| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"The Black Monk" |
| Date: |
21 Jul 2005 12:31:30 PM |
| Object: |
On Jewish and atheist converts to Orthodoxy |
Judith D.Kornblatt
Is Father Alexander Men' a Saint?
The Jews, The Intelligentsia, and The Russian Orthodox Church
Father Alexander Men' probably needs no introduction to many of you. He
is the late priest in the Russian Orthodox Church who was found
murdered by an axe in September 1990, and whom the late academic Sergei
Averintsev called "The man sent from God to be missionary to the wild
tribe of the Soviet intelligentsia." [1] According to a woman I'll call
"Marina," a Russian-Jewish writer in her fifties who I interviewed in
Moscow in 1997:
In the second half of the twentieth century in Russia there were two
charismatic figures, comparable because of their influence, although in
different spheres: Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Alexander Men'. If the
influence, the literary influence of the one grew quieter ...and began
to seem somewhat questionable ......the influence of Alexander Men', on
the contrary, has grown even stronger and wider. [2]
My paper today will be about that influence and how it is or is not
felt today, fifteen years after Men's death, in a "reborn" Russia with
a strengthened, state-supported Orthodox Church, and an intelligentsia
much more splintered and diffuse than it was in the 1960s, 70s, and
even the 80s, the time of Men's ministry. I ask what has become of
Men's followers among the intelligentsia, the Jews, and the religious
"dissidents" of the late Soviet period, and whether his legacy has had
a lasting effect on the Church. To answer these questions, I'll first
analyze those who entered the Church during Men's lifetime and under
his influence, many of them what I call "Russian Jewish Christians" in
my recent book, Doubly Chosen: Jewish Identity, the Soviet
Intelligentsia, and the Russian Orthodox Church. In the second half of
my talk, I'll examine several parishes where his influence is still
felt today, and analyze the words of some of his remaining spiritual
children.
To begin: Who were these members of the "wild tribe" that Men'
baptized, as Averintsev gave witness? According to Yuri Glazov, himself
a Russian-Jewish Christian: "Two striking phenomena are interwoven with
the post-Stalinist development of the Russian intelligentsia: dissent
and religious revival. [...] Stalin's death brought forth a very acute
crisis in Soviet ideology and in the spiritual body of the nation as
well." [3] How did the intelligentsia respond to this crisis? Says one
particularly reflective Russian-Jewish Christian, an historian turned
priest:
It was an issue of how to maintain your difference. ... To stay a
spiritual personality. Not to be completely engulfed. In this sense,
the Church helped to support the human personality, the personality of
the intelligentsia, for whom personhood is extremely important. Not to
be completely dissolved into the aggressive Soviet mass. .... It was
the power that I found to stay myself. (Father Michael)
For another Russian-Jewish intellectual affected by the wave of
baptisms in the late sixties:
..... Living in the Soviet Union, and always being bothered by the
constant lie, you had the sensation that there must be a great deal
that they are simply hiding. I was led to a sense of readiness,
readiness to believe in something else. I didn't know what that
something was, but the readiness was there. ("Osip")
There were and are, of course, many ways to respond to such inner
"readiness." They could have sought out Judaism, to the extent that was
feasible in the Soviet Union of the time. They could have become
Zionists, and tried to go to Israel. Or they could have followed the
secular dissident pattern of, say, Sakharov. Indeed, in the sixties,
these paths did not seem so disparate, as one interviewee acknowledged:
From the same underground came the dissident movement and the Zionist
movement. Discussions would take place in the same house... I didn't
hide the fact that I went to church. For those Jews in those days the
fact that we were Christians was not an issue. Most of them had been in
Stalin's camps. Christians were not enemies. They were all allies. In
those days we were a minority of outcasts. (Father Michael)
For many of these "outcasts," as I have said, it was Father Alexander
Men', by both example and word, who showed them the way out of what has
been variously called the ideological lie, the vacuum, the cellar, or
the prison of Soviet culture. Born a Jew, thus an outsider, a
"dissident" by birth, trained as a scientist in a Soviet institute,
Men' came to represent for these intellectuals the best of all worlds.
