The Named Disciples

Men’s circle included named figures of Soviet cultural life — the songwriter Alexander Galich, whom he baptized in 1972; the memoirist Nadezhda Mandelstam; the writer Lyudmila Ulitskaya; the psychotherapist and author Vladimir Levi — and a group of spiritual children who were later ordained, among them Fr. Alexander Borisov, Fr. Georgy Chistyakov and Fr. Vladimir Lapshin. This file distinguishes what is documented from what is commonly repeated.

Tradition: Russian Orthodox (Moscow Patriarchate)

Why the Distinction Matters

Lists of famous converts are the most inflatable part of any account of a modern evangelist, and Men’s is inflated in both directions: his admirers extend it, and his detractors use it to portray a “religious syndicate” of the liberal intelligentsia. The names below are therefore sorted by what the accessible sources actually support.

Two general cautions apply. First, “spiritual child” is a looser relation than “convert,” and looser still than “person he baptized”; the same individual may be described in all three ways by different writers. Second, many of Men’s baptisms were deliberately unrecorded (see The Small Groups and the Baptisms), so the absence of documentation is weak evidence either way.

Documented: Alexander Galich

Alexander Galich (1918–1977), the poet, playwright and bard whose songs circulated on tape across the Soviet Union and who was expelled from the Writers’ Union and forced into emigration, was baptized into the Orthodox Church by Alexander Men in 1972 (English Wikipedia, art. “Alexander Galich (writer)”; corroborated in the Russian accounts of Men’s circle). This is the best-attested single conversion in the Men literature, and it is significant beyond itself: Galich was a Jew by birth like Men, a celebrity of the unofficial culture, and his baptism was widely known in the dissident milieu.

Attested as spiritual children or close associates

The Russian-language accounts of Men’s parish name, among those drawn to Novaya Derevnya, the memoirist Nadezhda Mandelstam (1899–1980), widow of the poet Osip Mandelstam; Alexander Galich; the psychotherapist and popular author Vladimir Levi; and the novelist Lyudmila Ulitskaya — alongside, in the standard formulation, “hundreds of other people of different nationalities, professions and social positions” (as reported in the Russian survey of Men’s circle published by Lechaim, “Менева ойкумена”). English-language accounts likewise describe Men as a spiritual adviser to a range of writers including Nadezhda Mandelstam and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (as summarized in the Wikipedia and encyclopedic treatments of Men).

[Disputed: it is frequently stated in Western popular accounts that Men baptized Nadezhda Mandelstam. The sources consulted here support that she belonged to his circle and regarded him as a spiritual guide; they do not establish that he baptized her, and her own religious history is more complicated than the formula suggests. The claim is repeated here as a claim, and readers should not treat it as settled.]

[Disputed: the nature of Men’s relationship with Solzhenitsyn. What is documented is that Men’s home was searched and he was investigated in 1964–65 in connection with the acquaintance (English Wikipedia, art. “Alexander Men”), and that the secondary literature describes Men as a spiritual counsellor to him. The depth and duration of the relationship are not established here, and Solzhenitsyn’s religious formation had other sources.]

The disciples who became priests

The most consequential part of the circle is the group of spiritual children who were themselves ordained, and who carried Men’s pastoral style into Moscow parishes after 1990:

Fr. Alexander Borisov — a biologist by training who became a priest and, after Men’s death, rector of the Moscow church of Saints Cosmas and Damian in Shubino and a leading figure in the Russian Bible Society, of which Men was a founder in 1990.
Fr. Georgy Chistyakov (1953–2007) — classicist, historian and priest, listed among Men’s students, who became one of the most articulate voices of the Men circle in the post-Soviet Church.
Fr. Vladimir Lapshin — a priest of the Moscow church of the Dormition on Vrazhek, around whom part of Men’s spiritual family gathered after his death.
Fr. Gleb Yakunin (1934–2014) — listed among Men’s students; the priest and human-rights campaigner who was imprisoned for his advocacy, was later a deputy in the Russian parliament, and was ultimately defrocked and excommunicated by the Moscow Patriarchate. His inclusion in the list is a fact about Men’s circle and not an endorsement of his later course; the two men’s paths diverged sharply, Men consistently refusing the political register Yakunin embraced.
Sergei Markus — the student in connection with whom Men was interrogated in 1984 and threatened with a ban from his parish.

