02 — Formation in the Underground Church

Men grew up inside a hidden Christian community: after Fr. Seraphim (Bityukov) died in 1942, his mother and he were guided by the disciples of that circle, above all by the schemanun Maria (1879–1961), the superior of an underground monastic community. He read for the priesthood in secret while enrolled as a biology student, and was expelled from his institute in 1958, just short of his degree, because of his faith.

Tradition: Russian Orthodox (Moscow Patriarchate)

The Soviet state permitted, in Men’s youth, no seminary he could attend openly, no catechism he could buy, and no parish education whatever. What formed him instead was a hidden monastic and lay community and a private library — and it formed him thoroughly. By the time he was expelled from the Irkutsk institute in 1958 he had already drafted the beginnings of the books he would spend the next twenty-five years finishing.

This section covers that formation and its cost. The first file describes the underground community and the schemanun Maria, whose influence Men himself acknowledged and about whom he left an unusually precise judgment. The second follows his secular education — the Moscow Fur Institute, the transfer to Irkutsk, and the expulsion on the eve of graduation — which is the first documented instance of the state acting against him personally, and the last time it did so successfully.

Section Contents

• The Catacomb Community — the hidden church that raised him, the schemanun Maria, and what he took from that formation
• Education and the Expulsion of 1958 — the Fur Institute, Irkutsk, the expulsion, and the immediate turn to ordination

See Also

• 01 — A Jewish Family and a Secret Baptism — the baptism that placed him in this community
• 03 — Priesthood under the Soviet State — what he did with the formation
• Orthodox Monasticism — the monastic tradition that survived, hidden, in communities like the one that formed him