07 — The Murder

§4.2 flagship (a). On the morning of Sunday 9 September 1990, walking from his house at Semkhoz to the railway platform to take the train to his parish and serve the Liturgy, Alexander Men was struck from behind on the head — with an axe, or with some comparable heavy implement — and died of blood loss. His briefcase was taken. The weapon was never found. Two men confessed at different times and both were cleared; the investigation was suspended on 9 September 2000 for “complete exhaustion of all possible investigative actions.” The murder remains officially unsolved.

Tradition: Russian Orthodox (Moscow Patriarchate)

This section is one of the two both-sides flagships of the collection. Its discipline is stated at the outset because the subject invites the opposite.

Men’s death has been claimed, in the thirty-six years since, for almost every available narrative: as a KGB assassination, as an antisemitic murder, as a killing ordered by enemies inside the Church, as a random attack by a drunk, and as a contract killing to seize documents. Several of these claims are made with great confidence by serious people. None of them has been established, and this collection adjudicates none of them. It reports what the investigation did, names the standing theories as their proponents state them, marks what is documented and what is inference, and stops.

Two further disciplines apply and are stated here so they are not mistaken for coldness.

He is not presented as a canonized martyr. Men was killed in 1990, after the Soviet persecution had effectively ended, by a person or persons unknown, for reasons unknown. He has not been glorified by any canonical Orthodox Church and is not among the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. Many Orthodox call him a martyr; that is popular language and it is reported as such, not as an ecclesial judgment (see 09 — Veneration and Assessment; The New Martyrs of Russia).

The facts are reported without sensationalism and without concealment. A violent death is not decoration. The details below are given because they are the evidentiary substance of an unsolved crime, and for no other reason.

Section Contents

• The Morning of 9 September 1990 — what happened, what was found, and the funeral
• The Investigation and the Theories — the flagship: ten years of investigation, two cleared suspects, the standing theories, and the suspension of the case

See Also

• 06 — The Glasnost Years — the twenty-eight months of public prominence that preceded it
• 09 — Veneration and Assessment — how the death has been received
• The New Martyrs of Russia — the glorification categories he does not fall under
• METHODOLOGY.md — §4.2, the rule for presenting live disputes without adjudication