[4]
Men's clearly had charisma. But he also had a message that appealed to
a generation straitjacketed in their institutes for Historical
Materialism and Marxism-Leninism. The way out of the cellar that he
showed them celebrated the highly sensual ritual, the materiality of
Russian Orthodoxy not as a utilitarian end, but as the incarnation of
mystical Truth and as a sign of the possible deification of creation.
Spirit and matter, religion and secular knowledge were not so far
apart, after all. Engineers, historians, and mathematicians were
attracted by Men's readiness to build a bridge between the Church and
secular society, between science and religion: "This idea of dialogue
with the world has stuck with me all my life," wrote the Jewish priest.
[5]
Beyond his personality, then, Men' provided a bridge, and preached a
message of unity between peoples. This message of ecumenism and
universalism struck a popular chord. Furthermore, the danger of
dissident participation in the Church, itself severely restricted in
the atheist state, combined with the attraction of Orthodox
spirituality. Sparked by the influence of charismatic figures like Men'
(Dudko, Eshliman, Iakunin...), the Church drew otherwise secular
Soviets to what at the time they understood, from Men's teachings, to
be an inclusive and universal Orthodoxy. The fact of the Church's
restriction in the Soviet period made these freedom-seekers, many of
them Jews, feel like natural allies with those who professed the
national religion of the ancient Russian people. They were dissidents
together.
There was, of course, a downside. In an obituary written shortly after
the murder of the priest, Men's friend (and a friend of some of you),
Mikhail Agursky, called him a "passionate missionary, [who] tried to
attract everyone to Christianity, but especially Jews. [...] For this,
he was hated by many Russians as well as very many Jews." [6] Indeed,
the former Metropolitan of Leningrad, Antonii Mel'nikov called him a
"guard" of Zionism in Orthodoxy (postovoi sionizma v pravoslavii). [7]
So, the newly-baptized Jews did not always find the bridge of ecumenism
and universality that Men' preached, however, and an interesting
metaphor crept into many of my interviews: that of illness and healing:
The Russian Orthodox Church is rather sick, "Marina" pronounced.
"Avraham" diagnosed the illness: the Church is infected by
antisemitism. ... It is not just a disease in the Church. It is a
genetic disease. It is destroying the Church from the inside.
So what, we might ask, are the Russian Jewish Christians doing in this
hotbed of infection and disease? One might assume that they, too, would
become infected. And, in fact, such so-called "self-hatred" is not
unheard of among acculturated Jews in Russia as well as elsewhere.[8]
And Jewish out-converts to other denominations often suffer from the
illness. For example, the scholars Isser and Schwartz argue that,
"modern Jews who have converted to 'Hebrew Christianity' or 'Jews for
Jesus' groups are not only plagued by the 'ineradicable' Jewishness
within themselves, but frequently suffer as well from minority
self-hate, often manifested in anti-semitic behavior" [9]
But self-hatred was definitely not a characteristic I found in the
population of Russian Jewish Orthodox Christians. As I was told over
and over, But the deeper I went into the Church, the more deeply I felt
myself as belonging to the people of Israel ("Avraham") and The more I
am Christian, the more I feel myself a Jew ("Dima"). What is more, this
Jewish identity had become positive and internal, rather than the
negative, externally reinforced anti-Semitism that was their basic
identification with Jewishness before entering the Church. They did not
become "Russian" in the Russian Church, but "Jewish."
And where are these Jewish intellectuals, Men's "children", today, when
the official Church, many feel, is even less open to "outsiders" and as
it becomes more and more entrenched in the politics of the new,
increasingly nationalist Russia? What are the followers of Men' doing
with his legacy of ecumenism, inclusivity, and bridge-building between
the intelligentsia and the Church, between Jews and Christians, between
East and West?
Some are in the West, but I won't today be talking of those Russian
Jewish Christians in the U.S. or in Israel. Instead, I'll confine
myself to those living in his home town of Moscow where, as a rule,
individuals might attend services here or there, or nowhere at all, but
they continue to worship as communities in just a handful of churches.
Some of Men's followers continue to make the long train ride out to his
final parish in Novaia Derevnia. There is also now also a small church
erected at the site of the murder.
