Father Pavel Adelgeim - prayer book, ascetic, good shepherd

Pavel Anatolyevich Adelgeim
(1938 - 2013), archpriest Born on August 1, 1938 [1]. After his mother was arrested, he lived in an orphanage, then, together with his mother, was in forced settlement in Kazakhstan.

He entered the Kiev Pechersk Lavra as a novice. From there in 1956 he entered the Kyiv Theological Seminary.

In 1959, he was expelled from the seminary by Abbot Filaret (Denisenko) for political reasons.

In the same year, Archbishop was ordained deacon. Ermogen (Golubev), assigned to the Tashkent Cathedral.

In 1964 he graduated from the Moscow Theological Academy and was appointed a priest in the city of Kagan, Uzbek SSR.

In 1969, he built a new church, was arrested, and convicted under Art. 1901 (slander of Soviet power), sentenced to three years in prison. In 1971, due to unrest at the ITU in Kyzyl-Tepa, he lost his right leg. In 1972, he was released from prison as a disabled person.

He served in Fergana and Krasnovodsk.

Since 1976 - cleric of the Pskov diocese.

He was rector of the Pskov Church of the Myrrh-Bearing Women and the parish in the name of the Apostle Matthew in the village of Piskovichi. A parish comprehensive Orthodox school of regents was opened at the Church of the Myrrh-Bearing Women in 1992, and a shelter for disabled orphans was established at the Matthew Church in 1993.

In 1993, Archbishop was appointed to the Pskov See.
Eusebius (Savvin), between him and Archpriest. Paul arose a protracted conflict. According to Fr. Pavel: “Since then, he has been pursuing me for 10 years: he took away the parish in Bogdanovo, where I built a new church at the Regional Psychoneurological Hospital, took away the Piskovichi parish, where I served for 20 years, destroyed the orphanage, closed the candle workshop, took away the building of the school of regents .
Trying to understand the reasons for the persecution, in 2002 I wrote the book “Dogma of the Church in Canons and Practice,” for which Metropolitan Eusebius declared me a servant of Satan and condemned me and the book at the Diocesan Assembly. I was not allowed to attend the meeting and was tried in absentia. In 2010, the All-Church Court in Moscow recommended that we make peace, but the Metropolitan did not want to make peace until I renounced the book. He was very offended and still doesn’t communicate with me” [2]

At the beginning of 2002, he was relieved of his post as rector of the Church of the Apostle Matthew, and the temple was transferred to another priest. The shelter at the temple actually ceased to exist.

On February 22, 2008, by decree of the ruling bishop, he was relieved of his post as rector of the Church of the Myrrh-Bearing Women “due to the ongoing, extremely intolerant situation in the temple.”

and appointed cleric of the same temple.

Father Paul criticized the Moscow Patriarchate for its departure from the fundamental principle of conciliarity: the internal church regulations of recent decades, in his opinion, were not accepted by the consent of the entire church (priests, priests and parishioners), but were imposed from above. And even church parishes, previously founded by the parishioners themselves and registered with the Ministry of Justice, were re-registered in 2010 by order of Patriarch Kirill, so that their founders were actually the patriarchy represented by the parish priests. Priests are appointed by bishops, and bishops, in turn, are appointed by the patriarch. That is, a “vertical of power” has been built in the Russian Orthodox Church, in which the laity, according to Father Pavel, are completely powerless, and parish priests are assigned the role of weak-willed guides to the decisions of higher authorities. At the same time, priests are not protected by either ecclesiastical or secular law (they are not even officially registered for work under the Labor Code) and are entirely dependent on the will of the bishop [3].

He was married, had three children and six grandchildren.

He was killed on the evening of August 5, 2013 in his home in Krasnogorsky Proezd next to the Church of Constantine and Helena. According to investigators, he was stabbed to death by a mentally ill man who knew the deceased. At the time of his arrest, the suspect “inflicted knife wounds on himself and was hospitalized.”

In 1959, Pavel became a deacon and served in the Tashkent Cathedral

Tashkent Archbishop Hermogenon (Golubev) ordained Paul as a deacon

But the year 1959 also brought pleasant events for Paul: Tashkent Archbishop Ermogenon (Golubev) ordained him a deacon of the Tashkent Cathedral.

Tashkent Cathedral, where Pavel served as bishop since 1959

It is noteworthy that the bishop himself built this building. If today such an act would not surprise anyone, then, under Soviet rule, it seemed impossible. They could have been jailed or worse.

