A pastor at the turn of the centuries

This article offers a pastoral and theological portrait of Father Alexander Men (1935-1990), a Russian Orthodox priest murdered at the dawn of the post-Soviet period. Written in the form of an analytical testimony, it draws on a paper presented at an international conference held in Strasbourg in 1996. The author traces the historical and ecclesial conditions in which Father Men exercised his ministry — Soviet repression, spiritual impoverishment, a deficit of evangelization — and shows how he responded to these challenges by directing his pastoral action toward the intelligentsia, while serving a rural parish. The article highlights his dynamic conception of salvation, his commitment to inner freedom, to the Eucharistic dimension of Christian life, and to the formation of base communities. It thus sheds concrete light on the renaissance of the Russian Orthodox Church in the twentieth century.