Pedagogical Lessons of Father Alexander Men: I Didn’t Confuse Religion and Ideology

This mournful date falls at the beginning of September. 2023 marks thirty-three years since the tragic death of the theologian, parish priest, writer, biologist, animal painter and teacher Alexander Men.

His lessons are relevant to us, no matter who we feel ourselves to be: believers or atheists, Orthodox or representatives of other faiths. All the more topical they are in critical eras, when we are dealing with the topic of the day in the literal and figurative sense of the word.

I was lucky to listen to his sermons, to attend his lectures in crowded halls, to witness how Father Alexander brilliantly worked with children and adolescents. It was in the late eighties of the last century, at the beginning of perestroika.

Alexander Men made every effort to turn the “native tribe” of the intelligentsia towards the faith. As a result of the policy of aggressive atheism that raged throughout the years of Soviet power, religion was considered obscurantism, incompatible with science. But as a result, outstanding scientists and cultural figures became parishioners of Father Me. In particular, Alexander Galich. Suffice it to recall his poems “When I return”:

When I’ll come back –

don’t laugh, when I return,

When I run without touching the ground,

in February snow

On a barely visible trail

to warmth and lodging,

And, trembling with happiness,

I’ll look back at your bird’s call,

When I get back, oh when I get back…

Listen, listen – don’t laugh, –

when I’ll come back,

And straight from the station

having dealt coolly with customs,

And straight from the station to pitch,

insignificant, mean

I’ll break into this city

by which I punish and swear

When I get back, oh when I get back…

When I return I will go

in that one house

Where with a blue dome

no power to compete with the sky,

And the smell of incense, like the smell

shelter bread,

Hit me and splash

in my heart…

When I get back… Oh, when I get back…

When I’ll come back,

nightingales whistle in February

That old motive

that long-standing, forgotten, sung,

And I will fall, defeated

with your victory

And I’ll poke my head, as if into a pier,

on your knees

When will I return… And when will I return?

The only house where “the sky cannot compete with a blue dome” is the Sretensky Church, where Alexander Men served. Which, strictly speaking, is symbolic, because “meeting” means “meeting”. On this holiday, they remember the meeting of the elder Simeon and the baby Jesus in the Jerusalem temple, which took place on the fortieth day after Christmas. His parishioners were: N.Ya. Mandelstam, Fazil Iskander, poet A. Zorin; he met with Bulat Okudzhava, his admirer was V.T. Spivakov. Alexander’s father was enough for everyone – for young “Afghan” children, and for grandmothers from neighboring villages, and for children with cancer (he fed them at the Children’s Republican Hospital).

There is a myth that Father Alexander was a priest exclusively for the creative intelligentsia. This is wrong. He believed that creativity is the business of every person.

“So, when we begin to learn to distinguish good from evil, when we learn to find this battlefield in ourselves, as Dostoevsky said, then work begins to express our spirituality. This is the business of every person. This is the most important work. In order to create, it is not necessary to create paintings, symphonies and sculptures. Each person creates his own soul, each creates his personality. But he creates it not in an empty space, but in accordance with other “I” and with the eternal “I” of the divine” – this is from the preaching of Father Me.

And here’s another: “An alternative to Jesus Christ is the Antichrist. It is a spirit, a spirit that operates in history. Christ is freedom, Antichrist is enslavement. Christ is love, Antichrist is hate. Christ is universality, Antichrist is locked in the group, in the clan, in the national, and so on. Christ is nonviolence, Antichrist is violence. Christ is the truth, Antichrist is a lie. Using this method, we can always guess the spirit of the Antichrist and his bearers.

Father Alexander Men was a truly enlightened man. Once one of my graduates at school was on the verge of suicide. Feeling that my arguments were not enough to keep the teenager from taking a fatal step, I asked Father Alexander to talk to him. And what do you think – he pulled the guy out of this state.

The charm of this man was such that, being next to him, I constantly wanted to smile, no matter what serious problems were discussed. After all, the gospel is good, in other words, joyful news that gives a person hope. It has nothing to do with the lean faces and fanatical brilliance in the eyes of those neophytes who only yesterday informed the authorities about parents who baptized their children, and today stand with candles by the pulpit.

Father Alexander did not tolerate fanaticism. He liked to quote Blessed Augustine Aurelius: “In general – unity, in disputed – freedom, in everything – love.” God is love. “Love God and do what you want.”

“Do what you want” does not mean “what I want, then I turn back.” If you truly love God, then you are incapable of villainy. Man must have the fear of God. But the fear of God is not the fear of punishment and the horror of the fiery hell in hell. This is the fear of disappointing God with your actions and thoughts. This is about the same as the fear of disappointing the woman you love with your betrayal.

At the heart of his worldview was a deep awareness of universal human unity. “We stand for universal human unity, but not for uniformity. Star-bearers are all the same.”

Star-bearers are those who consider themselves true communists, or true Christians, or true Muslims. Years will pass, and a young IT specialist will express the same idea in a modern format: “God is one, providers are different.”

This is all the more true since no Abrahamic religion teaches evil. They are intertwined by roots in the depths of the ocean. On the surface, whirlwinds rage, lightning flashes and thunder peals are heard. Yes, it is easy to make an ideology out of religion. And then Catholics kill Protestants, draw crosses on the doors of their dwellings during Bartholomew’s night… Father Alexander never confused religion and ideology.

And in sermons, and in lectures, and in books, he tirelessly preached true, eternal universal values. Father Alexander Men compared the text (book, article) with an arrow shot from a bow. The author who created the text is often no longer in this world – and the arrow flies and reaches the target.

Today, when civilization has gone to pieces and, according to the apt metaphor of Samuel Beckett, we are dealing with a naked man on rocky ground and an empty sky above him, the books of Father Alexander are necessary as air for both the gray-haired old man and the young man who is thinking about life.

Farewell to Father Alexander took place at the beginning of autumn, in the temple, thirty-three years ago. In the coffin, he looked alive and smiled. After all, to suffer for the faith is the highest virtue of a Christian. He was betrayed to the earth on the twelfth of September – the day on the day of the beheading of John the Baptist. It was a sign.