The Question of Glorification

Men is not glorified. No canonical Orthodox Church has numbered him among the saints, there is no feast or service, and no canonization process is known to be under way. He is nonetheless honored on a considerable scale within the Moscow Patriarchate at the level of memory — a church on the site of his death, an annual conference held with the ruling hierarch’s blessing, a respectful article in the Patriarchate’s own encyclopedia — and popularly revered well beyond it. This file states the fact, reports the veneration, and sets out what the absence of a glorification does and does not mean.

Tradition: Russian Orthodox (Moscow Patriarchate)

The Fact

Alexander Men has not been glorified by any canonical Orthodox Church. He is not on the calendar of the Moscow Patriarchate, of the Russian Church Abroad, or of any other autocephalous Church. There is no feast day, no liturgical service, no troparion, and no authorization for his liturgical veneration or invocation. No canonization process is known to be open.

This is not a marginal or technical point and it is not softened here. The collection titles him “Fr.” throughout and never “St.,” and it does not call him a martyr in the Church’s technical sense.

The One Apparent Exception, and What It Is

The English Wikipedia article records that Men was “canonized by the Apostolic Orthodox Church (2004)” (English Wikipedia, art. “Alexander Men”).

This must be reported accurately and labelled precisely. The Apostolic Orthodox Church is a small Russian religious body which is not in communion with the Orthodox Church — neither with the Moscow Patriarchate nor with any other canonical Orthodox Church. Its acts have no standing in Orthodoxy. A declaration of sainthood by such a body is not a glorification in any sense the Orthodox Church recognizes, and it does not alter Men’s status by a hair. It is reported here only because readers will encounter the claim and should know what it is worth. [Disputed: the details and even the description of the act vary in the sources; nothing turns on them, since the body’s acts are without canonical effect in any case.]

The Veneration That Does Exist

Between glorification and nothing lies a large territory, and Men occupies a good deal of it.

The grave. He is buried beside the Sretenskaya Church at Novaya Derevnya, where the funeral was celebrated on 11 September 1990 by Metropolitan Yuvenaly (Poyarkov) of Krutitsy and Kolomna (Православная энциклопедия, art. “Мень Александр Владимирович”). The grave is visited.

The church at Semkhoz. A church of St. Sergius of Radonezh was built on the site of his death at Semkhoz, together with a chapel; the Liturgy is served there and commemorations are held in it — the eightieth anniversary of his birth was marked with a Liturgy in that church in January 2015 (RIA Novosti, “Память протоиерея Александра Меня почтили в Сергиевом Посаде,” 22 January 2015; Orthodox Encyclopedia, art. “Мень,” on the chapel at the site of the death).

The distinction matters and is easily missed: a church built at the place where a man died is a memorial, and its dedication is to St. Sergius of Radonezh, not to Alexander Men. The Liturgy served in it is served to God and commemorates Men among the departed. This is exactly the form of honor the Church extends to a respected priest who has not been glorified.

The “Men Readings.” An annual scholarly and theological conference, the Меневские чтения (“Men Readings”), has been held since 2006 with the blessing of Metropolitan Yuvenaly of Krutitsy and Kolomna (Православная энциклопедия, art. “Мень,” dating the conferences from 2006; RIA Novosti and Russian church reporting on the annual conferences and the hierarch’s blessing). At the Fifth Men Readings, held at Sergiev Posad on 9 September 2010 — the twentieth anniversary of the murder — a message from Patriarch Kirill was read out by Metropolitan Yuvenaly (Russian church reporting on the 2010 conference). [Disputed: the full text of Patriarch Kirill’s 2010 message could not be verified against a primary source in the preparation of this file, and no quotation from it is given here.]

The Patriarchate’s own encyclopedia. The Православная энциклопедия, the Moscow Patriarchate’s major reference work, carries a substantial article on Men which describes his life and works without hostility, records his funeral by the diocesan metropolitan, and notes the annual conferences — while also recording the qualification that he expressed views “which cannot be characterized as unconditionally shared by the entire fullness of the Church” (Православная энциклопедия, art. “Мень Александр Владимирович”).

The books and the institutions. His works circulate freely in Russia; a fifteen-volume collected edition has been published (OrthodoxWiki, art. “Alexander Men”); the Alexander Men Foundation, established in December 1990, publishes and undertakes charitable work (English Wikipedia, art. “Alexander Men”); and the Open Orthodox University he founded bears his name (see The Open Orthodox University and the Works of Mercy).

And the popular language. Very many Orthodox — in Russia, in the emigration, and in the West — speak of Men as a martyr, and a good deal of the devotional literature about him uses that word. So does at least one Messianic Jewish commemorative site, which marks his birthday as that of a “Theologian and Martyr.” That language is reported here as popular language. It expresses a real conviction and a real love; it is not an ecclesial judgment, and this collection does not adopt it.

Why He Is Not, and Probably Will Not Soon Be, Glorified

Four obstacles, stated without prejudice to their weight.

