Alexandermen

New post to Alexandermen

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 19:18:27 GMT

Friends,
Today we made the first addition for some time,
a new icon by Fr John Reves of Fr Alexander
which you will find here at III-10 ,or
to go directly it is
http://alexandermen.livejournal.com/21342.html

In the near future we hope to have the scanned
in lectures 1-3 completing the online availability
of Lectures on the Creed.
+Seraphim

I- 6 "An Evangelical in the Russian Orthodox Church" by Herb and Maureen Klassen

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 17:41:14 GMT

Herb and Maureen Klassen are Mennonites who lived in Russia for a time
and knew Fr Alexander and this is their appreciation from an
Evangelical perspective and also that of friendship. Herb I remember
saying "I am a Men Mennonite"

An Evangelical in the Russian Orthodox Church: Fr. Alexander Men (1935-1990)
Herb and Maureen Klassen

What do the Mennonite churches and the Russian Orthodox Church have in common? Outwardly they seem to be at opposite ends of the ecclesiastical spectrum: we as plain and biblical as possible, they (it seems to us) as elaborate and tradition-oriented as possible. However, as a result of their common experience of persecution, it would appear both Fr. Alexander Men and our Russian Mennonite brothers and sisters share in a common evangelical faith.1
A RUSSIAN MENNONITE MARTYR

We begin our study of the influence of Alexander Men by mentioning that there is a modern Russian Mennonite martyr who has been memorialized on a Russian Orthodox icon. As far as we know, this has never happened before nor since. Time alone will demonstrate the significance of this symbolism; for now we describe how it came to pass.

Convergences between Anabaptism and Russian Orthodoxy may be found in the life and teaching of this Russian Christian leader.

After the massive dislocations brought to the Russian Mennonites by World War II and its aftermath, and the severe religious persecution during the Khrushchev years,2 a Mennonite mother and her two sons ended up in Moscow and in the late seventies were drawn to the Russian Orthodox parish of Fr. Alexander Men. Here they found the Lord, {31} were baptized, and became part of the vital spiritual life throbbing there. The mother, Natasha Rempel, had an artistic gift and became a restorer and painter of icons. In the course of her work she received the blessing of the church to paint an icon of her saintly father, Peter Rempel, who sealed his faith with his premature death in a northern prison camp near Archangelsk.3
ANTIPATHY AMONG CHRISTIANS

During our five-year sojourn in Russia, we saw few direct contacts between Mennonite and Orthodox believers. It was also sad to observe a rising anti-Protestant tide in some Orthodox circles in the 1990s as the Russian Orthodox Church took on more of an “established” and nationalistic character. This antipathy was reciprocated by a strong anti-Orthodox sentiment in some evangelical circles that all but quenched any thought of ecumenical dialogue between the communions.

Nevertheless, we were thrown together providentially with Russian Orthodox believers in whom we recognized the same light of Christ and with whom we fellowshipped deeply and warmly. In their fellowship we discovered not only a common evangelical love for Jesus Christ and his Gospel, but characteristics of Christian community and faithfulness to the Word that reminded us of the best in our own tradition. The emphasis on worship of the Risen Christ, following his Way and accepting his sufferings, as they had learned from Fr. Men, drew us into a depth of sharing with them that eclipsed issues hitherto assumed as controversial, e.g., icons, incense, liturgy in old Slavonic, and Mary’s role. Seeking to understand the sources of their piety, we discovered the strong influence of Alexander Men’s teaching and writing, and the continued inspiration of his example in their lives.

In 1988, the world took notice as the Orthodox Church celebrated its millennium of history in the Russian lands. The following year, the Mennonites celebrated their two hundredth anniversary since having arrived in Russia. Not many beyond the Mennonite world took notice of this. The Russian Orthodox Church (with its millions) and the Mennonite Church (with its thousands) had relatively separate journeys up until the Revolution of 1917. Each was influenced somewhat by revival stirrings in the nineteenth century, represented by the Mennonite Brethren and Baptist movements as well as by Stundism and the Pashkovites.4 In the twentieth century there were revival stirrings in the Russian Student Christian Movement through the fiery evangelism of Vladimir Martsinkovsky5 as well as in the “Zelt Mission”6 and the Bible school movement. Under Communism in the Gulag, believers of all {32) communions were forced together. They suffered and died together and their blood has cried to God and has led to some of the good things presently happening in that great land.7
A PROPHET MURDERED

When we first arrived in Moscow in November 1990 as Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) workers, we had no idea that just two months earlier, on Sunday morning September 9th, one of Russia’s greatest modern prophets and evangelists had been brutally murdered. Nor did we realize that the repercussions of his death would overshadow our five-year stay in Russia.

This man who had led countless seekers to the Crucified One, had baptized many hundreds of believers secretly, and had preached the good news of the Gospel to many thousands, was a threat to both the KGB and to “Pamyat,” an anti-Semitic, nationalistic right wing group in the Russian Orthodox Church.8 Both resented bitterly his recent invitation to preach the Gospel to all Russians regularly on radio and TV.

Early on that fateful morning, he was on his way to church from his little wooden “izba” (what we might call a cabin) in the village of Semkhoz on the north-eastern outskirts of Moscow. While he was passing through a little wood that led to the Pushkino train station, he was suddenly struck down by the blow of an axe to the back of his head. His assailants fled, and he was able to struggle to his feet and back to the gate of his property. There he collapsed and bled to death. It was there that his wife found him.

