Men, Alexander (1935–1990)

KONSTANTIN GAVRILKIN

Bible scholar, theologian, religious writer, and evangelist, Alexander Men was born to a Jewish family, but in 1935 his mother decided to become Orthodox Christian and he was baptized together with her in the Russian Catacomb Church. In his teens, Alexander had a spiritual experience that prompted him to write a book about Jesus: the first draft was finished when he was 15, and The Son of Man, published in 1969, was its final version. Around the same time, Alexander discovered the writings of the Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov, who shaped his understanding of history and Christianity. In fact, Solovyov’s idea to write a Christian interpretation of the history of world religions was later turned by Alexander Men into the six-volume series History of Religion: In Search of the Way, the Truth, and the Life, published in Russian between 1970 and 1983.

When, in 1958, he was expelled from college for his religious beliefs, he was ordained a deacon and in 1960 a priest. He served in a number of parishes in the Moscow region; for the last twenty years of his life as a pastor of the Annunciation Church in Novaia Derevnia. In the 1960s Fr. Alexander became a supporter ofhuman rights activists, some of whom joined the Orthodox Church because of his influence. He also continued to write on the Bible, the history of salvation, and the Orthodox Church, publishing his books in the West under various pseudonyms (E. Svetlov, A. Bogolyubov, and A. Pavlov) with the help of the Catholic publishing house in Brussels, La Vie avec Dieu, which was instrumental in supplying Christians in the Soviet Union with Russian religious literature. In the 1970s and 1980s Fr. Alexander became a recognized spiritual leader of many Soviet intellectuals who were baptized and joined the Orthodox Church despite KGB harassment and political persecution.

During the Gorbachev years, Fr. Alexander took full advantage of new avenues for evangelization and ministry: he and his followers founded the Russian Bible Society and the Open Orthodox University in 1990, created a network of Sunday schools, and initiated charitable ministries at various hospitals. An eloquent speaker with broad knowledge of world culture, Fr. Alexander used all available opportunities for public lectures and preaching, including national television, and his name became synonymous with the spiritual awakening of the period. At the same time, he spoke openly of the dangers emerging in postcommunist Russian society: the rise of fascism, xenophobia, and anti-Semitism, and the emergence of an unrealistic nostalgia for the Romanov Empire and its state- supported church. He was murdered near his home on September 9, 1990. The case has never been solved. Both during his life and after his death, Fr. Alexander had been attacked repeatedly by Russian Orthodox nationalists, fundamentalists, and anti- Semites, and there have been continuous attempts on their part to marginalize and compromise his legacy. Since 1991 his books on the Bible, Jesus Christ, Christianity, and the Orthodox Church have finally been published in Russia under his own name.