But probably the largest number of "heirs" of Men's teaching now attend
the Church of Cosmas and Damian (Kram sviatykh bessrebranikov Kosmy i
Damiana v Shubine) in central Moscow, just off Tverskaia St. by the
statue of Dolgorukii and the Aragvi restaurant. [10] It is led by
Fathers Aleksandr Borisov and Georgii Chistiakov, both close associates
of Men', as well as by two other priests appointed, as I was told by a
regular parishioner with perhaps a bit of leftover Soviet paranoia, to
watch us. It is on the second floor of the Church of Kosmas and Damian
that Men's younger brother, Pavel, runs the Aleksandr Men' Foundation.
[11] And it is here, in the church's bookstore, where you can find the
largest selection of books and tapes by Men'. Father Aleksandr Borisov
estimates that the church supports 3000 regular parishioners.
In 1992, some members of Borisov's parish split away to register a new
community, and in 1996 were given a new church a few blocks away. The
parish is slowly refurbishing this Church of the Assumption of the
Mother of God (Khram Uspeniia Bogoroditsy na Uspenskom Vrazhke), led by
Fr. Vladimir Lapshin, also a long-time associate of Men'.
But perhaps the most radical, and controversial of the followers of
Men' now gather to pray in the basement of the building housing the
Center for Human Rights, near the Nikitskie Gates. To be clear, this
small community is not part of the Patriarchate of Moscow. It belongs
to the so-called Apostolic Orthodox Church, founded in May of 2000
through the authority of the True-Orthodox (Catacomb) Church, a body
that never reunited with the Moscow Patriarchate since the 1920s. [12]
It is sometimes called Gleb Iakunin's Church, for its founder, the
famous dissident from the 60s. [13] At the recommendation of Iakunin,
this dissident Church's synod canonized Father Aleksandr on September
8, 2000.
The canonization of Men' was, and still is, highly controversial. [14]
Many followers of Men' with whom I spoke agreed that the canonization
was perhaps deserved, but nonetheless, in this form and by this
splinter Church, nothing more, and nothing less than an unnecessary
provocation: We split with them over this, Men's brother explained. I
understand their views, but it was all done on their own, which only
disturbs the situation. Men's son, Mikhail, currently the deputy major
of Moscow and a controversial figure in his own right, wrote: "I look
on this as a provocation directed against all my family. ... by an
organized group of people having no relationship to the Russian
Orthodox Church."[15]
But a saint he is, say some. The makeshift Church of the New Martyrs,
led by Father Iakov Krotov, is divided by an iconostasis with only
three icons: the Mother of God, Christ, and one of Father Aleksandr.
The wall is punctuated by wide arches in place of the closed royal
doors of a traditional icon stand, thus making the altar fully visible,
and accessible, to the congregation. The services are conducted in
Russian, rather than the Church Slavonic recognized by the Russian
Orthodox Church, and, thus, also easily accessible to the worshippers.
There is no choir; the congregants themselves are expected to chant the
entire service, and Father Iakov recites all prayers aloud, rather than
mumbled as is usually done in the Orthodox Church. All of these
innovations, Krotov believes, make his service more democratic, more
inclusive, and more in the spirit of Father Aleksandr Men's own
teachings.
When I asked Krotov in the summer of 2003 about any continuing
influence of Men' on the official Orthodox Church, the spiritual child
of the late charismatic priest admitted that it would be marginal at
best. Fundamentalism is now central in the Church. And, there is more
"Bolshevism" in Church life today than in secular life. Pavel Men'
seconded much of this opinion. This is not to say that Pavel is totally
pessimistic: Definitely a small living kernel remains, as always. And
if intellectuals are not flocking to the Church as they did during
Father Aleksandr's ministry, they are reading his books. It is through
the books, propagated by the Men' fund that Pavel directs, that he sees
a future. Many seminarists and priests, he believes, are reading them
on the sly: I know that people are using the books of Aleksandr,
teachers, not naming him by name.
Father Vladimir Lapshin took a different take on Men's legacy during
our interview. When I asked if I might have a few minutes to talk about
his memories of Men', Father Vladimir, unlike all the others I spoke
with, curtly responded that he is has nothing to say. He expressed
impatience with what he alluded to as the "industry" of children of
Men', and he became quite angry when the conversation turned toward the
question of Men's legacy.