The fact that an axe was used was no doubt intended to strike fear into the hearts of believers, for axes had been much used in the pogroms that wracked the country under the Czars. But those who struck him down, in the spirit of the Communism which considered him a troublesome priest, never realized that in spilling his blood a “wellspring of spiritual renewal” was released that has multiplied his amazing ministry a hundredfold.9 What Tertullian had said in the second century about the blood of the martyrs becoming the seed of the church, was no less true in Russia at the end of the twentieth century.
AN ACTIVE MINISTRY

This choice servant of God was translated into the presence of his Lord out of a very active life. Just the Sunday before, his last Sunday serving his flock, they had celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of his ordination to the Orthodox priesthood, and it was also the day he started a Sunday School for the children of Novaya Derevnya, the village where {33} the local church he served was located. From this village one could see the brightly colored cupolas of Holy Trinity monastery in the town of Zagorsk. This spiritual center of the Russian Orthodox Church came into being in the fourteenth century through the ministry of Russia’s greatest saint, Sergius of Radonezh, at a time when the Tatar hordes ruled Russia. It was, however, taken from the church by the Communists in 1920 and turned into a museum. Now, it had just been returned to the church. To the amazement of those with eyes to see, it was now clear that under the Communist terror, God had seen fit to raise up in close proximity another center of spiritual life and renewal in Fr. Men’s parish.

Four months before his death, Fr. Men had openly baptized another sixty adults at his church, and had also spoken at an Easter rally organized by the Baptist-connected publishing company “Protestant.”10 From 1988 to 1990 his influence had extended far beyond the confines of the Russian Orthodox Church. He was invited to speak almost daily to students in high schools and universities and to public gatherings in cultural centers throughout the city. The stream of seekers to his home and church became a flood. He became so well known that the day after his assassination Boris Yeltsin, who was then the chairman of the Duma under Gorbachev, called the representatives to rise for a minute’s silence in honor of the great leader they had lost. It seems very fitting that his funeral, which attracted thousands, was on the day the Russian Orthodox Church remembers the death of John the Baptist—that archetypal forerunner who had prepared the way of the Lord in the wilderness of his day. But how did God raise up and prepare His twentieth century servant in this most anti-Christian environment?
HIS EARLY YEARS

Alexander’s parents were Jewish. His father, a textile engineer in Kiev, was not a believer, but he was tolerant toward his wife Elena in her role in their son’s spiritual nurture. Around the turn of the century Elena’s Jewish mother had been miraculously healed of a fatal illness through the prayer of John of Kronstadt, a godly Orthodox priest from near St Petersburg. Elena, a sincere seeker after God, at one point in her youth visited a Baptist meeting and witnessed a baptism they conducted at a river.

When the couple moved to Moscow in the early 1930s, it seemed all expressions of religious life had been stamped out. Thousands of churches and monasteries had been closed and tens of thousands of priests and Christian leaders had been shot or exiled. A dark hour had descended on the land. Stalin had just carried through the collectivization of farmlands {34} at the cost of millions of lives exiled, murdered, and starved to death, including many Mennonite farmers. The “reign of terror” of the late thirties was to follow, when further millions of the so-called “enemies of the people” were arrested and shot. It was into this black and bloody cauldron, when all hope for the Christian church seemed gone, that Alexander Man was born in January 1935.

As in the dark days of Moses and Elijah however, there were those that had not bowed their knees to Pharaoh or to Baal. Neither was the Lamp of God extinguished in Russia during the time of revolutionary turmoil following World War I. During 1917 and 1918, the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church met (for the first time in two hundred years) and chose the saintly Metropolitan Tihkon as Patriarch. The Council further encouraged local Orthodox churches to pattern their church life after the early church as described in the Book of Acts, a spiritual direction that flourished here and there and continued on underground into the thirties. A tradition of spiritual elders (“startsy”), grew up around the monastery of Optina, two hundred miles south of Moscow.
SECRET MEETINGS

By the mid-thirties, Fr. Seraphim, a priest in this tradition, had been forced to flee from Moscow for Zagorsk where he continued to conduct secret meetings in his apartment. Elena Men attended these meetings together with her cousin Vera, who lived with them. When Alexander was born, she finally felt ready to request baptism for herself and her infant son.

Alexander’s first taste of Christian fellowship came from these secret meetings that he attended with his mother. In 1942 at the age of seven, and just before Fr. Seraphim died, he went to him for his first confession, and later said that when he was with him it was “like being in heaven.”11 When he was twelve, he had a personal encounter with the Lord that made it clear to him that the Lord was calling him to serve him as a priest in the church. He was so certain about this that he went to the director of the Moscow Theological Academy that had been able to open its doors right after the War. He told the director he would be coming there after completing school and asked about books he could read in preparation.

At this time Alexander and his younger brother, together with their parents and Aunt Vera, were crowded into one room of a communal apartment. But behind his little screen he was soon reading Nicholas Berdyaev and Sergius Bulgakov and other Russian lay theologians of the early twentieth century. At the age of fifteen he came across a book of {35} Vladimir Soloviev’s at a flea market. Alexander became strongly influenced by his all-inclusive Christian philosophy of life and by his emphasis on Christian unity. Later in his life he would often quote the bishop from Kiev who said that the walls between the historic communions do not reach to heaven! These authors profoundly influenced his thinking, while the secret meetings molded his sense of the true fellowship of disciples of Christ.

By the time he finished high school he had done most of the reading required by the seminary, so he decided he would first pursue his passion for biology at a university. When the institute he was attending in Moscow was suddenly closed down, he was transferred to Siberia where he continued his studies in Irkutsk. His first roommate there was a Gleb Yakunin, on whom he had a significant spiritual influence.12 Gleb had strayed from the faith and was just at the point where he was finding his way back. Another significant happening here was the influence of his chemistry professor, who had found his way to the faith through the help of Baptists. He introduced Alexander to the history of western Christianity, both Catholic and Protestant. It was here also that Alexander wrote the first draft of his book, The Son of Man (he had first called it “What the Bible is All About”).13 When his close relationship to the local bishop in Irkutsk became known, the communist authorities prevented him from graduating from the institute.
ORDINATION IN THE ORTHODOX CHURCH

On returning to Moscow at the age of twenty-three, he was ordained a deacon and sent to Alabino to assist a parish priest. It was here that he married Olga, an accountant, and where their two children were born. Two years later, in 1960, he was ordained to the priesthood at Donskoi monastery in Moscow. It was here the saintly Patriarch Tikhon had been kept under house arrest by the Bolsheviks and where he finally died in 1925. At Alexander’s first parish in Tarasovka, he served as vicar under a senior priest. This priest, unfortunately, became envious of Alexander’s spiritual influence and denounced him to the KGB. They came and seized his library and subjected him to lengthy interrogations. The Lord was merciful, however, and he was not imprisoned but made to return and serve under the same priest for another year. He would not compromise his convictions and, although life was difficult, he gradually won the trust and friendship of this priest.

