A Muscovite elder living in the world, Fr. Alexei Metchev
was born on March 17, 1859, into the family of the pious choir director of the A Muscovite elder living in the world, Fr. Alexei Metchev
was born on March 17, 1859, into the family of the pious choir director of the
In childhood, his father, Alexis Ivanovitch Metchev, son of
an archpriest of the Kolomenskoye District, had been saved from freezing to
death on a cold winter night by Holy Hierarch Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow
and Kolomenskoye. One of the young
boys of the diocese selected for their musical aptitude, he was brought late one
evening to
The circumstances of Fr. Alexis’s birth were remarkable.
As his mother, Alexandra Dimitrievna, went into labor, she began to feel
great pain. Her labor was quite
prolonged and difficult, and the lives of both mother and child were in danger.
In great sorrow, Alexis Ivanovitch went to pray at the
Monastery of St. Alexis, where Metropolitan Philaret was serving on the occasion
of its patronal Feast. Going into
the Altar, he stood quietly to the side, but Vladyka saw his favorite choir
director’s suffering in his pained expression.
He asked, “What is the matter? You
are so downcast today.” “Your
Eminence, my wife is in labor, and is dying.”
The holy hierarch prayerfully crossed himself.
“Let us pray together…God is merciful; everything will be all
right,” he said. Then he handed
him a prosphora and said, “A boy will be born.
Name him Alexei, in honor of St. Alexis, Man of God, whom we celebrate
today.”
Encouraged, Alexei Ivanovitch stayed for the Liturgy, and
returned home filled with hope. At
the gates, he received the joyous news that a son had been born.
In the two-room apartment on
Trinity Street
in which the family of the director of the Chudov Choir dwelt, a living faith
in God, manifested in a ready bread-and-salt welcome of joyous hospitality,
ruled. There they lived through the joys and sorrows of anyone whom God brought
into their home. It was always
crowded with people – friends and relative were always stopping by in the
knowledge that there they would find help and consolation.
All his life, Fr. Alexei remembered his mother’s selfless
action in taking in her sister and her three children after the death of her
sister’s husband – this despite the fact that with three children of her own
(sons Alexei and Tikhon, and daughter Barbara) the apartment was already
crowded. The children were forced to
erect loft sleeping benches.
Of all the brothers and cousins, Lyonya, as Alexei was
known in the family, was distinguished by a tender heart and a quiet,
peace-loving personality. He did not
like to argue, wanted things to be good for everyone, and loved to make people
happy, to comfort them, and to joke with them.
All this he did piously. While
visiting others, while playing in children’s rooms, he would suddenly become
serious, and would go off by himself and hide, closing himself off from the
noisy entertainment. As a result,
his companions took to calling him “blessed Alyoshen’ka.”
Alexei Metchev studied at first in the
Zaiconospassky School
, and then in the Moscow Theological Seminary.
He was a diligent, attentive, and thoughtful student, always ready to be
of service in any way possible. He
graduated from the Seminary without having had what is so essential for one who
is studying: his own place in which to study.
He often had to get up at night simply to prepare his lessons.
Along with many of his classmates, Alexei Metchev dreamed
of going to the university and becoming a doctor.
However, his mother firmly opposed such a plan, for she preferred that he
be a man of prayer. She resolutely
announced, “You are so small. Why
should you become a doctor? It would
be better for you to become a priest.”
It was hard for Alexei to give up his dream:
he imagined that working as a physician was the most productive way to
serve others. He tearfully bid his
friends farewell, but he could not oppose his mother’s will, the will one whom
he so respected and loved. Later
batiushka came to understand that he had found his true calling, and was very
thankful to his mother for having been able to do so.
On graduating from the seminary on October 14, 1880, Alexei
Metchev was appointed cantor of the Church
of
Our Lady
of the Sign, Prechistenskoye Forty on
Znamenka Street
. He was fated to undergo difficult
trials there.
The parish rector was a man with a stern cast of mind,
always ready to find fault. He
demanded of the cantor that he also perform the duties of a watchman.
He treated him roughly, and would even beat him, sometimes threatening
him with a poker. When Alexei’s
younger brother Tikhon would visit him, he would often find him in tears.