The cathedral was built right on top of the old one, and then the old one inside was dismantled and taken out. Of course, this did not pass without a trace for the archbishop - the authorities did everything to ruin his life. But the bishop still remained faithful to God.

Paul always spoke very respectfully of Archbishop Hermogenon.

Biography of Pavel Adelgeim

In 1954, Pavel Adelgeim moved to Kyiv, becoming a novice of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. Since he was under 18 years old, he lived in the monastery unofficially, in the cell of the strict monk Abbot Theodosius (Serdyuk), regent of the right choir. Paul was given the obedience of a reader. The second obedience was ordinary physical work. The third obedience is to lead pilgrims and tourists through the caves and preach the Gospel to them. Pavel lived in the monastery until 1956.

Having become an adult, Adelgeim entered the Kyiv Theological Seminary. In 1959, he was expelled from the seminary for “political reasons,” at the same time the Archbishop of Tashkent Ermogen (Golubev) ordained Adelgeim as a deacon for the Tashkent Cathedral.

In 1964, Father Pavel graduated from the Moscow Theological Seminary and was appointed a priest to the city of Kagan, Uzbek SSR, where he managed, despite opposition from the authorities, to build a new church.

In 1969, Father Pavel was arrested, convicted under Article 190 (slander of the Soviet regime) and sentenced to three years in prison. In 1971, in the camp, Father Pavel was run over by a trolley: his leg below the knee was damaged. The patient was kept on a dirty floor for almost a month until gangrene began. The leg was subsequently amputated.

Father Pavel was released from prison as a disabled person in 1972. After his release, he served in the Tashkent and Riga dioceses. He served in the Pskov diocese since 1976. In 1992, at the Church of the Holy Myrrh-Bearing Women, he opened a parish comprehensive Orthodox school of regents. In 1993, at the Church of St. Matthew the Apostle in the village of Piskovichi, he founded a shelter for disabled orphans.

On March 20, 2003, an attempt was made on Father Pavel. That day, his car suddenly lost control, left the road and crashed into the fence of a residential building. The speed was low, and this saved Adelheim from death. According to experts, the accident occurred as a result of deliberate damage to the steering control of the car.

In 2008, Adelgeim was removed from his post as rector of the Church of the Holy Myrrh-Bearing Women by decree of Metropolitan Eusebius of Pskov and Velikoluksky. As Adelgeim himself said, his conflict with the metropolitan lasted 20 years, throughout the latter’s stay in the Pskov diocese. During this time, among other things, the priest lost two parishes.

After being removed from his post as rector of the church, Father Pavel lectured at the St. Philaret Institute and was a member of its Board of Trustees. In mid-2012, Pavel Adelgeim became one of the few priests who signed a letter to Patriarch Kirill calling on government officials to pardon the members of the Pussy Riot group.

At the end of 2012, Father Paul sued the parish meeting of the Church of the Holy Myrrh-Bearing Women, along with 13 of its former members, who were expelled from the meeting without explanation.

On August 5, 2013, in Pskov, near the Church of Constantine and Helena, the body of Pavel Adelgeim was discovered with stab wounds. According to preliminary data, Father Pavel was killed by a mentally ill man whom the priest sheltered at his home. The suspect has been detained. A murder case was opened.

Pavel Adelgeim is the author of the book “Dogma of the Church in Canons and Practice.”

Father Pavel was married and was survived by three children and six grandchildren.

In 1972, Pavel lost his right leg in a correctional camp

Until 1972, Pavel was in a correctional labor institution in the village of Kyzyl-Tepe. A year earlier, he intervened when prisoners nearby were being beaten unconscious.

After this, three attempts were made on Paul’s life. While he was working with a welding machine, a crane ran over Pavel. Veins and tendons were damaged.

Archbishop Bartholomew awarded Paul the archpriest's cross

A timely operation could have corrected the situation, but it was not allowed. Gangrene began. As a result, Pavel's right leg was amputated.

When he returned from exile, Archbishop Bartholomew awarded Paul the archpriest's cross.

