Alexander Men Popular Books

Alexander Men Biography & Facts

Alexander Vladimirovich Men (Russian: Александр Владимирович Мень; 22 January 1935 – 9 September 1990) was a Soviet Russian Orthodox priest, dissident, theologian, biblical scholar and writer on theology, the history of religion, the fundamentals of Christian doctrine, and Orthodox worship. Men wrote dozens of books (including his magnum opus, History of Religion: In Search of the Way, the Truth and the Life, the seventh volume of which, entitled Son of Man, served as the introduction to Christianity for thousands of citizens in the Soviet Union); baptized hundreds if not thousands; founded an Orthodox open university; opened one of the first Sunday schools in Russia as well as a charity group at the Russian Children's Hospital. His influence is still widely felt and his legacy continues to grow among Christians both in Russia and abroad. He was murdered early on a Sunday morning, on 9 September 1990, by an ax-wielding assailant outside his home in Semkhoz, Russia. The circumstances of the murder remain unclear. Life Background Men's father, Volf Gersh-Leibovich (Vladimir Grigoryevich) Men, was born in 1902 in Kiev and, as a child, studied at a religious Jewish school, "remembered Hebrew, ... read the prophets by heart," but "was ... a non-religious person," "graduated from two universities, worked chief engineer of a textile factory." Men's maternal ancestors, originally from Poland, lived in Russia since the 18th century. His grandmother, Cecilia Vasilevskaya, and grandfather, Odessa resident Semyon (Solomon) Ilyich Tsuperfein, met in Switzerland while studying at the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Bern. There, in Bern, in 1908, their daughter Yelena (Alexander's mother) was born. After graduating from university, Semyon, Cecilia, and their daughter lived in Paris. In 1914, during his arrival in Russia, Semyon was mobilized, and the family settled in Kharkov. Yelena Semyonovna Men (nee Tsuperfein) was drawn to Christianity from a young age. She studied the Orthodox faith at the Kharkov private gymnasium. As a high school student, she left for Moscow to live with her grandmother Anna Osipovna Vasilevskaya; in 1934, she married Volf. Early life Men was born in Moscow to a Jewish family on 22 January 1935. At the age of six months, he was secretly baptized with his mother in Zagorsk by the priest Archimandrite Seraphim (Bityukov) of the banned Catacomb Church, a branch of the Russian Orthodox Church that refused to cooperate with Soviet authorities. When Men was six years old, his father was arrested by the NKVD. His father spent more than a year under guard and then was assigned to labor in the Ural Mountains. Men studied at the Moscow Fur Institute in 1955 and transferred to Irkutsk Agriculture Institute from which he was expelled in 1958 due to his religious beliefs. A month after his expulsion, 1 June 1958, he was ordained a deacon and sent to the parish of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos in Akulovo. Priesthood On 1 Septemeber 1960, Men became a priest upon graduating from the Leningrad Theological Seminary. His consecration took place at the Donskoy Monastery. Men was appointed second priest in the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Petrovskoye-Alabin, where a year later he became rector of the temple. In 1965, he completed his studies at Moscow Theological Academy. In 1964 and 1965, Men's father was investigated in connection with his acquaintance with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Men became a leader with considerable influence and a good reputation among Christians both locally and abroad, among Roman Catholics and Protestants, as well as Orthodox. He served in a series of parishes near Moscow. Starting in the early 1970s, Men became a popular figure in Russia's religious community, especially among the intelligentsia. Men was harassed by the KGB for his active missionary and evangelistic efforts; in 1974, Yuri Andropov wrote a letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union about the "ideological struggle of the Vatican against the USSR," where he wrote: "A group of pro-Catholic-minded priests, headed by A. Men (Moscow Oblast), in their theological works pushes through the idea that only Catholicism can be the ideal of church life. These works, illegally exported abroad, are published by the Catholic publishing house Life with God (Belgium) and are then sent for distribution in the USSR." In 1984, Men was interrogated in the case of his student Sergei Marcus; during these interrogations, Men was threatened with a ban on serving in any of the Moscow parishes. An article published 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, of organizing "illegal religious matinees" and of personally voicing "slide films of a religious propaganda nature, which he illegally distributed among believers." On 11 May 1988, Men's first public lecture took place in the hall of the Institute of Steel and Alloys. As Alexander Kravetsky noted, "the organizers were completely amazed that a church theme could attract a full hall without any advertising." In the late 1980s, he utilised the mass media to proselytize (he was offered to host a nationally televised program on religion); his days and nights were full of teaching and lecturing at packed lecture halls. Men was one of the founders of the Russian Bible Society in 1990; that same year he founded the Open Orthodox University and "The World of the Bible" journal. His strenuous efforts in educating the Russian populace in the basics and dynamics of the Orthodox faith has garnered him the label by the Soviet newspaper Sotsialisticheskaya Industriya as a modern-day apostle to the Soviet intelligentsia. However, some representatives of the Orthodox circles have voiced their opinion that several of Fr. Alexander's views were not sufficiently “orthodox” and even advised against using his books as an introduction to Orthodoxy. Men actively supported charitable activities, attending the founding of the Mercy Group at the Russian Children's Clinical Hospital, which was later named after him. Murder On Sunday morning, 9 September 1990, he was murdered while walking along the wooded path from his home in the Russian village of Semkhoz (near Moscow) to the local train platform. He was on his way to catch the train to Novaya Derevnya to celebrate the Divine Liturgy. Men had served at the parish in Novaya Derevnya for 20 years. His assailant's or assailants' use of an axe indicated a possible revenge motive. The murder occurred around the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and despite orders from within the Soviet (and later the Russian) government that the case be further investigated, the murder remains unsolved. His funeral was held on the day in the Orthodox calendar which commemorates the beheading of John the Baptist. According to Lieutenant .... Discover the Alexander Men popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Alexander Men books.