MEN, ALEXANDER

MEN, ALEXANDER, priest, martyr (1935–9 September 1990). Born of a Jewish family, Alexander and his mother were baptized Christians in the Russian Orthodox Church when he was seven months old. Both mother and child were raised in the “catacomb church.” According to his older brother Pavel, Alexander wanted to be a priest from age twelve. Ordained to the diaconate in 1958, he completed his studies at the Leningrad Theological Seminary as an external student over two years. In 1960 he was ordained priest with the blessings of his spiritual father (q.v.), the priest N. Golubtsov. He then served the church in the village of Alabino, and later in the village of Tarasovka. From 1964 to 1968 he studied at the Moscow Theological Academy, from which time until his death he was rector of the Church of the Meeting of the Lord in Novaia Derevnia between Moscow and Zagorsk. In his final years he became very popular as a speaker, teacher, writer, and television figure. A selection of his sermons is available in Awake to Life!: Easter Cycle (trans. 1992). There is a lengthy Festschrift (1,031 p.) with essays in English, French, and German dedicated to his memory: Kirchen im Kontext unterschiedlicher Kulturen: Auf dem Weg ins dritte Jahrtausend; Aleksandr Men in memoriam (1935–1990) (1991). He was murdered by cowardly fanatics on his way to serve Divine Liturgy near Moscow.