By 1964, Krushchev was beginning to lose favor and the severity of his anti-religious campaign began to taper off. Some priests in Moscow began a movement for the renewal of the church, including Frs. Gleb {36} Yakunin, Dmitri Dudko, Nikolai Eschliman, and Alexander himself. They were distressed with the state’s interference in the life of the church and with the church’s weak compliance. When they spoke up, Solzhenitsyn was encouraged to take up their cause, and although they were severely disciplined by the authorities on both sides, it did contribute to the sharp rise in the number of dissidents during the Brezhnev years.
ADDITIONAL WRITINGS

All this time, Fr. Men’s first book about the life of Christ was passed around among friends in manuscript form. Through Asya Duroff, a Russian emigre in France who returned to Moscow as a secretary in the French Embassy, the manuscript reached the “Life with God” publishers in Brussels. There it was printed in 1968 under a pseudonym. In 1969 his second book, Heaven on Earth, followed, a much-needed introduction for modern Russians to the Orthodox liturgy.

In 1970, Fr. Men was transferred as priest to the village of Novaya Derevnya where he served faithfully for the twenty years until his death. He had been researching and writing for years already on his seven-volume History of Man’s Religious Quest. The first five volumes were published, also in Brussels, between 1970 and 1974 and under a new pseudonym. They were smuggled back into Russia.

His goal in all his writing was to destroy the barriers erected by the atheistic Soviet culture that hindered people from receiving the Word of God. It was amazing what he was able to accomplish under the harsh realities of his life and time. He was under constant surveillance by the KGB, had only very limited access to research materials, and was constantly being sought after by seekers both at his home and at his church.

The final two volumes of the History followed in the early eighties, as did an illustrated catechism he prepared for children. The seven-volume Dictionary of Biblical Studies, upon which he also worked, is only now being prepared for publication in Russian. The prophetic role these works have played has been invaluable, along with his preaching, in reversing the influence of seventy years of atheistic communism.
FINAL YEARS

With the appointment of Gorbachev as general secretary of the Communist party in 1985, positive changes began to happen. Although many in the church and its hierarchy were not prepared to take spiritual advantage of this new freedom, Fr. Alexander was. In 1988, he received his first invitation to give a public lecture on Christianity at a cultural center. {37} This had not happened in the USSR since the 1920s. He always followed his lectures with an open question-and-answer period in which he spoke freely about the relationship of science and religion and the true role of the church in society.

Twice he was asked to participate in public debates with atheist propagandists, but they came off so poorly that the debates were not repeated. Now for the first time his writings began to appear openly in Russian journals and newspapers, alongside a serialized version of Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago. During the summer after the millennium celebrations, thousands were baptized and many more churches and monasteries were opened. Fr. Men rejoiced, but he also challenged the church to true conversion lest the buildings become nothing more than empty shells.

A great sense of urgency overcame Fr. Men during the last two years of his life. Yves Hamant, his French Catholic biographer and friend, says that Fr. Men “. . . seemed to be haunted by the idea that his was an unrepeatable chance to transmit the message of the Gospel, that time was running out, and that he could not afford to lose an instant.”14
ANABAPTISM AND ALEXANDER MEN

During our study of the life of Alexander Men, we have often been impressed with the similarity of his faith and life to some of the central principles of Mennonite faith.
Evangelical Spirituality

Fr. Men, like the Anabaptists, places a strong emphasis on every individual’s need for a personal encounter with the Risen Christ. Being born from above, born of the Spirit, takes place in each one uniquely, yet with common traits, for there is one Spirit, one Lord, one faith. When he asks what is the essential element of our faith, he says the answer must come from Christ, all else is human error and human tradition. He then quotes the words of Jesus to Nicodemus,

In order to enter the kingdom of God a man must be born from above . . . Each of us should pray that the Lord will give us that Spirit, that new birth . . . whoever does not feel the touch of the Lord’s hand, will stand in church as if he were dead to the end of his days . . . only the Lord our Saviour can give us life.15

Prof. Bradley Nassif, of Fuller Seminary, speaking at Regent College on Evangelicalism and Orthodoxy, believes that these two movements share a common evangelical spirituality.16 Fr. Men, it would appear, follows in the same tradition. {38}
Discipleship

The new life from Christ that is within a believer seeks to express itself in “following Jesus.” “To be saved,” says Men, “you must begin to follow Him.”17 This is similar to Hans Denck’s often-quoted phrase, that to know Christ you must follow Him in your life. As this happens, a process of sanctification, or, as the Orthodox term it, “deification,” takes place. God became man, that men might become god-like. Denck says of a disciple that he is vergottet. Christ, says Men, is the unrepeatable contact point between the divine and the human. In Christ, God came down in order to draw us up. We become “partakers of the divine nature” (1 Pet 1:4) as we obediently follow the Lord in service and love to our brother and to all people.
Church as a Brotherhood

“When we follow Christ,” says Men, “it is always a path taken together with others.”18 The experience of church as community, he says, was lost when the line between church and state became unclear after Constantine. For the spirit of fellowship and brotherhood to be regained there must be, says Fr. Men, at least four things: common prayer, study of the Scriptures together, sharing Communion together, and worship together.19 He compares these four to the legs of a table. If one is missing the table falters, if two are missing the table falls. At other places he makes it clear that bearing one another’s burdens, confession, and mutual aid are also a part of these essentials. The congregation in central Moscow, made up largely of his spiritual children, is a good example of what he modeled. This group is heavily engaged in mercy ministries to the sick and elderly, to shut-ins, the handicapped, and alcoholics.