1. The death is an unsolved crime with no established motive. Martyrdom, in the Church’s understanding, is death for Christ — killed in hatred of the faith, or for refusing to deny it. Nothing of the kind is established in Men’s case. He was killed by a person unknown, for a reason unknown, in circumstances the investigation could not resolve in ten years (see The Investigation and the Theories). It is entirely possible that he was killed for the faith; it is also possible that he was killed by a drunk. Until that is known, the evidential ground on which a martyr’s glorification proceeds is simply absent. This is not a slight on Men. It is the same rigor the Synodal Commission applied to the New Martyrs, declining to glorify without evidence rather than lowering the standard (see The Criteria and the Contested Cases).

2. He is not a New Martyr. He was killed in September 1990, after the Soviet persecution had effectively ended and the policy toward religion had been reversed. He does not belong, chronologically or evidentially, to the synaxis glorified in 2000. Whatever one concludes about his death, it is not a death in the persecution (see The New Martyrs of Russia).

3. His theology is contested. A substantial and articulate body of Orthodox opinion regards his writings as gravely defective (see The Charges and the Defence). Glorification does not require that a person’s every opinion be endorsed — the Church has glorified theologians whose views she does not follow in every particular — but a live, unresolved controversy over whether a man’s books should be recommended to inquirers is not a favourable setting for a canonization process.

4. Nobody has asked, formally. There is no petition, no diocesan commission, no dossier. Individual admirers have advocated for it; that is not a process.

What the Absence Does Not Mean

Following the formulation adopted in Fr. Pavel Florensky — What Non-Inclusion Does and Does Not Mean:

It is not a condemnation. No Orthodox Church has condemned Men or censured his writings by name. No canonical penalty was imposed on him in his lifetime; he was buried by his diocesan hierarch; his works are published and his memory is honored in his own diocese. To read non-glorification as a verdict is to read into a silence something it does not contain.

It is not a finding that he did not die for Christ. It is a statement about what can be established, in a case where the assailant, the motive and the circumstances are unknown. A refusal to assert what cannot be shown is not a denial of it.

It is not a doctrinal ruling on his theology. The Church has not adjudicated the disputes set out in Section 08. Citing non-glorification as though it settled them would be a category error — exactly as it would be a category error to cite a glorification as endorsement of a saint’s every opinion.

It is not permanent. Receptions move. Men’s case would be transformed by two things that are not impossible: the declassification of the security-service files, and the resolution of the murder.

What the Absence Does Mean

He may not be titled “St.” This collection does not, and readers should not.

He may not be liturgically venerated or invoked. There is no feast, no service, and no authorization. What is proper is what the Church does for all her departed: to pray for him, by name, as one of her own priests. Praying for the departed and invoking a saint are different acts, and the difference is not a technicality (see Orthodox Eschatology).

The reservations are real. The obstacles listed above are not bureaucratic. They are the Church exercising the discipline that makes a glorification mean something.

How Then to Regard Him

He may be regarded as what the record shows: a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church, canonically ordained and never censured, who catechized and baptized very large numbers of people under a persecuting state, wrote the books that carried a generation into the Church, and was murdered on his way to serve the Liturgy by an assailant who has never been identified. He may be prayed for. He may be read — as a theologian whose work is his own, is contested, and requires the discrimination any theologian’s work requires. He may be remembered with gratitude by those who came to Christ through him, and with reserve by those who find his books unsound; and both may be Orthodox.

What may not be done is to resolve the question by assertion, in either direction.

See Also

References

  • Православная энциклопедия [Orthodox Encyclopedia], art. “Мень Александр Владимирович” (pravenc.ru/text/2562996.html). (The funeral of 11 September 1990 by Metropolitan Yuvenaly at the Sretenskoye church and burial beside it; the chapel at the site of his death; the annual “Men Readings” since 2006; the qualification that his views “cannot be characterized as unconditionally shared by the entire fullness of the Church”; no canonization mentioned.)
  • English Wikipedia, art. “Alexander Men.” (Canonization by the Apostolic Orthodox Church in 2004; the Alexander Men Foundation established December 1990.)
  • OrthodoxWiki, art. “Alexander Men.” (The fifteen-volume collected works; the funeral on the feast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist; no canonization proceedings recorded.)
  • RIA Novosti, “Память протоиерея Александра Меня почтили в Сергиевом Посаде,” 22 January 2015. (The Church of St. Sergius of Radonezh built on the site of his death at Semkhoz; the Liturgy marking the eightieth anniversary of his birth; the annual “Men Readings” held with the blessing of Metropolitan Yuvenaly.)
  • Russian church reporting on the Fifth “Men Readings,” Sergiev Posad, 9 September 2010, at which a message from Patriarch Kirill was read by Metropolitan Yuvenaly.
  • “22 January 1935, Birth of Alexander Men, Theologian and Martyr,” On This Day in Messianic Jewish History (jewinthepew.org). (An instance of the popular use of the title “martyr.”)
  • METHODOLOGY.md §4, this repository.