Used materials

• “The Case of Priest Pavel Adelgeim.” Magazine "Continent" 2003, No. 115
• Biography on the Russian Orthodoxy website

[1] “My grandfather Adelgeim Pavel Bernardovich, born in 1878, from Russian Germans, was educated in Belgium, owned the estate of Glukhovtsy and Turbovo near Kiev, built a kaolin, sugar and stud factory. After the revolution, estates and factories were nationalized, and my grandfather was invited to Vinnitsa, he built a kaolin plant there and was its director until 1938. Arrested and shot in Kiev on April 29, 1938. Rehabilitated on May 16, 1989. Father Adelgeim Anatoly Pavlovich, 1911. r., artist, poet. Shot on September 26, 1942. Rehabilitated on October 17, 1962. Another grandfather, Pylaev Nikanor Grigorievich, was a colonel in the tsarist army. The fate after the revolution is unknown. Pylaeva’s mother Tatyana Nikanorovna, born in 1912, was arrested and convicted in 1946, and exiled from prison to the village of Ak-Tau, Kazakh SSR. Rehabilitated in 1962."

(Autobiography - )

[2] “To fire a priest, it is enough to say: “Get out!” Interview for "Big City" -

[3] Humble fighter. Priest Pavel Adelgeim was killed -

Murder

Killed with a knife in his own home[6] in Pskov on August 5, 2013. As the editors of Lenta.ru were informed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the body of the priest was found not far from the temple in which he served[7]. However, this information turned out to be false, which was confirmed by the testimony of eyewitnesses of the tragedy, including Fr.’s wife. Pavel, Vera Mikhailovna. His alleged killer is 27-year-old Muscovite Sergei Pchelintsev[8][9]. He rushed at Father Paul shouting: “Satan commanded so!” and hit him with a knife. Before that, he lived with him for 3 days.

The funeral service for Archpriest Pavel Adelgeim took place on August 8, 2013 in the Church of the Myrrh-Bearing Women in Pskov[10]. He was buried at the Mironositsky cemetery[11].

Notes

1. [newtimes.ru/articles/detail/69790 “Today the candle box is the central place in the temple...”]
2. Efimov A.
   [lenta.ru/articles/2013/08/06/adelgeim/ Humble fighter] // Lenta.ru. — 2013. — Aug. 6.
3. Filatov S. B.
   [www.keston.org.uk/_russianreview/edition23/02pskov.html Pskov individual in the North-West: defense consciousness versus citizenship.]
4. [www.psmb.ru/vse-novosti/v-sodruzhestve/statja/lozh-u-groba/ Kopirovsky A. M.
   Lies at the Tomb],
   psmb.ru
   (August 14, 2013).
5. [www.sfi.ru/rubrs.asp?rubr_id=155&art_id=2407&page=1 SFI Board of Trustees]
6. [www.kiev-orthodox.org/site/events/4688 Priest Pavel Adelgeim was killed]. Kievan Rus (August 5, 2013). Retrieved August 1, 2016.
7. [lenta.ru/news/2013/08/05/adelgeim/ Pskov priest Pavel Adelgeim was killed]. Lenta.ru (August 5, 2013). Retrieved August 1, 2016.
8. [www.fontanka.ru/2013/08/15/182/ Accused of murdering priest Pavel Adelgeim near Pskov will be transferred to a pre-trial detention center]. Fontanka.ru (August 15, 2013). Retrieved August 1, 2021.
9. Anton Smirnov.
   [www.kp.ru/online/news/1512485/ Pavel Adelgeim, accused of murder, was discharged from the hospital]. Komsomolskaya Pravda (August 16, 2013). Retrieved August 1, 2021.
10. [www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/3152459.html The funeral service and burial of Archpriest Pavel Adelgeim took place in Pskov]. Patriarchia.ru (August 8, 2013). Retrieved August 1, 2021.
11. [lenta.ru/news/2013/08/06/farewell/ The place and date of the funeral of priest Pavel Adelgeim have been announced]. Lenta.ru (August 6, 2016). Retrieved August 1, 2021.
12. [patriarchia.ru/db/text/428440.html REGULATIONS ON THE CHURCH COURT OF THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH (MOSCOW PATRIARCHATE)] On the official website of the MP June 26, 2008
13. [portal-credo.ru/site/?act=news&id=63094&type=view Archpriest Pavel Adelgeim. RESUME OF THE CHURCH COURT. On the theoretical impossibility of church court. Part 1.] portal-credo.ru June 4, 2008
14. [portal-credo.ru/site/?act=fresh&id=786 Archpriest Pavel Adelgeim. RESUME OF THE CHURCH COURT. On the theoretical impossibility of church court. Part II]
15. [grani.ru/Society/Law/m.217627.html The Investigative Committee will interrogate the murderer of Archpriest Adelgeim]
16. ↑ 12
    [www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/1181727.html Decisions of the General Church Court of the Russian Orthodox Church dated May 17, 2010] Patriarchia.Ru, June 16, 2010.
17. [newsru.com/religy/16jun2010/gericht.html The decisions taken at the first meeting of the All-Church Court of the Moscow Patriarchate entered into legal force] NEWSru, June 16, 2010.
18. [kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1374845 Orthodox court] Magazine “Ogonyok”, No. 21 (5131) dated May 31, 2010.
19. [newsru.com/religy/06aug2013/kuraev.html Deacon Kuraev about the death of Adelgeim: “Satan strangled him through the Pskov Metropolitan”] NEWSru, August 6, 2013.
20. [www.novayagazeta.ru/politics/61944.html Priest Gleb YAKUNIN: Patriarch Kirill took over the function of the KGB as if upon himself]