Looking back to the early church, he says that the church is present where believers “live in faith, hope and love.”20 Faith links the church to the historic Christ who died and rose and is ever present in his Body. To live in hope connects us with the coming kingdom of God, which already began to break in when Christ proclaimed, “Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand” (Matt. 4:17). Believers are to live in love, for this is how they and others will know them to be disciples of the Lord, his Body on earth, and his real presence with us.

Fr. Men also defines the church in terms of its ability to fulfill the mission the Lord has given to his people. To the question, “Why did Russia, an Orthodox country, become a land of overwhelming atheism,” he answers that “the Church did not accomplish the role assigned to her by God—preaching, witness, presence.” His definition of these three terms is expressive of his view of the church and of his own ministry:

Preaching. This means we have to find a common {39} language with the people of our time, not identifying with them completely, yet not isolating ourselves from them behind an archaic wall. We have to state anew, almost as if for the first time, all those questions which are placed before us by the Gospel.

Witness. This means that we still have to determine—if we have not yet determined—our life’s goal, to find our place in life, our place not in the usual sense of the word, but in our relationship to all of life’s problems.

And finally, Presence. This means we must learn how to pray at all times and deepen our experience of the Mysteries, so that our witness may not be a witness about ideology but of the living presence of God in us.21

This kind of church, Fr. Men says repeatedly, will be “open to the world.” This is threatened by a sectarian spirit (in which the church closes in on itself cutting itself off from the world and from other churches) and by a compromising spirit (in which the world enters the church and its prophetic witness to the world is lost). Christ avoided both, by mixing freely with tax collectors and sinners, yet without compromising the Good News of the Kingdom. Fr. Men testifies to his own “openness” to other Christians and churches when he says about the Lord’s Supper: “When the sacred Cup is brought to us, it is the real and living Lord who is present here, in this church, as He is in all the churches of the earth.”22 That is why he can humbly say that if St. Paul visited, he would probably feel more at home in a Baptist meeting than at an Orthodox service.23
Separation of Church and State

Some of Fr. Men’s strongest statements are on the need for the separation of church and state. Nothing grieved him more deeply than Orthodoxy’s history of failure in this area. As clearly as the Anabaptists before him, he traces the decline in the church and the loss of community back to the Constantinian compromise, when church life was “poisoned and weighed down with nominal adherents.”24 “What is better,” he asks, “churches empty with some hearts full, or churches full but hearts empty?” Our greatest enemy is not atheism, but false Christianity! And when Christianity was subordinated to the state, church leadership began copying the tactics of secular politics, persecuting Christian dissenters and enforcing conformity. Christ’s verdict on all this is: “It should not be so among you” (Mark 10:43). In his credo Fr. Men says: “A Christian does not reject good even if it comes from non-religious people; but rejects force, dictatorship, and hatred even if they are perpetrated in the name of Christ.”25 Since it was so obvious to him that the sins of the Church {40} contributed to the 1917 Revolution, Fr. Men’s great disappointment was that at the Church’s millennium celebrations in 1988 there was not a word of repentance.
Faithful Unto Death

Perhaps the most telling similarity between Fr. Men and some of the early Mennonites was the experience of martyrdom, sealing his testimony with his blood. Like them, he lived a life of forgiveness towards his enemies and died blessing them.

Thomas Finger concludes his study of Orthodoxy and Anabaptism with these provocative questions:

“. . . though Orthodoxy and Anabaptism approach the church-world juncture from very different directions, might their resistance to modern Western secularism share something in common? Might this ultimately flow from similar understandings of redemption: as the thorough transformation of humans, and through them of creation, by personal, transcendent divine energies? If so, might they help each other to affirm and communicate this divine mystery and calling to live an apostolic and evangelical life in the midst of an increasingly secular society?”26

The Rempel family in Fr. Men’s church is one example of how Fr. Men did communicate the divine calling to live an evangelical life to at least some Russian Mennonites. As more of his writings appear in English translation, it will be interesting to see whether others in the broader evangelical and Mennonite families will also be encouraged and inspired through his prophetic witness. {41}27
NOTES

