Biography
Alexander Men is a Russian clergyman, which fell a lot of difficulties. I experienced attacks on the church and the persecution of believers by the Soviet authorities, had to secretly spread his own books, to change the parishes not in their will.
People loved the father of Alexander for spiritual openness and sociability, a man walked an excellent interlocutor, able to listen carefully and give a good advice to everyone who knocked on the door of his house and the temple.
Childhood and youth
Alexander Men was born in the capital of Russia in 1935. Father of the future priest - Kievlyanin, a Jew by nationality, beyond his shoulders, in addition to two universities, a religious Jewish school. But, as Alexander Vladimirovich later recalled, I did not believe in God, any religion was for a man alien. He worked as an engineer in a textile factory. In 1941, the head of the family was in prison, becoming a victim of false accusations, during the war years worked with the fascists in the Urals.
Mom, too, from a Jewish family, from Poland, her parents lived in Switzerland and in France, then moved to Russia. Unlike the Father, he read the Christian faith, looked at the Kharkov Orthodox gymnasium.
A vivid impression of childhood was the wonderful healing of the grandmother by John Kronstadsky himself: she struck a serious illness, and the doctors only diluted with their hands. After a meeting with the famous preacher, a woman went on amendment, and a month later, the disease took off her hand. When Sasha was celebrated half a year, Mom secretly baptized him.
From an early age, Alexander stretched to knowledge, he was reading the books, overwhelming his personal bedside table. Family with two children junteled in the Moscow communal, to create at least the likeness of his own room, the teenager burned to cow shirma and read a lot. Already at 13, I mastered Kant, for example.
Surprisingly, there was no excellent student at school from Sasha. But the boy grew up very sociable, was always surrounded by friends. The list of interests was not limited to reading books, Men was fond of music and especially painting - became a zoo frequenter, often came to draw animals.
Already at 12, Alexander realized that he wanted to devote the lives to the ministry of faith and God, and went to the spiritual seminary. But the inspector sent a teenager home, Velle to come when he achieves majority. After school, the young man joined the ranks of students of the Metropolitan Fur and Fur Institute, from where five years later before the final exams were expelled with the diocese. In the future, a man graduates from the Leningrad and Moscow seminary, but in absentia.
Service
At the beginning of the summer of 1958, Alexander Men got San Diacon and two years later he entered the courtyard of the Intercession of the Most Holy Virgin. The spiritual career developed rapidly - soon the priest was prescribed by the abbot of the Church in Alabino.
The building was in a deplorable state, finding a common language with the authorities, Meni began restoration, and eventually turned the challenge to a small Christian community. However, after four years, he was asked to leave Alabino, familiar helped to get a second priest in the Tarasovka church - villages near Moscow.
Another achievement of the father of Alexander is to create a mug of priests: shepherds were going together to discuss the problems, were looking for ways to improve Russian aicast.
At the end of 1965, members of this association sent letters to Patriarch Alexy I and the President of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on the interference of statesmen to the Church's business. The event produced a furor in the circles of Christians, about Alexander Vladimirovich spoke even abroad. Believers from all over Russia began to flog to the menu.
In Tarasovka, the priest continued to execute the mission, but already modest, trying not to face the authorities. After the death of Khrushchev, the rows of believers began to replenish the youth, which was very pleased. Popularity spawned and envious - once the rector wrote on Alexander Donos to the KGB.
To leave the walls of this temple, another year was not possible, in 1970, in the framework of the exchange of clergymen, Men was in a new village, where he served until the end of his life - first in the role of the second priest, and nine years later the abbot.
In a new place, Alexander Vladimirovich launched a rapid activity. Thanks to the warm admission of everyone who looked into the temple, the composition of the parishioners of the Molders, the intelligentsia appeared in the ranks, many Muscovites. People respected the sociable and charismatic priest, sacredly believed in virtue of his prayer, many argued that they were healed from long-term diseases.
Meritally visited the houses of believers, each family was personally familiar with his father Alexander - baptized, he ordered, consecrated, sanctified the dwelling. It was the only way to not attract the attention of the authorities, because in the 1980s, the main church acts were not encouraged.
Gradually formed the Novoderievskaya community. Alexander Men shared it into small groups "for interests" to work easier. Part of the parishioners suffered the aza of theology, others listened to the sermons and prayed together, the third was preparing for baptism.
Alexander Vladimirovich's biography is filled with creativity. Archpriest is the author of the placepi books on the subject of faith. The debut work "Son of Man" saw the light in 1968, came out from under the machines of Brussels printing house under the pseudonym. Multiple considers in the book that appeared from the conversations with Neophytes, the path of Jesus Christ.
Creating it, the priest pursued the goal to tell young people and in general people, just acquainted with the church, affordable and live literary language, through which it was necessary to go through Christ. The decade, the work remained in a handwritten form, secretly nomadsya handled.
The most important literary labor was the six-hundred "History of Religion" with a series called "In search of the path, truth and life", which contains reflections on human religions and is a prelude to the New Testament. The story of the spiritual searches of people was also printed in Brussels.
From under the pen, Alexander Vladimirovich, also published books "How to read the Bible", "Sky on Earth", an album with illustrations specifically for children "Where all this is?". The last global work was the "Bibliographic Dictionary", which included almost 2 thousand terms.
However, not everyone assessed the activities of the priest positively. Alexander Men more than once criticized, although he was not excommunicated from the church. Archpriest was accused of sympathy for Catholicism and views on the convergence and association of individual Christian trends. Part of the theologians believed that literary works were not suitable for acquaintance with Orthodoxy. Those who called him heretic were found and at all, seeing me a lot of contradictions with Christian teachings in the worldview. In fact, the books were under the church ban.
Personal life
Alexander Mall was married to the Ukrainian woman Natalia Grigorenko. In 1957, the spouses were born daughter Elena, who will become an icon painter in the future. And three years later, the family was replenished with the heir. Mikhail Men's son made a career in Russian politics, held the post of governor of the Ivanovo region, and in 2013 he sat down in the chair of the Minister of Construction and Housing and Communal Services of the Russian Federation.
The priest's house has always been open for guests. Friends, parishioners and strangers who wish to listen to God were gathered here. Alexander Vladimirovich with his family lived modestly, but eyewitnesses say that the house was filled with inexplicable light and warmly, each thing occupied his place. Archpriests did not be laughed at the farm, when Natalia Fedorovna was absent, His personally prepared treats for guests.
Father Alexander entered the story and as a patron, the creator of the Mercy Group, which arose on the basis of a children's clinical hospital. This is one of the largest charitable projects in Russia.
Death
Alexander Men died on September 9, 1990 from the hands of an unknown criminal. From the early morning, the priest went to the church on the liturgy, but the path was blocked by the man who stretched the proto -erier note.
While he tried to read the message, the killer struck the head of the ax. Father Alexander returned home and the wicket fell dead. The murder did not revealed.
Memory
- The mercy group at the Russian Children's Clinical Hospital after the departure of Alexander Vladimirovich was named in his honor.
- In the place of the death of Archpriest, in Sergiev Posad, the temple of Sergius Radonezh was built.
- Every year, the Scientific and theological conference "Menevsky Readings" is held in Russia.
Films:
- 1968 - "Love ..."
- 1990 - "Berdyaev"
- 2007 - "Son of Man"
- 1991 - "The Cross of the Father Alexandra"
- 1998 - "Jedny. 1990 "
- 2005 - "Killing Alexander me"
- 2012 - "Archpriest Alexander Men"