Alexander Men

Alexander Vladimirovich Men (Russian: Алекса́ндр Влади́мирович Мень, romanized: Aleksandr Vladimirovich Men'; 22 January 1935 – 9 September 1990) was a Soviet Russian Orthodox Church priest, Soviet dissident, scholar of theology and the Bible, and author of works on theology, history of religion, the fundamentals of Christian doctrine, and Orthodox worship. He wrote dozens of books, including his magnum opus, History of Religion: In Search of the Way, the Truth and the Life (from 1970 onward). Its seventh volume, Son of Man (1969) introduced Christianity to thousands of Soviet citizens. He baptized hundreds of people, founded an Orthodox open university in 1990, established one of the first Sunday schools in the USSR, and created a charity group supporting the Russian Children's Hospital. Men was murdered on the morning of Sunday, 9 September 1990, by an unknown number of assailants outside his home in Semkhoz, located in the Sergiyevo-Posadsky District of Moscow Oblast, Russia. The circumstances of the murder remain unclear.