Lapshin's severity on this issue, I ultimately concluded, grows from
his efforts to remember and portray Father Aleksandr not as a radical,
fringe priest in the Church, but as absolutely central to the ancient
and true, Orthodox teachings. When asked about the legacy of Men's
teaching, Father Vladimir answered curtly, He had no teachings. When
pressed about the continuation of his direction (napravlenie), a term
used by Father Borisov, Lapshin declared that he had no direction,
because everything he taught was not his, but that of the Church. He
did not work toward the reunion of the Churches, Lapshin claimed,
despite everyone else's assertions that this was one of Men's main
focuses, because Men' knew that the Church is one, and can only be one.
None of the questions, it seems, was apt, as long as I implied that
Men' was anyway outside the core of Orthodox teachings.
Father Vladimir's efforts to separate Men' from any "industry" that
relies on the priest's iconoclasm, and others' desires, on the
contrary, to propagate Men's martyred image, represent two poles of a
cautious optimism about the ecumenical priest's legacy, and about the
possibility of continuing influence on the Church of the intellectuals
that he first attracted to faith.
But this cautious, sometimes a bit weary optimism about Men's legacy is
caught within the tension of two paradoxes. The first is clearly
expressed by Father Vladimir Lapshin's attitude. This ardent priest's
efforts are directed at bringing Orthodox worship back to its doctrinal
purity. Although he firmly believes that Men' supported that return to
the idea of a true, Orthodox, Catholic, Universal Church, insofar as
the "industry" of Men's memory draws attention away from what is truly
Orthodox, it defeats, rather than promotes his cause. If anything, it
causes further splintering in the Church. So, to follow Men', the
Church and its followers paradoxically must not follow him, but return
to itself.
The second paradox is perhaps best expressed in the following anecdote.
Recently, I met an old friend in Moscow. She and her husband lived in
exile in New York for many years, where she attended services fairly
regularly at a parish serving many newly baptized, often Jewish
intellectuals. Does she still go to church? I asked, wanting to probe
the level of her optimism or weariness. After the death of her husband
and the fall of the Soviet Union, she reclaimed her Russian
citizenship, bought an apartment in Moscow near the area where she
first met Father Aleksandr and, now, as she confessed, rarely goes to
church. Why? Because, she admitted with some self- mockery, she misses
the dissidence. She was attracted to an underground, revolutionary
Church, a catacomb Church, as she told me, and to the sense of urgency
and intensity that worship in a forbidden space excites. What some
followers dream of desperately -- the mainstreaming of Father Aleksandr
Men' -- is also, ironically, what turns many of them away.
By all accounts, intellectuals are not joining the Church as they once
were. Recent surveys suggest that the number of Russians in general who
regularly attend church is declining. And today's spiritual seekers
among the intelligentsia join the Church, when they do, with a
difference from the earlier generations of Men's children. Before the
fall of the Soviet Union, during Men's ministry, intellectuals chose
baptism as an escape from the vacuum of Soviet ideology, as a way to
discover, and express, their "personality", and, ultimately, as a
dissident action. Spiritual activity was spiritually alive and
exciting, and closely associated for these baptized intellectuals with
the politically and spiritually brave individual of Men'. Now, Men's
ecumenical legacy must carry the day without his charisma. And it must
do so in an atmosphere currently dominated by a less-than ecumenical,
rather blatantly nationalist agenda.
Does he deserve sainthood for this legacy, as those in Gleb Iakunin and
Iakov Krotov's Church believe?
According to one of Men's Russian Jewish Christians:
I do think that according to the Orthodox definition of a saint, Fr.
Alexander is a saint. There are a few different types of saints. One of
these types is a person who lived a great life, was extremely important
for his time and people around him, bravely preached about faith in the
time of danger, wrote beautiful books about faith, and died as a
martyr. Who will fit this definition better then Father Alexander Men?
The OCA website gives the following definition:
It means only that, within the context of his age, he manifested the
image of God in himself in some way -- that he was an ikon, an original
creation, a new creature in Christ. ...
Canonization does not make a man a saint. Rather, it establishes the
fact, publically and for all to see, that the man is already a saint...