1. A biography of Alexander Men by Yves Hamant, Alexander Men: A Witness for Contemporary Russia (Torrance, CA: Oakwood Publications) appeared in English translation in 1995 (232 pp.). The original was in French and appeared in 1993. We have leaned heavily on this book for details about his early life. Only three of Alexander Men’s books have appeared in English translation. Awake to Life! Sermons from the Paschal (Easter) Cycle (Torrance, CA: Oakwood Publications, 1996), 92 pp., is a book containing twenty-seven homilies given to his flock covering a typical church year from February to June. About Christ and the Church (Torrance, CA: Oakwood Publications, 1996), 111 pp., contains eleven chapters of spontaneous answers by Fr. Men to questions raised at house meetings. Finally, Christianity for the Twenty-First Century: The Prophetic Writings of Alexander Men, ed. Elizabeth Roberts and Ann Shukman (New York: Continuum, 1996), 226 pp., covers a wide range of subjects from various lectures, articles, interviews, and selected chapters from his larger works.
2. For more details, see the first chapter of Walter Sawatsky, Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II (Kitchener, ON and Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1981), 27-54.
3. The authors were permitted to take a picture of the icon (which is considered a household icon) on the condition they would not allow it to be viewed out of curiosity but only as an encouragement to prayer. The stipulation was also that the picture should not be reproduced in any newspaper or journal. Natasha Rempel and her two sons are still members of the church made up largely of the spiritual children of Alexander Men. Alexander Borisov has taken his place as the church’s leader.
4. See Hans Brandenburg, The Meek and the Mighty: The Emergence of the Evangelical Movement in Russia (Oxford: Mowbray, 1976), 46-97.
5. On the Russian Student Christian Movement, see Brandenburg, 135-45.
6. On the role of the tent meetings, see Harold Jantz’s article, “A Brief Moment of Opportunity,” Mennonite Brethren Herald, 12 January 1996.
7. Michael Bourdeaux of Keston College recorded many of these stories in his books. See Risen Indeed: Lessons in Faith from the U.S.S.R. (Surrey England: Central Europe Publishers, 1987). Keston News Service provided some of the best coverage of religious {42} affairs in the Soviet Union under Communism.
8. Hamant, 4-5.
9. Hamant, xi, from the Introduction to the English language edition by Fr. Maxym Lysack, pastor of the Christ the Saviour Orthodox Mission in Ottawa, Canada.
10. We were seconded by MCC to serve at Protestant Publishers as book consultants for one year. It was here that we first met some of the spiritual children of Fr. Alexander Men.
11. Hamant, 37.
12. Gleb Yakunin later became an Orthodox priest and, after Gorbachev, became an elected member of the Russian parliament where he spoke out bravely for religious freedom. The Church hierarchy recently defrocked him in an effort to silence him.
13. The book is to appear this year in an English translation by Oakwood Publications.
14. Hamant, 204.
15. Awake to Life! 47-48. For this brief analysis of his teaching, we have relied upon his three books that are in English translation. They represent only a very small part of his literary output.
16. His lecture was delivered at Regent College in Vancouver, BC, on July 14, 1997. He referred to the fact that some notable evangelicals (such as Franky Schaeffer and Rev. Michael Harper), as well as whole congregations (such as those of the seven former Campus Crusade for Christ leaders as well as a Vineyard Church in San Jose, CA) have united with the Orthodox Church in recent years.
17. Awake to Life! 4.
18. About Christ and the Church, 16.
19. Ibid., 106.
20. Ibid., 17.
21. Ibid., 64.
22. Awake to Life! 67.
23. About Christ and the Church, 22.
24. Christianity for the Twenty-First Century, 61.
25. Ibid., 72.
26. Thomas Finger, “Anabaptism and Eastern Orthodoxy: Some Unexpected Similarities,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 31 (Winter-Spring 1994): 91.
27. Recent references to Fr. Men include Paul Marshall, Their Blood Cries Out (Dallas: Word, 1997), 123, and Barbara von der Heydt, Candles Behind The Wall: Heroes of the Peaceful Revolution that Shattered Communism (London: Mowbray, 1993), 66-68.

Herb (History) and Maureen (English) taught at Trinity Western University, Langley, British Columbia, from 1966 to 1972. Together the Klassens ran a prison ministry and halfway house from 1972 to 1989, and did the MCC assignment in Russia referred to in this article from 1990 to 1995.
© 1997 Direction (Winnipeg, MB)

I-3 John Erickson "Reflections on Fr. Alexander Men."

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 13:35:31 GMT

This is the paper read by Dean John H Erickson of St Vladimir's
Seminary at the Alexander Men Conference in Summer 2004 hosted
by Nyack College's Manhatten campus.

Reflections on Fr. Alexander Men’

Pastor, teacher, martyr – such was Fr. Alexander Men’. As always with such
figures, our first impulse is to recount his biography to the point that
biography becomes vita, to draw attention to the context in which he labored
(in this case, the late Soviet period of Russian history), to recount the
personal characteristics that make him not just memorable but ever-memorable.
We are more hesitant to speak of the thought of such figures, to examine their
contribution to theology. I have in mind here what so often is pointed out in
the case of St. Ignatius of Antioch, another pastor, teacher and martyr. While
scholars sometimes have included him in histories of doctrine, they generally
preface their observations by pointing out that Ignatius’s theology,
Christology, ecclesiology, etc. can be properly understood only in light of his
impending martyrdom. Similarly, in the case of Fr. Men, we are tempted to say
that his theology, Christology, ecclesiology, etc. can be properly understood
only in light of the very particular circumstances in which he lived. We
concentrate on context. Content, while not ignored, is subsumed within a
broader narrative framework.

Can we look at Fr. Men’ not just as pastor, teacher, martyr, but also as
theologian and thinker? I shall not attempt to do so here, not only because of
time consatraints but also – and chiefly – because I have only a very limited
acquaintance with his writings. But I believe that the question should be
raised. We value his example, his witness, his martyria. But are there aspects
of his thought that deserve attention in their own right? Do his words offer an
enduring message that will enrich Christian theology even when the historical
context changes?

Certainly Fr. Men’ was an intellectual – he might even be described as a
typical Russian intellectual. And fortunately for someone trying to write his
intellectual biography or present his theology in systematic fashion, Fr. Men’
believed in putting ideas down on paper. He was a prolific writer who valued
writing as a form of ministry. With his usual gift for metaphor and imagery, he
put it this way: “A book is like an arrow shot from a bow. While you are
resting, it is still working for you.” (Quoted in Yves Hamant, Alexander Men: A
Witness for Contemporary Russia, 155) A scholar working on Men’s thought would
have a lot of material to cover, and he could approach his subject in a variety
of ways. For example, he might begin with Men’s six-volume history of
religions, In Search of the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Here, among other
things, he probably would draw attention to the influence of Soloviev on Men’s
thought. Or the scholar might concentrate on Fr. Men’ as exegete and biblical
theologian, the author of a number of commentaries and a life of Jesus. Here,
in all likelihood, the author’s footnotes would reveal the number (rather
small) and quality (uneven) of sources that Fr. Men’ had at his disposal.

It would be possible to write an intellectual biography of Fr. Men’ along the
lines just sketched. But would this adequately express his theology? Would this
reveal the particular points of emphasis that might set him apart as an
original and creative theologian, as distinct from a representative figure of
courage in late Soviet society, someone who did the best he could with the
rather meager resources at his disposal – some Russian classics like Soloviev
and Khomiakov, some scattered western works of more recent vintage. Is Fr. Men’
important simply because of context? Or is there some content here that we risk
overlooking?

Probably all of us here could indicate something special that they have learned
from Fr. Men’, points that they find particularly significant in his thought.
Probably all of us could give advice to a would-be intellectual biographer.
From my own very limited reading, I would draw attention particularly to Fr.
Men’s understanding of freedom – human freedom, but also divine freedom. Or
rather: man’s propensity for un-freedom, and God’s free and creative power to
bring resurrection life out of death and disintegration, wherever and whenever,
but given full and definitive _expression in the Godman Jesus Christ.