Sometimes the deacon would stand up for the defenseless cantor, who
endured everything in silence, never complaining or asking for a transfer to a
different church. Later, he would
thank the Lord that He had allowed him to receive such an education, and he
would remember Fr. George, the rector, as his instructor.
On hearing of Fr. George’s death, Fr. Alexis, who by then
was already a priest, came to the funeral. Those
who knew how the deceased had treated him were amazed to see that as he escorted
the body to the grave, his eyes brimmed with tears of love and thanks [to Fr.
George].
In 1884, Alexei Metchev married Anna Petrovna Molchanova,
the eighteen-year-old daughter of a cantor.
On November 18 of the same year, Alexei was ordained to the diaconate.
As a clergyman, Deacon Alexei had a passionate dedication
to the Lord, and displayed enormous humility, meekness, and lack of guile.
His marriage was a happy one. Anna
loved her husband and was of one mind with him in all things.
However, she suffered from a serious cardiac condition, and her health
became a matter of constant concern to him.
In his wife, Fr. Alexei could see both his close friend and his closest
helper along his path to Christ. He
valued his wife’s friendly criticisms, and paid heed to them as one would
listen to his elder, immediately striving to correct deficiencies she had noted.
Children were born into the family: Alexandra (1888), Anna
(1890), Alexei (1891) – who died in his first year – Sergei (1892), and Olga
(1896).
On March 19, 1893, Bishop Nestor, Administrator of
Moscow’s Novospassky Monastery, ordained Deacon Alexei Metchev a priest for
service at the Church
of
St. Nicholas
the Wonderworker in Klenniki of the Stretensky Forty.
The ordination took place at the Zaiconospassky Monastery.
The Church
of
St. Nicholas
the Wonderworker in Klenniki on Maroseika was not a large church, and its
congregation was extremely small. Nearby,
there were larger churches, which enjoyed greater attendance.
Upon becoming the rector of the Church
of
St. Nicholas
, Fr. Alexei introduced daily services – at a time when it was usual for small
Muscovite churches to have services only two or three times per week.
Batiushka would come alone to unlock the church at about
5:00 AM. He would not wait for other
clergy to arrive, but after piously venerating the Miraculous Fyodorovskaya Icon
of the Mother of God and the other icons, he would prepare everything needed for
the Eucharist, and would serve the Proskomedia.
At the appointed time, he would begin Matins, at which he would do the
reading and chanting himself. The
Liturgy followed. “For eight
years, I served the Liturgy daily, in an empty church,” Batiushka was later to
say. “A certain archpriest would
say to me, ‘No matter whenever I should be passing your church, bells would be
ringing. I would walk into the
church, and find it empty.... Nothing is going to work out for you; it is
pointless for you to ring the bells.’” But
that did not trouble Fr. Alexei, and he continued to serve.
At the time, Muscovites had the custom of coming to Confession and
Communion but once a year, during Great Lent.
However, in the “Nikola-Klenniki” Church on
Maroseika Street
one could confess and commune on any day of the year.
In time, that fact became known throughout
Moscow
. There is a recorded account of an
incident in which a city police officer on patrol at a very early hour noticed a
woman behaving strangely on the banks of the
Moscow River
. On questioning the woman and
learning that she had been driven to despair by life’s hardships and was
planning to drown herself, he persuaded her to give up her plan and instead to
go see Fr. Alexei on Maroseika Street. People
in mourning, people burdened with life’s sorrows, the disheartened and
dejected, were all drawn to that church. It
was through them that news of the kind rector spread.
At that time, life for the clergy of the many small
parishes was financially difficult, and often the circumstances of daily life
were no better. The tiny wooden
cottage in which Fr. Alexei’s family lived was very old, in severely
deteriorated condition. Two-storey
houses on either side blocked its windows. In
the rainy season, streams of water running down from Pokrovka to Maroseika
leaked into the church yard and into the cottage basement; their living quarters
were always damp and humid.
Matushka Anna Petrovna was extremely ill.
She developed cardiac edema, with marked swelling and tortured shortness
of breath. Anna Petrovna reposed on
August 29, 1902, the day of the Beheading of St. John the Forerunner and
Baptizer of the Lord.