An excerpt characterizing Adelgeim, Pavel Anatolyevich

During the first time of his acquaintance with Speransky, Prince Andrei had a passionate feeling of admiration for him, similar to the one he once felt for Bonaparte. The fact that Speransky was the son of a priest, whom stupid people could, as many did, despise him as a party boy and priest, forced Prince Andrei to be especially careful with his feelings for Speransky, and unconsciously strengthen it in himself. On that first evening that Bolkonsky spent with him, talking about the commission for drafting laws, Speransky ironically told Prince Andrei that the commission of laws had existed for 150 years, cost millions and had done nothing, that Rosenkampf had stuck labels on all articles of comparative legislation. – And that’s all for which the state paid millions! - he said. “We want to give new judicial power to the Senate, but we have no laws.” Therefore, it is a sin not to serve people like you, prince, now. Prince Andrei said that this requires a legal education, which he does not have. - Yes, no one has it, so what do you want? This is a circulus viciosus, [a vicious circle] from which one must escape through effort. A week later, Prince Andrei was a member of the commission for drawing up military regulations, and, which he did not expect, the head of the department of the commission for drawing up carriages. At the request of Speransky, he took the first part of the civil code being compiled and, with the help of Code Napoleon and Justiniani, [the Code of Napoleon and Justinian,] worked on drawing up the section: Rights of Persons. Two years ago, in 1808, having returned to St. Petersburg from his trip to the estates, Pierre unwittingly became the head of St. Petersburg Freemasonry. He set up dining rooms and funeral lodges, recruited new members, took care of the unification of various lodges and the acquisition of authentic acts. He gave his money for the construction of temples and replenished, as much as he could, alms collections, for which most members were stingy and careless. He almost alone, at his own expense, supported the home of the poor, established by the order in St. Petersburg. Meanwhile, his life went on as before, with the same hobbies and debauchery. He loved to dine and drink well, and although he considered it immoral and degrading, he could not refrain from enjoying the bachelor societies in which he participated. In the midst of his studies and hobbies, Pierre, however, after a year, began to feel how the soil of Freemasonry on which he stood was moving away from under his feet, the more firmly he tried to stand on it. At the same time, he felt that the deeper the soil on which he stood went under his feet, the more involuntarily he was connected with it. When he began Freemasonry, he experienced the feeling of a man trustingly placing his foot on the flat surface of a swamp. Putting his foot down, he fell through. In order to be completely sure of the solidity of the soil on which he stood, he planted his other foot and sank even further, got stuck and involuntarily walked knee-deep in the swamp. Joseph Alekseevich was not in St. Petersburg. (He had recently withdrawn from the affairs of the St. Petersburg lodges and lived in Moscow without a break.) All the brothers, members of the lodges, were people familiar to Pierre in life, and it was difficult for him to see in them only brothers in masonry, and not Prince B., not Ivan Vasilyevich D., whom he knew in life for the most part as weak and insignificant people. From under the Masonic aprons and signs, he saw on them the uniforms and crosses that they sought in life. Often, while collecting alms and counting 20–30 rubles recorded for the parish, and mostly in debt from ten members, half of whom were as rich as he was, Pierre recalled the Masonic oath that each brother promises to give all his property for one's neighbor; and doubts arose in his soul, which he tried not to dwell on. He divided all the brothers he knew into four categories. In the first category he ranked brothers who do not take an active part either in the affairs of lodges or in human affairs, but are occupied exclusively with the mysteries of the science of the order, occupied with questions about the triple name of God, or about the three principles of things, sulfur, mercury and salt, or about the meaning of square and all the figures of Solomon's temple. Pierre respected this category of Freemason brothers, to which mostly old brothers belonged, and Joseph Alekseevich himself, in Pierre's opinion, but did not share their interests. His heart was not in the mystical side of Freemasonry. In the second category, Pierre included himself and his brothers like him, those who are searching, hesitating, who have not yet found a direct and understandable path in Freemasonry, but hoping to find