Men’ frequently refers to an unfortunate fact: “People do not want freedom.”
(About Christ and the Church [Oakwood 1996] 36) This can be seen in society at
large, with the late Soviet nostalgia for Stalin. This can be seen also in
church life, in the life of Christians: “People crave a freedomless
Christianity; they particularly incline towards slavery.” (Ibid.) “You are
called to freedom,” the apostle says. “You shall know the truth and the truth
will set you free.” But in fact people all too often try to turn the Church
into “an easy chair, a refuge, a tranquil harbor,” even “a security blanket”
(Hamant 138). “We want the Church to be a mother. The infantile mind says:
someone will shepherd us, someone will lead – as one learned man said to me,
people even want very much to be deceived.” (Christ and the Church 36) Or they
adopt a sectarian mentality, regarding everything outside their own self-made
prison – e.g., other Christian traditions, other world religions - as the realm
of hostile powers – a mentality, which – according to Fr. Men’, is quite
contrary to that of the church fathers, who “were always open to the world.”
(Ibid. 51)

Fr. Men’ returns to this subject from a broader, more philosophical perspective
at several points, most notably (for me, at least) in his “Conversation on
Redemption.” (In Christ and the Church 87-96) There, he notes, that the mystery
of redemption is, first of all, the mystery of liberation – of God setting man
free by uniting us to Himself, to be His chosen people, to be His Church. Here
he again refers to an unfortunate fact – a given: the Fall. According to Fr.
Men’, using - as usual for him - very evocative imagery:

The universe is formed and develops along two principles. The universe evolves
on the one hand according to the vision of God and on the other hand it is
constantly penetrated by elements which oppose this principle. I will formulate
this notion with the following short statement: Blind is the one who does not
see the harmony of the world, but equally blind is he who fails to see the
disharmony of the very same world. (89-90)

There are always forces which contradict God’s own idea – forces described in
the Bible but also by thinkers and writers of all ages in poetic and
mythological terms. Fr. Men’ sums these up as Chaos – a current carrying the
world toward death, to a state of entropy (90), to non-being, to un-freedom.
Why are there these powers opposed to God but also for some reason permitted by
Him? Men’ continues: “We can of course guess why. Creation is one entire whole,
and in order to repel this anti-divine vector, this impulse towards darkness,
creation must itself remain free. But essentially, creation per se does not
contain freedom. Only the one who personalizes creation is free, and this one
is man…. We are after all a microcosm; we carry everything inside us; all
creatures live within us and we are called to participate in the battle between
Chaos and Logos, entering into the Logos, into illumination. But man failed to
accomplish this mission; and here God begins to act himself, through man… the
Logos who becomes incarnate in man.” (92) “…when he himself enters the process
of the world, assumes the evil of the world as his cross, He pushes this world
further along towards the Kingdom of God. Christ takes upon himself the
suffering of the world. For the first time, God involves Himself in this
battle, but He does it according to a divine principle. This divine principle
is: constant humiliation, a kind of diminution of the Divine power before the
face of creation, to give it the freedom of manifesting itself, the freedom to
become what it is.” (92)

Freedom! Every man and woman is called to this. Those who are truly in Christ,
who become members of His body, experience this – even in the midst of a world
inclined to un-freedom. For me, at least, this is an important aspect of Fr.
Men’s thought. Others no doubt have discovered other important points of
emphasis. I hope that a future intellectual biographer of Fr. Men’ will be
attentive to such points. Writing a systematic work on Fr. Men’ as thinker and
theologian certainly will not be easy. I hope someone will attempt it, and that
this work will not limit itself to cataloging his works and tracking down their
sources.

John H. Erickson

I. About Fr. Alexander Men (AND ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION OF THIS SITE)

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 13:14:11 GMT

The first set of entries will be by writers concerning Father
Alexander Men second will be writings of his in English translation
and the third will be links and galleries,The Fourth will be things
that dont fit in the first three categories. If you are unfamiliar
with livejournal do not be distracted by the dates, everything is
backdated or forward dated to preserve the structure, so go by
the sets I-IV and numbers within the sets I-1,I-2 etc

.

I-1 IRINA YAZIKOVA "WE ARE MOVING INTO AN AGE OF LOVE."

This is an article published in 2005 in Moscow giving a general overview
of the work of Fr Alexander Men. The author Irina Yazikova is an
iconologist.