(English Wikipedia, art. “Alexander Men,” listing Georgy Chistyakov and Gleb Yakunin as his students and naming Sergei Markus in the 1984 episode; the Russian accounts of Men’s circle for Borisov, Chistyakov, Lapshin and the dispersal of his spiritual children among their parishes.)

Also named among his close associates is Ekaterina Genieva (1946–2015), the philologist who directed the All-Russia State Library for Foreign Literature and who was a central figure in the posthumous publication and commemoration of Men’s work (Russian accounts of Men’s circle). [Disputed: the specific claim, sometimes made, that Men baptized her is not established in the sources consulted here.]

What the circle became

Men’s spiritual family did not dissolve at his death. Its members dispersed among several Moscow parishes — notably those of Fr. Alexander Borisov and Fr. Vladimir Lapshin — and carried on a recognizable style: catechetical preparation for baptism, small-group Bible study, congregational singing, hospital and prison visiting, and an emphasis on comprehensibility in worship (Russian accounts of the post-1990 dispersal of Men’s spiritual children).

This continuity is also the hinge of the controversy. To Men’s admirers, a movement of catechesis and mercy grew out of his parish and revived a moribund practice. To his critics, a tendency — variously called “Menevism” or, in one hostile traditionalist compilation, “the religious syndicate of Fr. Alexander Men” — established itself in the Moscow Church, importing modernist and Western practices under cover of his memory; the Blagodatny Ogon critique names Fr. Vladimir Lapshin explicitly as a continuing agent of the harm it attributes to Men (Благодатный огонь, “Куда способны увести наставления протоиерея Александра Меня”; the traditionalist reference wiki Два града maintains an article under the heading “Религиозный синдикат отца Александра Меня”).

Both descriptions refer to the same set of parishes and the same practices. This collection reports them and does not adjudicate (see The Charges and the Defence).

A note on the Jewish converts

A large proportion of Men’s converts, like Men himself, came from Jewish families of the Moscow intelligentsia (Randall A. Poole, “Fr. Alexander Men and the Traditions of Russian Religious Thought,” Northwestern University Forum, 2026). Two very different things were subsequently built on that fact.

The first is a serious theological question, raised within the Church, about how Jewish converts to Orthodoxy should understand their relation to Israel — the question posed against Men by Feliks Karelin, who challenged his views on the Jewish national calling and on the “double consciousness” of Jewish Christians (“Aleksandr Men: Current Criticism and Defense,” East–West Church and Ministry Report). That is a legitimate dispute about a real theological issue.

The second is not a theological question at all: it is the antisemitic use of Men’s origin, and of his converts’, as an accusation in itself. The two must not be conflated, and this collection treats them separately (see Ecumenism, Scripture, and the Antisemitic Attacks).

References

English Wikipedia, arts. “Alexander Men” and “Alexander Galich (writer).” (Galich baptized by Men in 1972; Chistyakov and Yakunin as Men’s students; Sergei Markus and the 1984 interrogation; the 1964–65 searches over the Solzhenitsyn acquaintance.)
Lechaim, “Менева ойкумена” (lechaim.ru). (The survey of Men’s circle naming Nadezhda Mandelstam, Alexander Galich, Vladimir Levi, Lyudmila Ulitskaya, and the priests Alexander Borisov, Georgy Chistyakov and Vladimir Lapshin, together with Ekaterina Genieva; the dispersal of his spiritual children among Moscow parishes after his death.)
“Aleksandr Men: Current Criticism and Defense.” East–West Church and Ministry Report (eastwestreport.org/articles/ew07302.htm). (Feliks Karelin’s critique of Men on the Jewish national calling and the “double consciousness” of Jewish Christians.)
Poole, Randall A. “Fr. Alexander Men and the Traditions of Russian Religious Thought.” Northwestern University Forum in Russian Philosophy, Literature, and Religious Thought, 2026. (The Jewish component of Men’s Moscow audience.)
Благодатный огонь [Blagodatny Ogon], “Куда способны увести наставления протоиерея Александра Меня,” by Tatyana Petrova (blagogon.ru/digest/105). (The naming of Fr. Vladimir Lapshin as a continuator.)
Два града [Dva grada], traditionalist reference wiki, art. “Религиозный синдикат отца Александра Меня” (dvagrada.ru). (An example of the hostile characterization of Men’s circle as a movement.)