
Translated from
ОТЕЦ АЛЕКСЕЙ МЕЧЕВ: Воспоминания, Письма, Проповеди.
Редакция, примечания и предисловие Н. А. Струве.
YMCA-PRESS, ПАРИЖ. 1970.
AN ELDER IN THE WORLD
This book about Father Alexei Mechev requires some explanation. Few today know the name of this Maroseika priest, particularly in the West. Nikolai Berdyaev, who frequently attended confession and communion at the Maroseika Church [the Church of St Nicholas the Wonderworker on Maroseika Street in Moscow] after the Revolution, captured Father Alexei’s essence vividly in his autobiography: “Of all my encounters with clergy, Father Alexei Mechev left the strongest and most consoling impression. An extraordinary grace flowed from him. I saw in him none of the typical negative traits of the clerical class.” Days before his exile, Berdyaev went to bid farewell to the elder: “When I entered his room, Father Mechev rose to meet me, dressed all in white, and his whole being seemed suffused with light. I told him how painful it was to leave my homeland. ‘You must go,’ Father Alexei replied, ‘The West needs to hear your word.’” (Self-Knowledge, p. 221). Until now, this testimony was all we knew of Father Alexei...
Now, half a century after his death, the hidden figure of the Maroseika priest emerges into view as a new holy elder, standing in direct spiritual succession to the great elders of the 19th century.
The book about Father Mechev came together almost by itself, through a remarkable confluence of events. Three years ago, someone brought from Moscow a thick manuscript in black binding, without title or author -- which proved, upon reading, to be the memoirs of one A. Yarmolovich. The manuscript about Father Alexei should have continued further, but several pages were lost due to illegible handwriting. Those who managed to read it were struck by its extraordinary expressive power. Despite its occasionally exalted style, the author’s radiant grace and the elder’s stern blessing shone through -- creating a vivid, almost physically tangible spiritual portrait of this great pastor.
A. Yarmolovich’s memoirs became the cornerstone around which the collection took shape. From various directions, through sometimes complex paths, new testimonies about Fr. Alexei emerged: biographical details, memories, letters, sermons, photographs. These were joined by a long-hidden manuscript from the notable theologian and defender of faith, Fr. Pavel Florensky. The collection brought together hierarchs, deacons, priests, bishops, scholars and laypeople to tell the world about this largely unknown spiritual guide.
Father Alexei Mechev is indeed called an elder, and he fully deserves this high title, though he belonged to the married clergy. Moreover, he opens a new chapter in the history of eldership: eldership in the world. Traditionally, eldership was a monastic phenomenon, developed to foster intense spiritual life among monks. The most spiritually gifted and experienced monks would become elders, guiding their brothers through example and instruction toward spiritual victory and inner peace. While the fame of great elders eventually spread beyond monastery walls, drawing crowds of laypeople, there had never been an elder of non-monastic origin before Fr. Alexei Mechev.
Father Alexei traced his own spiritual lineage to the Optina Monastery, with which he maintained constant contact, and to Father John of Kronstadt, who helped him through a difficult period and sent him to serve the people. Father John himself could hardly be called an elder in the strict sense -- his gifts were so extraordinary and far-reaching that they defied categorization. As a builder, preacher, apostle, healer, and miracle worker, Father John had neither time nor opportunity for the patient, detailed spiritual guidance that characterizes true eldership.
Compared to Father John of Kronstadt, Father Alexei Mechev was gifted more modestly: he performed no dramatic feats, no visible healings or striking miracles. His life’s path was closer to the ordinary: a happy marriage, the grief of early widowhood, anxious care for children who didn’t always fulfill their father’s hopes, love for grandchildren... His letters were simple, his sermons not particularly skillful, though they reflected his closeness to Christ. As a parish priest, he wasn’t especially successful at first...
Yet beyond these ordinary traits, Father Alexei possessed rare gifts. Like Father Ambrose of Optina, and perhaps even more so, Father Alexei had an extraordinary gift of clairvoyance that allowed him to see through to his visitors’ hearts, knowing their names, lives, and needs beforehand. There are still living witnesses who can tell how he would call them from the crowd by name, though he’d never met them. This gift of clairvoyance, acquired through prayer, became a powerful instrument in his eldership. He devoted all his strength and time to spiritual guidance. A. Yarmolovich’s memoirs are particularly valuable as they offer the first detailed look into the workings of eldership, describing meticulously how an elder guides spiritual life and how turbulent religious impulses of a troubled soul are transformed through the spiritual sobriety of a demanding mentor.
Beyond clairvoyance, in his final years Father Alexei possessed a stunning luminosity. Many witnesses, including N. Berdyaev, describe moments of transfiguration when he appeared to his visitors like St. Seraphim of Sarov, though only briefly, radiating white light.
Finally, we must note another of Father Alexei’s special gifts — his spiritual freedom, which both N. Berdyaev and P. Florensky acknowledge. Though from a clerical family, son of a church regent, educated in religious schools, and a remarkable expert in church statutes, Father Alexei not only “lacked any negative traits of the clerical class” but could combine deep rootedness in church tradition with complete freedom. In his eldership, which proceeded naturally in the presence of those gathering around him, there was no trace in his spiritual guidance of gloom, oppressive rules, or canonical pronouncements. Though not a single iota of the law was violated, he remained evangelically free in relation to this law, embodying first and foremost a living image of the Savior. Perhaps for the sake of freedom, so essential to the church body, Father Alexei sometimes took on the ascetic feat of holy foolishness, linking him with both the first and last of the Optina elders, Fathers Leo and Nectarius.
Simplicity and humility, clairvoyance and radiance, demanding standards and love, traditionalism and freedom, wisdom and holy foolishness, gentleness and immersion in the world -- these are the characteristics of the newly-revealed elder Alexei.
Today in Orthodoxy, monasteries everywhere lie in ruins or fade away, and it’s difficult to find an experienced elder; the art of spiritual guidance has been forgotten. Outside Orthodoxy, the very concept of spiritual life has fallen under suspicion, and a secularized understanding of Christianity penetrates even Orthodox circles. The book about Father Alexei is timely and significant because it reminds us of spiritual life as an “essential need.” It not only inspires but provides concrete and practical guidance for everyone’s life. In these days of diminishing faith, one more guiding star has appeared on the difficult path of ascent from the earthly to the heavenly, from the darkness of self-love to the light of Christ’s love.
Nikita Struve
November 1969
Part Two:
https://www.chansonetoiles.com/p/father-alexei-mechev-memoirs-part-fa4