At the time, Alexei and Claudia Belov, merchants who were
good friends of Fr. Alexei, had invited Righteous John of Kronstadt, who
happened to be in
Moscow
, to visit them. They had dealings
with Fr. John regarding charitable activities, but also arranged the visit so
that Fr. Alexei could meet him.
When Fr. John entered, Fr. Alexei asked him, “Have you
come to share my sorrow?” “I did
not come to share in your sorrow, but in your joy,” answered Fr. John, “for
you are being visited by the Lord. Leave
your cell and come out to the people. It
is only from this moment that you will begin to live.
You are enjoying your sorrow and thinking that there is no sorrow on
earth greater than yours.... But be with the people, enter into others’
sorrow, take it upon yourself, and you will see that in comparison to the
general sorrow, your misfortune is insignificant; then your burden will ease.”
God’s grace, which rested so on the Kronstadt pastor,
illumined anew life’s path for Fr. Alexei.
He took what he had been told as an obedience.
Unquestionably, his many years of truly ascetic life prepared him to
receive the grace of eldership.
With sincere hospitality, love, and compassion, Fr. Alexei
would greet all those who came to the church on Maroseika for help, people who
had been enfeebled and broken by difficult circumstance, by mutual enmity,
people sullied by sin, people who had forgotten God.
Into their souls were instilled the joy and peace of Christ, hope in
God’s mercy, and hope in the possibility of the renovation of the soul.
The love that was shown toward each of them evoked in each the sensation
that he was the person loved, pitied, and comforted most of all.
In the living quarters beneath the church, batiushka opened
an elementary parish school and a refuge for orphans and for children of
indigent parents. There, the
children would also learn useful crafts. Over
the course of 13 years, Fr. Alexei taught the children the Law of God in E. V.
Vinclair’s private school.
One of his spiritual children, named Maria, had come to his
church as a young girl shortly after her father’s death.
In giving Maria his blessing to write icons, Fr. Alexei gave the impetus
to a coming renaissance of ancient traditional Russian iconography, something
that for several centuries had been forgotten, supplanted by painting.
Fr. Alexei began to hold services not only in the mornings,
but in the evenings as well (Vespers and Matins).
Fr. Alexei prayed without ceasing.
By his example, Batiushka demonstrated that in the everyday noise and
vanity of life in the city, it was possible to be far from everything earthly,
to have unceasing prayer and a pure heart, and to be able to stand before God,
here on earth.
The numbers of the faithful attending the church grew ever
larger, especially after 1917, when those who had abandoned the Church
experienced a multitude of woes and hurried to the churches in hope of obtaining
God’s help. After the Kremlin was
shut down, some of the parishioners and choristers of the Chudov Monastery
received a blessing from Vladyka Arseny (Zhadanovsky) to attend Fr. Alexei’s
church. A substantial number of
young people and students also appeared. They
had seen that instead of bringing promised benefits, the Revolution had brought
new misfortunes; now they were bent on acquiring the laws of spiritual life.
During those years, dedicated and educated young priests
and deacons began to serve on Maroseika; among them was Fr. Alexei’s son
Sergei Metchev, who was ordained to the priesthood on Great Thursday, 1919.
They also assisted in giving lectures, having discussions, and organizing
Theology classes. Nonetheless, Fr.
Alexei’s burden grew ever larger. Far
too many people sought out his counsel and wanted his blessing for various
things. Even before, Batiushka had
had to receive some of his parishioners in an apartment in the rectory, which
had been built before World War I by the famous publisher I.D. Sytin.
Now there were endless lines of people at the entrance to the little
house. In the summer, people would
even spend the night in the church courtyard.
Among Fr. Alexei’s true friends were his contemporaries,
spiritual strugglers of Optina: Elder Hieroschemamonk Anatoly (Potapov) and
Abbot Theodosy, prior of the skete. Fr.
Anatoly would direct the Muscovites who visited him to go to Fr. Alexei.
Elder Nektary would say to people, “Why do you journey to see us?
You have Fr. Alexei.”
Most Holy Patriarch Tikhon, who always took Batiushka’s
opinion into account in matters of ordination, proposed that he take on the
challenge of uniting the clergy of Moscow. Meetings
would be held in the Church of Christ the Savior, but under the circumstances of
the times, they were soon terminated. Clergy
attitudes toward Batiushka were varied. Many
recognized his authority, some pastors were his spiritual children and
followers, but many others were among his critics.