[16]
Was Father Alexander Men' such a man? I don't know. I never met him. I
don't believe in saints. I don't even believe in Jesus Christ. And I'm
crazy about Jews converting to Christianity. I do know, however, that
his ministry, and, even more, the presence of his spiritual children,
grandchildren, cousins, and fellow travelers, especially among the
Jews, continue to press the case of his significance, and in so doing,
to test the saintliness of the contemporary Church itself. "In his
day," in the "cellar" of the Soviet Union, he did something unusual. He
was an "original creation" as an intellectual in the Church.
"Pasha," a Russian Jewish Christian now living in New York suggested
the following: To show you are a Jew in Orthodoxy is a kind of litmus
paper. Jewry is the verification of faith for a Christian. Why? If you
take this paper, Jewry, and you immerse it in someone's faith, and the
paper changes color, even just a little, then that is a marker that
something is not right in his faith. True Orthodoxy, the Orthodoxy his
followers believe was preached by Men', is thus associated with
tolerance and ecumenism, with what they see as the true message of the
gospels. And any Orthodoxy that does not accept Jews, that flunks the
litmus test, must have abandoned its true ecumenical form and become
intent only on its own ritualistic laws. Did Men' revolutionize the
Russian Orthodox Church? By no means. Was he a messiah? Absolutely not.
Does his legacy point out to the Church how it might "heal itself"? In
a quiet, sometimes defeatist and always paradoxical way: yes.
----------------
BM
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| User: "Saint Raytard" |
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| Title: Re: On Raymond Michael Ambrosini, the convert to Trollodoxy |
21 Jul 2005 07:58:57 PM |
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On 21 Jul 2005 10:31:30 -0700, in alt.atheism in article
<1121967089.536951.276030@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> "The
Black Monk" <cherniymonakh@hotmail.com> wrote:
Judith D.Kornblatt
Is Father Alexander Men' a Saint?
The Jews, The Intelligentsia, and The Russian Orthodox Church
Surferdude...@aol.com (Quicksword) wrote in message
news:<16d055f3.0308031341.489185d3@posting.google.com>...
Seems like Mr. Raymond Michael Ambrosini likes to post personal
information about people within the Bigfoot Community on this board,
his "High Desert BF Board", and Erik Beckjord's to name a few.
Mr. Raymond Michael Ambrosini who lives in Fountain Hills/Scottsdale
Arizona has posted personal info such as people's driver's licenses,
their home addresses, financial background and other vile stuff.
Ray, and also known as Raytard on this board states that he is a
pilot. Ray Michael Ambrosini goes on to state that he is a WEALTHY
person with a multi-million dollar inheritance,,and it goes on and on.
Since Ray likes to post people's personal information, then we thought
that it would only be fair to post info on him as follows:
Consultation with the FAA shows NO pilot's license for Raymond Michael
Ambrosini. Nor have they ever heard of the name. So it looks like
you ARE NOT A pilot RAY! And all of this BS you have floated about
you "having the best job in the world with your office at 30,000 feet
is pure horse pucky!
GEEZ Ray if you are a pilot-how come the FAA and FCC does
not know who
you are.
Federal Licenses
FAA License
No FAA Licenses Found for RAYMOND AMBROSINI
FCC License
No FCC Licenses Found for RAYMOND AMBROSINI
OH WAIT,,there is ALOT MORE!
Ray has had at least 8 different addresses in the last 10 years. One
of them being a trailer park in Illinois. So all of that BS Ray about
your having no respect for "Trailer Trash" is PRETTY FUNNY, since you
sold your trailer in Illinois before coming to Arizona. Heah Ray,,did
that $18K that you got for the rats nest fund your trip to Phoenix?
OH WAIT,,,there is ALOT MORE!
Ray has posted financial information about a few others in the BF
arena,,and in particular someone's supposed personal bankrupcy. Ray
has posted this supposed person's bankrupcy at least a dozen times on
this board, his HIGH DESERT BOARD,,AND Erik Beckjord's board. NOW
folks,,this is going to rupture your GONADS!!!!!
Mr. Raymond Michael Ambrosini and his wife Concetta (She goes by
Connie) filed for CHAPTER 7 bankrupcy in ARIZONA on January 27/2000.
