Arseny (Alekseev)

He came from a family of cantonists expelled from the military department of the Buguruslansky district of the Samara province . The exact date of birth is not established - according to some data, this is 1837, according to others - 1840, also called 1845. In 1860, Stepan Alekseev became a novice of the Buzuluk Moisky Monastery , from where three years later he was sent to the Samara bishop's house , there on March 9, 1863, he received a ryasophore veil. In 1869, the novice Arseny was transferred to the Nicholas Monastery and became a member of the Samara mission. Under the leadership of Bishop Gerasim (Dobroserdov), he was engaged in missionary activities, in opposition to the Dukhobors , Molokans and other sectarians . After the publication in 1877 of the book “The Preaching of Truth in the Samara Diocese”, his fame spread beyond the borders of the Samara province.

Having served at the Caucasian bishop's house for some time, in 1882, the novice Arseny went to Athos to prepare and publish anti-iconoclast materials. On March 9, 1883, the ryasophoric novice Arseny was shorn in the mantle in the Panteleimon monastery . On May 1, 1883, he was ordained a hierodeacon , and a week later a hieromonk .

In 1883, hieromonk Arseny arrived in Moscow , in the Athos Compound . The chief prosecutor of the Holy Synod Konstantin Pobedonostsev drew attention to the young missionary, and in 1886 Arseny was summoned to the Synod for anti-sectarian activities. In 1887, he participated in the All-Russian Missionary Assembly , was elected chairman of the department of rationalistic iconoclast sects. For spiritual support, Father Arseny went to the island of Patmos , where during the divine service in the Cave of the Apocalypse on the day he was tonsured water flowed out of the cave wall. This was perceived by the monks as a sign from above. Then Father Arseny visited the Patriarch of Jerusalem Nicodemus , received his blessing for missionary work. He completed the work on the compilation of the book “On the veneration of the Cross”, which was entrusted to him by the Assembly by Father Arseny on Mount Athos, and on August 3, 1888, he left for Russia. There he continued the struggle with the Stundists , Molokans, whips and Old Believers, moving through the dioceses .

In 1890, Hieromonk Arseny became a resident of the Alexander Nevsky Monastery and was appointed a Synodal missionary. On August 17, 1894, the Synod organized the opening of the Resurrection Monastery on the site of the Makarievsky desert , and hieromonk Arsenius, elevated to the rank of hegumen , was appointed the head of the monastery under construction.

In addition to anti-sectarian activities, Abbot Arseny was engaged in exposing the English writer Frederick Farrar , whose books on religious subjects were popular among the intelligentsia and some clerics. Father Arseny arranged public interviews, published articles against Farrar, which caused a stormy response among the admirers of the writer, among whom were influential people. They achieved a ban on conducting interviews at the Mikhailovsky Manege , and in November 1898 Father Arseny was deprived of the title of the Synodal Missionary.

With the beginning of the revolutionary events of 1905, Abbot Arseny spoke out against revolutionaries. In the autumn of 1905, he became one of the founders of the Union of Russian People . On December 23, Abbot Arseny as part of a deputation from the Union was at a reception at the Emperor Nicholas II , offered him the icon of the Archangel Michael and his brochure “Writing down serious heresies from which the Church and our State are dying”, in which he sharply criticized the Russian elite, who retreated from Orthodoxy , and including the metropolitan clergy, whose representatives he called "wicked", for the sake of whose sins "God pours out his phials on our homeland."

Such activity of the hegumen caused discontent in the Synod, and on January 23, 1906, he was removed from the administration of the Resurrection Monastery. On February 1, 1906, as a punishment for in-cell vows of reserve quartermaster Artamon Golubev, who had not reached thirty years of age, Father Arseny was sent to the Solovetsky Monastery without a bishop's permission. The Union of the Russian people immediately began to petition to transfer Abbot Arseny due to rheumatism from Solovki to the south. In June 1906 he was enrolled in the Vladimir monastery of the Tauride Diocese . In the autumn of 1906, he participated in the third All-Russian Congress of the Russian people in Kiev . At this congress, he criticized the church hierarchy. In 1907 he organized monarchists' pilgrimage to Jerusalem , which was a great event among the capital of the Black Hundreds. In 1909, the Synod ordered hegumen Arseniy to leave for the Dranda Assumption Monastery of the Sukhumi Diocese , but he refused. After re-indicating the departure in the two-week period to the Sukhumi diocese and the subsequent refusal to do so in late November 1909, a ban was imposed on ministry in Abbot Arseny. In 1912 he brought repentance to the Synod, and the ban was lifted, in September he was allowed to go to Athos.

On Athos, at that time, the struggle against imyaslaviyu flared up. Father Arseny, arriving on Athos on April 2, 1913, began to denounce ivyaslaviy, but after some time he became sympathetic to the Imyaslavtsy, and began to preach their ideas himself, organizing the "Union of Confessors of the Name of the Lord in the name of the Holy Archangel Michael." Archbishop Nikon (Rozhdestvensky), who came to Athos to fight against his name, found Hegumen Arseny already in an extremely grave condition, with paralysis broken in St. Andrew's Skete . On August 20, 1913, Abbot Arseny died and was buried in the forest without a hymn as a heretic .

• Preaching the truth in the Samara Diocese. Pskov, 1877.
• Letters to newcomers from different sects of the split from Mount Athos, from Sauna, from Old Jerusalem, from New Athos, from New Jerusalem. M., 1884.
• The report of the missionary Hieromonk Arseny, His Excellency Mr. Ober-Procurator of the Holy Government Synod Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev. SPb., 1888.
• The exposure of the book Farrar called "The Life of Jesus Christ." M., 1898.
• About monocracy. SPb., 1905.
• About honoring the authorities. SPb., 1905.
• An open letter to the editor-publisher of the Kronstadt Lighthouse and Light of Russia magazines N. I. Bolshakov and the conversation of the former Synodal missionary and the main founder of the Union of Russian People, Abbot Fr. Arseny. SPb., 1909.
• About the newly-born capital of the false Christ in the person referred to as "the brother of John" Churikov. SPb., 1912.

• A. Stepanov. The main founder of the Union of the Russian People.

• The missionary activity of the Athos monk Arseny in the Tambov diocese.