St. Archpriest Sergii Mechev was martyred on this day in 1942. I wrote yesterday that “all priests partake in the joys and sorrows of their flock.” And they were doing this at both sides of the Iron Curtain. The Russian saying, “mother nature rests from labor on children of genius,” proves to be wrong in this case we are looking at here. Fr. Sergii’s father Archpriest Aleksii Mechev is also a saint. Both father and son were canonized at the Moscow Council of Bishops of the Russian Church in 2000. Fr. Sergii was born in Moscow in 1892. In 1902, his mother (Fr. Aleksii’s wife) passed away. Fr. Aleksii was totally consumed by his grief. His spiritual children arranged a meeting with St. John of Kronstadt, who said to Father Aleksii, “The Lord is visiting you. Leave your cell and go out to people; only from now on will you begin to live. You complain about your sorrows and think there is no grief in the world greater than yours… but be with the people, enter into the grief of others, take it upon yourself and then you will see that your misfortune is small, insignificant in comparison with the grief all around you, and it will get easier.” This resonated with Fr. Aleksii’s own philosophy, and he took as guidance the words that a priest should unburden his flock of its sorrow. When Fr. Aleksii passed away in 1923, Fr. Sergii became his successor at St. Nicholas Church at Maroseika Street in Moscow. Answering a calling, he was ordained a priest in 1919. In responding to unprecedented persecution, the All-Russian Council had introduced parish brotherhoods in 1918. Similarly, Fr. Sergii organized his community into “families,” groups of people who read Holy Scripture together, and helped those who were arrested. When, in July 1927, the the Deputy Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne, Metropolitan Sergii (Stragorodskii) of Nizhnii Novgorod, made his declaration of loyalty to the state, Fr. Sergii ceased commemorating him liturgically and refused to add a petition for the well-being of the Soviet authorities to the litanies. He did continue to invoke the name of Metropolitan Sergii’s superior, Metropolitan Peter of Krutitsy, Locum Tenens of Patriarchal Throne. As a result, Metropolitan Sergii suspended Fr. Sergii from his ministry. Subsequently, in 1933, Fr. Sergii was arrested and sent to the GULAG. In 1937, he was released for “extraordinary achievements in labor.” Fr. Sergii continued to minister secretly, but the noose of the totalitarian state around his neck was tightening. In July of 1941, he was arrested and imprisoned in Yaroslavlʹ. In November 1941, in the conditions of the Nazis’ blitzkreig, Fr. Sergii was sentenced to death for his underground activity. His name was brought recently to America, in a controversial way, by the writer and editor Rod Dreher. Source: Archpriest Vlodimir Vorobʹev, “Aleksii,” Pravoslavnaia Entsiklopedia. |
