the challenges of the XXI century", the premiere of the documentary "God bless you ..." Letters from Father Alexander "and excursions to the Alexander Men memorial complex in Sergiev Posad will also take place.