Heah Ray, was that CASE# 0000841PHX, filed in Phoenix and discharged
on 5/31/2000.
OH WAIT,,,there is ALOT MORE!
What is this thing about you and "Connie" having MULTIPLE name
spellings along with those MULTIPLE addresses over the past 10 years.
Can you not spell your name correctly? Is it Ambrosin, Ambrosini, ad
infinitum? AND, why does "CONCETTA" use the surname "GRIECO" when she
is married to you? Is it Connie Ambrosin, Concetta Ambrosini, Connie
Grieco, Concetta Grieco or something else?
OH WAIT,,,it gets better,,AND we are leaving all the rest of it for
another time.
Heah folks,,here is a guy that states that he is a pilot and is RICH
and slams that into people's faces,,and yet he cannot afford to pay
for the tabs on his car. You see,,,Mr. Raymond Michael Ambrosini has
NO REGISTRATION on his car and was pulled over in 2000 for being a bad
boy. Seems like a PILOT could at least pay the $500 bucks for
registration like the rest of us.
KEEP TUNED,,,cause we have so much more. Heah Ray,,next chapter coming
up for all to see what a liar and phoney you are. The really juicy
stuff is coming for all to see what a liar and coward you are Ray.
Maybe we will send you some nice flowers on September 16th to
celebrate your birthday. Many thanks to one of your butt buddies for
all of the help! Geez Ray, you sure don't know your friends from your
enemies anymore huh!!!
MORE RAYMOND MICHAEL AND CONCETTA AMBROSINI's SAD HOAXED
LIFE- AKA
RT, John Steele, Raymond Jerrold and others.
Bankruptcies
Court Location: ARIZONA - PHOENIX
Case Number: 0000841
Date Filed: 01/27/2000
Discharge Date: 05/31/2000
Debtor Name: AMBROSINI RAYMOND MICHAEL
Address: 11022 N INDIGO DR APT 118, FOUNTAIN HLS, AZ
85268-5449
Address: 11022 N INDIGO DR APT 118, FOUNTAIN HLS, AZ
85268-5449
OH WAIT-THERE IS MORE: Seems like "Concetta/Connie
Ambrosini" has had
a whole bunch of addresses in the past 10 years-and all over
the
country-and at the same time.
AMBROSINI CONCETTA J - 7612 159TH PL, TINLEY PARK, IL 60477
From 6/1992 to 6/2001
AMBROSINI CONCETTA J - 16715 E EL LAGO BLVD UNIT 201,
FOUNTAIN HILLS,
AZ 85268
From 12/1997 to 4/1999
AMBROSINI CONCETTA - PO BOX 479, CINCINNATI, OH 45263
From 3/1999 to 3/1999
AMBROSINI CONCETTA J - 7612 E EL LAGO # 159, FOUNTAIN HILLS,
AZ 85268
From 3/1999 to 3/1999
AMBROSINI CONCETTA - 201 SUITE, FOUNTAIN HILLS, AZ 85268
From 12/1997 to 1/1999
AMBROSINI CONNIE - 7156 W 127TH ST APT 125, PALOS HEIGHTS,
IL 60463
From 2/1998 to 1/1999
AMBROSINI CONCETTA - PO BOX 18110, FOUNTAIN HILLS, AZ 85269
From 7/1997 to 7/1997
AMBROSINI CONCETTA - 7612 159TH PL TINLEY PR W, COUNTRY CLUB
HILLS, IL
60478
From 6/1997 to 6/1997
AMBROSINI CONCETTA - PO BOX 1811, FOUNTAIN HILLS, AZ 85268
From 6/1997 to 6/1997
AMBROSINI CONNIE - 17612 W 159TH PL, TINLEY PARK, IL 60477
From 2/1992 to 1/1996
GRIECO CONCETTA - 102 FLAMINGO DR, BEECHER, IL 60401
From 2/1989 to 1/1995
AMBROSINI CONCETTA - GENERAL DELIVERY, TINLEY PARK, IL
60477
From 3/1992 to 3/1992
OH WAIT-THERE IS A LOT MORE Coming-The most juiciest will
suck all of
the fun out of Raytard's little puppet circus.
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