In the closing days of May (N.S.) 1923, Fr. Alexei went, as
he had done in years past, to rest in his little cottage in Verey, a remote
little town in Moscow District. Before
his departure, he served his final Liturgy in the church on Maroseika Street,
said goodbye to his spiritual children, and on leaving, said goodbye to the
church. Fr. Alexei reposed on Friday
June 9/22, 1923. On the final
evening of his life, he was joyous, was affectionate toward everyone, and
remembered all those who were not present, especially his grandson Alyosha.
Death came the moment he lay down in bed.
The coffin with Fr. Alexei’s body was brought on
horseback to the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Klenniki at 9:00 AM
on Wednesday June 14/27. One after
another, Moscow’s parish communities and their pastors came to sing Panikhidas
and to say goodbye to the reposed. To
give everyone who came an opportunity to pray, this continued until the
following morning. In the evening,
two requiem Vigils were served: one in the church, and the other outdoors.
The Liturgy and Funeral were served by a host of clergy, headed by
Archbishop Fyodor (Pozdeyevsky), prior of the Danilov Monastery; in a letter
written shortly before his death, Fr. Alexei had requested that he serve.
At the time, Vladyka Fyodor was in prison, but was released on June 7/20,
and was able to fulfill Batiushka’s request.
Paschal hymns were sung all along the route to the
cemetery. Most Holy Patriarch and
Confessor Tikhon, who had just been released from incarceration, came to escort
Fr. Alexei on his final journey to the Lazarus Cemetery.
He was ecstatically greeted by the crowds, fulfilling Batiushka’s
prophetic words, “When I die, there will be joy for everyone.”
Ten years later, the Lazarus Cemetery was shut down, and on
September 15/28, the relics of Fr. Alexei and his wife were moved to the
“Vvedenskie Gory” Cemetery, known among the people as the “German
Cemetery.” Fr. Alexei’s body
remained substantially incorrupt; there was damage to one ankle joint, causing
the foot to become separated from the leg.
According to the cemetery administration, for all the
ensuing decades, Fr. Alexei’s grave was the most visited in the cemetery.
Thanks to the oral accounts – and later, published accounts – of aid
received from Fr. Alexei, many people learned of Fr. Alexei and, asking his
intercession in their woes and difficulties in life, were comforted by him.
On a regular basis, earth had to be added to Fr. Alexei’s
grave, as visitors seeking his help would take some of the earth home with
them....
On the first anniversary of Fr. Alexei’s death, the
members of the Maroseika community were invited to write about their encounters
with Batiushka, and many people responded. Their
reminiscences were not all of equal value, but some attested to instances of
clairvoyance, examples of miracles, wonders, and prayerful assistance from the
Elder.
At the Jubilee Bishop’s Council of 2000, Archpriest
Alexei Metchev, an Elder in the world, was added to the list of Saints of the
Russian Orthodox Church who are venerated by the entire Church.
Currently, the relics of Righteous St. Alexei Metchev are in Moscow , in the Church of Holy Hierarch St. Nicholas in Klenniki. By God’s mercy, there is a small piece of his holy relics in our church.
Sometimes
the Ustav calls for not doing full prostrations on certain Feasts, e.g. before
Pentecost. What about other Feasts?
Here is what
I would say about that: Sometimes you feel unworthy to look upon an icon,
upon the face of the Lord. How can you then not do a full prostration?
I, for example cannot fail to bow down to the ground when they sing “Let us
worship the Father, Son and Holy Spirit…” (Vigil on the Eve of Sunday).
Not to refrain is not a sin, but to do a prostration is a sin?
In
opposition to questions from books during Confession – A certain person
told me that he had read about some sin in a book, that he did not understand
what it was, and then began to do everything to somehow learn what it was.
He bought and read various books, and ultimately not only comprehended the sin,
but became an adherent of the sin. Thus, I do not approve of asking such
questions. You do not know, and you do not need to know.
Against
envy – It is not worth getting irritated, it is not worth it.... Wish
everyone happiness, and you yourself will be happy.