O. Alexander Elchaninov

August 25th g. died after a long and painful illness. A.V. Elchaninov. Death tore him out in full strength when he was preparing to enter a new field of pastoral service in the Paris Cathedral, where he was called by Metropolitan Eulogius after the sudden death of Fr. G. Spassky. A cruel and unexpected illness struck him and, like a predatory kite, drank all his vitality from him. It seemed as if the right hand of the Lord was weighed down on him, and like Job on the rotting heap, he lay on a bed of illness, which became for him also a bed of death. Everything that human help and selfless love could do was done for him, but the Lord decided to call the righteous man to His monastery, and his bright, pure and righteous soul flew there, unrestrained by human efforts. The destinies of God are inscrutable, and it is not about him, the deceased, in the land of the living that we now need to regret, but about ourselves, who were left without him. For the bitter loss for the living is his departure from us. I will not allow myself to touch here on the sacred grief of his own family, but his spiritual family extended far and wide beyond the latter. He was a priest and shepherd who was connected by threads of spiritual and paternal love with many souls who will now feel orphaned, having lost a meek and loving father and friend. These tears and this love are known only to heaven, they will not be told in the annals of history, although what happens in the hearts is the most important thing that happens in life. Not only in terms of his personal qualities of pastoral vocation and talent, which are absolutely exceptional, but especially in terms of his type, Fr. Alexandra as a priest was an extraordinary and exceptional phenomenon. for he embodied the organic fusion of humble devotion to Orthodoxy and the simplicity of childhood faith with all the sophistication of Russian cultural tradition. He was already one of the few representatives of the old Russian culture in emigration, which reached a kind of zenith before the revolution, especially in those St. Petersburg and Moscow circles in which he moved. Here the biography of the deceased is woven into the history of this Russian culture, of which the person writing these lines can also be a historical witness. My acquaintance with a student, first at the University, and then at the Moscow Academy, A.V. Elchaninov, dates back to about 30 years ago in Moscow. At this time, a young group of thinkers, writers and church leaders stood out and attracted attention, connected not only by personal friendship, but also by school comradeship. Fate would have it that such people as the great Russian scientist and theologian Fr. Pavel Florensky, untimely deceased philosopher Vl. Ern and the future priest and teacher A.V. Elchaninov, who then continued their school connection in the northern capitals, but mainly in Moscow. All of them - each in their own way - defined themselves in a new for that time, but historically long-awaited religious and cultural type, which naturally adjoined the older generation of the same character - and the galaxy of thinkers, writers, theologians, poets of our generation (Ternavtsev, Berdyaev, Kartashev, Vyach. Ivanov, Gershenzon, Rozanov, Prince Trubetskoy, etc.). They were naturally joined by their young peers, like the priest. V. Sventsitsky, Andrei Bely, priest. S. M. Solovyov, A. Blok, etc.) A. V. Elchaninov was loved and accepted equally in the literary circles of Moscow and St. Petersburg, and everywhere the appearance of a student with a radiant smile, with special modesty and a willingness to listen and capture these endless creative conversations was greeted with joy. In friendly circles he was called Eckerman under Vyach. Ivanov, and then under Fr. P. Florensky, with whom he lived together in Sergievsky Posad (it seems he himself, jokingly, applied this name to himself). The beginning of this century was marked in the history of Russian thought by the emergence of the so-called religious-philosophical societies, first in St. Petersburg, and then in Moscow, and later in Kyiv, in which new struggles and quests, with their problematics and ideology, found expression. Moscow Religious and Philosophical Society “named after Vl. Solovyov" was founded in the fall of 1905, and its first secretary and constant employee was A.V. Elchaninov (who had previously taken part in the St. Petersburg Religious and Philosophical Society), and he remained in this post as long as there was an external opportunity for this, carrying out mainly invisible, but irreplaceable organizational work. It was, at the same time, an active preaching of Christianity, a struggle against the godlessness of the intelligentsia in its own camp - a special task that fell to the lot of our generation and was resolved with all possible sincerity and enthusiasm, although without a decisive victory, judging by the current rampant of the old intelligentsia, which has spread to the masses, atheism. A.V. Elchaninov, together with his friends, already served here the cause of the Christian mission, to which he later devoted himself entirely as a priest. At the same time, other undertakings arose in the field of religious and political, with which A.V. Elchaninov was also connected through his friends. Here we were talking about the ideological and practical overcoming of traditional ideology, which merged and identified political absolutism with Orthodoxy. But A.V.’s own calling Elchaninov was always not literary, but personal communication with people, in particular with young souls. He was a teacher by vocation, and even then it was known what exceptional love the young student enjoyed among his students. And this trait - a special interest in education and the ability to establish a personal connection and friendship between the educator and the educated - was a special gift of Fr. Alexandra. He found satisfaction of this need later in the teaching field, becoming the head of a private gymnasium in Tiflis. Circumstances separated us for a long time, and our new meeting took place as a refugee, in Nice, where he shared the common sorrowful share of emigrant existence. At this meeting, it became clear to me that he had decisively outgrown the framework of secular pedagogy, which is limited to the outer coverings of the soul, without entering the very heart. The time has come to realize the pedagogical gift in all its fullness - in shepherding. “To the honor of the highest rank,” to stand before the altar of the Lord, he was drawn equally by his personal religious need and by this pedagogical element. And the desired thing happened,” since 1926 Fr. Alexander is a priest who occupies a modest position at the Cathedral of Nice. With all the openness of his pure and believing soul, he tasted the heavenly joys of standing before the throne of the Lamb, and with Christian humility and the wisdom of this humility, he accepted the thorns that inevitably encountered on the path of this service, as well as the external difficulties of life that did not spare him. He devoted himself to the work of a parish priest, but could he forget his first love - raising his childhood and youth, of course, already on church principles? It was quite natural that he turned out to be one of the local leaders of the “Christian student movement”, and one could not help but be amazed and rejoice at seeing with what devotion some of its members treated him. It was some kind of simple and strong true friendship. In this, that silent and invisible pastoral work was accomplished on the human hearts of those who with such loving sorrow let him go from Nice and now mourn him so deeply and sincerely. At this time, ascetic moods began to dominate in the deceased’s own spiritual life. He devoted primary attention to patristic writing, in particular, he read commentaries on the works of St. John Climacus. God has many gifts, and God knows His ways. But the human eye in the thinning ranks of the old cultural generation, and especially in the pastorate, does not yet see new replacements for the empty places, and humanly it becomes sad and creepy. However, there is no place for these feelings where the will of God is being done. The seed is sown in death, raised in glory, and we praise and thank the Lord for everything! Bowing to the one who has passed into eternity and creating eternal memory for him, may it be given to me to unite it with the memory of that entire bygone era, as well as of those friends with whom Providence united the deceased and all of us in this life, and above all those of his school friends and comrades, of whom “some are no longer there, and those are far away,” with the memory of the great Russian religious culture. If a grain of wheat does not die, it remains alone, but if it dies, it bears its fruit. Glory and eternal memory to all our departed and now deceased brothers!