We are moving into an age of love

On the 22nd of January, Father Alexander Men’ would have been 70 years old. His life was filled with multifaceted service: a superb pastor, an eloquent preacher, a talented writer, an active missionary, enlightener, a student of the Bible. Even though it is already 15 years that Fr. Alexander left us, his powerful gift of word even now reaches people’s hearts.
The life of this pastor was tragically broken on September 9, 1990, he was only 55, and was so full of energy and new plans, it seemed that he would be with us for a long time and would accomplish much. But those who killed this priest, evidently, hoped that his death would put an end to his activities, that the word of the pastor would be silenced. However, the opposite happened: his service not only did not cease, it continued and even expanded. Today, books by Fr. Alexander Men’ are printed in ever larger quantities, they are translated into many of the world’s languages, they are published all across the globe, his name is known far from the borders of his country, many of the charitable initiatives he began, and his projects for teaching, live and grow.
Over the 15 years that passed since his death, the Foundation of Archpriest Alexander Men’ has published all his major works. This includes the books “The Son of Man,” “The First Apostles”; six volumes on the history of religion, “In Search of the Way, of Truth and of Life,” a series of books on “Life in the Church”, collections of lectures, sermons, conversations at home, and talks before general confession, answers to questions, the textbook “Hesagogics: A course of study in the Old Testament”, and the three volume dictionary of the Bible. His correspondence is being published. From the wide treasure of his correspondence, his letters with John Reutlinger (“The Smart Heaven”), and with Fr. Vsevolod Roshko (“On Contemporary Issues Facing the Church”), and with Diana Vinkovetskaya (“Your Father Alexander”). In general, books by Fr. Alexander Men’ number over 6 million copies in print just in the Russian language. Restoration work is being done on the audio- and videocassettes of his lectures, sermons, and talks, and they are also being issued in large numbers, and enjoy enormous popularity. The living word of Fr. Alexander has not lost its power or its relevance today.
At the same time, many books about Fr. Alexander Men’ have seen the light of day: the recollections of those who knew him, a biography and a history of his family, books devoted to his pastoral activities and theological views, etc. Of them, the most well known is the book by the leading French writer Yves Aman “Alexander Men’: A witness to his time.” The book has had many editions, and has been translated to other languages. Dozens of films have been made of the famous pastor, as well as a series of radio and television programs. Every year the are conferences dedicated to his memory, and, it should be noted, not only in Russia, but also in Europe and America. Interest in the work of Fr. Alexander Men’ has long passed confessional boundaries: his name is widely known and respected outside of the Orthodox Church.
Nevertheless, aside from the books, articles and films that highly value the contribution of Fr. Alexander’s evangelical sermons, the study of the Bible, and Christian enlightenment, there also over these years have been critical articles and books about him. His opponents, as a rule, are critical of the breadth of his views, his liberal interpretation of tradition; they accuse him of shifting away from the foundations of Orthodoxy. The works of Fr. Alexander can often be found in secular book stores, yet in Church stores they are practically absent. In many parishes his name generates a negative reaction. This is while the hierarchy highly valued his pastoral and missionary activities. Patriarch Alexii II spoke of him highly, and we as Pimen, the previous patriarch, as well as Metropolitan Yuvenaly of Krutitsa and Kolomena, in whose diocese Fr. Alexander served, and many other bishops, among whom, for example, was Archbishop Mikhail Mudyugin. It is sufficient to say that Fr. Alexander a candidate in higher theological studies, was published in the “Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate,” and in “Theological Studies,” had many Church awards, and bore the rank of Mitrophor Priest (the highest rank for married clergy), and was the pastor of a parish church. Leading churchmen wrote introductions to his books: Archbishop John Shakhovskoy wrote an introduction to “Mystery, Word, Image”; Metropolitan Anthony Surozhsky penned an introduction to “The Difficult Path to Dialog”, Archbishop Mikhail Mudyugin introduced his Bible dictionary, noting that Fr. Alexander is given high marks as Biblical scholar. Nevertheless, the middle level of priests, generally not as educated as Fr. Alexander, suspect his works are heretical and categorically forbid their parishioners to read his books. Alas, more time is needed before our society will be better able to appreciate this modern man fully: things are seen clearer in hindsight.
Still it is instructive that interest in the legacy of Fr. Alexander Men’ does not fade over the years. If someone reads, as a rule, just one of his books, the accusations of heresy lose their strength, and suspicions that he had slipped away from Orthodoxy cease to have meaning. All these accusations are groundless, prejudicial, and without merit. Few have done as much for Orthodoxy in the 20th century as has Fr. Alexander Men’. Living in the land of victorious atheism, he actively preached the Gospel with all available resources. This was his main contribution. During his earthly service, Fr. Alexander led hundreds of people to Christ, for which he was constantly pressed by the government with threats and repression. After his tragic death, not hundreds, but thousands of people find faith through his books; they discover for themselves the Gospels, they become Christians with active lives founded on service, sacrifice, and good works.
Father Alexander Men’ had an ability to speak in such a way that his words were accessible both to the simplest village grandmother and to refined intellectuals. Many plain people were among his parishioners, some of whom never read his books, and there were outstanding people like Nadezhda Mandelshtam, Maria Yudina, Alexander Galich, Nikolai Karetnikov, etc. The secret of Father Alexander’s pastoral successes chiefly was in how he was able to awaken in people their uniqueness, and helped his spiritual children to live faith as a personal encounter with Christ. Christianity, he often repeated, is not a collection of dogmas or moral commandments, it is in fact Jesus Christ Himself. “Notice,” he said in his last lecture, “Christ did not leave one written verse, he didn’t leave tablets of commandments, he didn’t dictate a Koran, he didn’t found orders, instead He said to his disciples: “I will remain with you in all the days that remain to the end of time.” All the deepest Christian experience is built on this.”
His last lecture, called “Christianity”, was read on September 8, 1990, on the eve of the terrible tragedy that took away his life. That day he opened the Orthodox Sunday University (it was renamed a year later to Generally Accessible). Father Alexander wanted people (who turned to faith after decades of a godless regime), to become knowledgeable Christians, capable of conceiving faith in all the many aspects of spiritual, intellectual and cultural experience as gathered by the world and the Church. It is for this he wrote his books, for this he read lectures and created the Orthodox University.
He himself received his faith from the hands of people who were very educated and in the highest degree spiritually aware, and who were connected with the religious renaissance of the beginning of the 20th century. He was baptized by archimandrite Serafim (Batyukov), who also was his first spiritual guide. Father Serafim belonged to the same generation of Russian intellectuals as did Father Sergey Bulgakov, he received a secular higher education and could have found his way in the world, but instead he consciously picked the path of priestly service during the difficult years of trials and persecution against the Church (he was ordained in 1919). Father Serafim was a disciple of the Optina elders, and was a friend of Father Alexei Mechev, he was highly valued by Patriarch Tikhon, who knew him personally. From the beginning of the 1930s, Father Serafim entered the catacomb church, and secretly lived and served in a small house near Zagorsk. Such secret parishes were connected with one another and they were nourished by Vladyka Afanasy (Sakharov). He was arrested repeatedly and sent into exile. People constantly came to visit Father Serafim, and many were educated, for whom going to the Church in those times was not easy. Among them was Vera Yakovlevna Vasilyevskaya, the aunt of Father Alexander Men’, and his mother, Yelena Semyonovna, who, thanks to Father Serafim, discovered their Faith, were baptized and became fervent Christians and bore their faith through many trials. Despite his young age, the future pastor remembered clearly his contacts with Father Serafim.
Alexander Men’ was educated not quite like millions of other Soviet children, the minds of which were annually brainwashed by Soviet propaganda. Even though he studied in an ordinary Moscow school, and then in a Soviet college, his world views were founded on Christian values. He discovered Christ as a child, he became captivated by the Bible when he was 7, and by 12 he already knew he would be a priest, and submerged himself in the study of the Bible, theology, the history of the Church and other religions, and at fifteen he already wrote the first version of his book “The Son of Man.” He understood the nature of his calling in his early years, yet he all the same decided to receive a secular education before anything else. From early childhood biology was an interest, and he entered the Fur Institute, finished it, but was not allowed to graduate: the institute’s management became aware of his religious convictions, and that he served as an altar boy. After being expelled from the Institute, only one path remained open—the priesthood. In 1958 he is ordained deacon, in 1960 he becomes a priest. In parallel he studied at the correspondent division of the Leningrad Seminary, and finished it with honors. He then finished correspondent courses at the Moscow Seminary, and defended work for a candidate of theological studies. In those times, by a secret order of the Committee for Religious Affairs, educated clergy were to be kept far from Moscow. As such, the priestly service of Father Alexander became tied with suburban Moscow parishes: he served in Alabino, Tarasovka, and the last 20 years in Novaya Derevnya, next to the city of Pushkino. But regardless of where he served, people came to him from Moscow, and from all across the country, and even from foreign countries.
Father Alexander was far from being an ordinary country priest, even though he served his entire life in the country. He was even farther from the stereotype of the uncouth superstitious churchmen so common in Soviet atheist propaganda (and even today, people far from the Church often conceive priests to be just like this). Father Alexander rejected the enforced image of Church people being old-fashioned and out of touch. He united in himself true faith and deep knowledge, living sense of mystery, and a sharp analytical mind, high spirituality, and a wide range of interests. He did not preach a religion divorced from the life of people and their problems, he avoided fanaticism in faith, “we must not hide from the world in a monastic cell under a pine tree,” said Father Alexander. On the contrary, he wanted believers to be capable of accepting the challenges of contemporary life, and to find adequate answers. This can only be accomplished by someone who is deeply conscious of his faith, is well educated and open to all the good in the world.
“True Christianity,” he said, “is, if you wish, an expedition. An expedition that is both unusually difficult and dangerous. Accepting Christianity, we take on risk. We do not receive guaranteed spiritual states.” He taught his spiritual children to see God’s presence in the world, and in every person. “Everything that is wonderful and good in people, all the good things that they do, all that is from God, even if they are not aware of it. We should never reject good, even if it is done by a nonbeliever. On the contrary, we should rejoice in it,” exhorted Fr. Alexander. He himself was an example of unusual openness, acceptance, and good will. He deeply knew and loved Orthodoxy, but he was also open to the experience of other confessions, he studied other religions, finding in them valid spiritual paths. Christianity and xenophobia were in compatible for him.
Immediately after ideological prohibitions were lifted, Fr. Alexander began to publicly speak in schools, colleges, and houses of culture, he was invited to appear on radio and television. His audience was huge, sometimes it filled entire stadiums (e.g., his Paschal sermon in the Olympic stadium in 1990). His first public lecture was delivered in the House of Culture of the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys on May 11, 1988. It was devoted to the thousand-year anniversary of the Baptism of Rus. After the lecture he was inundated by a storm of questions. At that time it was considered to be a miracle or a general spiritual revolution that a priest could speak in a college, in a hall overflowing with students and teachers. Other lectures followed this one, their number constantly grew.
Fr. Alexander used this time of freedom with maximum effectiveness. Over the three years that were granted him from above, he managed to do much. Aside from the lectures and speeches, he laid the foundations for many long-ranging projects. By his initiative the Russian Biblical Society was reborn (it was closed in 1826), he planned and developed the first issue of the journal “The World of the Bible” (it appeared after his death, in 1993, by the RBS, from 1995 it is published by the BTI). He founded the Orthodox University, the “Cultural Renaissance” society, the almanac “Christianos” (it is published in Riga), and a series of other publications; he also led the organization of many groups that took on charitable and humanitarian work. One such group took on itself the care of seriously ill children in the Children’s Republic Clinical Hospital in Moscow, where Fr. Alexander began visiting when not one priest would dare to do it. All of his initiatives were taken up by his spiritual children, and in one way or another continue to operate and expand to this day.
The Biblical-Theological Institute of the Holy Apostle Andrew also owed its existence to Fr. Alexander Men’. It traces its existence to the lecture that became the last in the pastor’s life. In 1995 BTI became a separate educational institution from the Generally Accessible University, in order to continue the educational process in the framework of higher education.
All the initiatives of Fr. Alexander Men’ bore witness to the deep understanding of the spiritual challenges that stood and stand before the country, now exiting a 70-year imprisonment. At the same time, he was full of sober optimism. He did not share the dark feeling that we live in the vestibule of the end of time, and that a post-Christian epoch was approaching. “The Church is still young. Christianity is only just beginning” said Fr. Alexander. And that inspired people: if genuine Christian history is still in the future, then each of us can do much for the blooming of the Church, for science and culture, for the spiritual rebirth of our country and the whole world.
Fr. Alexander often repeated that the Gospel has not yet been fully read or understood by mankind, since history is full of wars, revolutions, catastrophes. Each person must discover Christ and believe that God is Love. And when the Good News enters his heart, he will look at the world, at people, and his mission in the world with different eyes. And if this happens, then evil, hatred, conflicts will disappear from the world of man. Love teaches us to look on the other as a part of ourselves. Mankind is one, and therefore every enmity against the other is waged against us as well. Christ came in order to put an end to this chain reaction of hatred, in order to teach people to love. “We are moving to an age of Love,” said Fr. Alexander Men’. His entire life was a powerful striving to it and a witnessing to that fact, that already here on earth man can realize in complete fullness God’s plan, and to make near the Kingdom of Heaven.
Irina Yazykova