it. In the third category he included brothers (there were the largest number of them) who did not see anything in Freemasonry except the external form and ritual and valued the strict execution of this external form, without caring about its content and meaning. Such were Vilarsky and even the great master of the main lodge. Finally, the fourth category also included a large number of brothers, especially those who had recently joined the brotherhood. These were people, according to Pierre’s observations, who did not believe in anything, did not want anything, and who entered Freemasonry only to get closer to young brothers, rich and strong in connections and nobility, of whom there were quite a lot in the lodge. Pierre began to feel dissatisfied with his activities. Freemasonry, at least the Freemasonry that he knew here, sometimes seemed to him to be based on appearance alone. He did not even think of doubting Freemasonry itself, but he suspected that Russian Freemasonry had taken the wrong path and deviated from its source. And therefore, at the end of the year, Pierre went abroad to initiate himself into the highest secrets of the order. In the summer of 1809, Pierre returned to St. Petersburg. From the correspondence of our Freemasons with those abroad, it was known that Bezukhy managed to gain the trust of many high-ranking officials abroad, penetrated many secrets, was elevated to the highest degree and was carrying with him a lot for the common good of the masonry business in Russia. The St. Petersburg Masons all came to him, fawning on him, and it seemed to everyone that he was hiding something and preparing something. A solemn meeting of the 2nd degree lodge was scheduled, in which Pierre promised to convey what he had to convey to the St. Petersburg brothers from the highest leaders of the order. The meeting was full. After the usual rituals, Pierre stood up and began his speech. “Dear brothers,” he began, blushing and stammering, and holding the written speech in his hand. - It is not enough to observe our sacraments in the silence of the lodge - we need to act... act. We are in a state of sleep, and we need to act. – Pierre took his notebook and began to read. “To spread pure truth and bring about the triumph of virtue,” he read, we must cleanse people from prejudices, spread rules in accordance with the spirit of the times, take upon ourselves the education of youth, unite in unbreakable bonds with the smartest people, boldly and together prudently overcome superstition, unbelief and It is stupidity to form people loyal to us, bound together by a unity of purpose and having power and strength. “To achieve this goal, one must give virtue an advantage over vice, one must try to ensure that an honest person receives an eternal reward for his virtues in this world. But in these great intentions there are many obstacles that hinder us - the current political institutions. What to do in this state of affairs? Should we favor revolutions, overthrow everything, drive out force by force?... No, we are very far from that. Any violent reform is reprehensible, because it will not correct the evil in the least as long as people remain as they are, and because wisdom has no need for violence. “The entire plan of the order must be based on the formation of strong, virtuous people and bound by the unity of conviction, a conviction consisting in everywhere and with all their might to persecute vice and stupidity and to patronize talents and virtue: to extract worthy people from the dust, joining them to our brotherhood. Then only our order will have the power to insensitively tie the hands of the patrons of disorder and control them so that they do not notice it. In a word, it is necessary to establish a universal ruling form of government, which would extend over the whole world, without destroying civil bonds, and under which all other governments could continue in their usual order and do everything except that which interferes with the great goal of our order, then is the achievement of virtue's triumph over vice. Christianity itself presupposed this goal. It taught people to be wise and kind, and for their own benefit to follow the example and instructions of the best and wisest people. “Then, when everything was immersed in darkness, preaching alone was, of course, enough: the news of the truth gave it special power, but now we need much stronger means. Now it is necessary for a person, controlled by his feelings, to find sensual delights in virtue. Passions cannot be eradicated; we must only try to direct them to a noble goal, and therefore it is necessary that everyone can satisfy their passions within the limits of virtue, and that our order provides the means for this. “As soon as we have a certain number of worthy people in each state, each of them will again form two others, and they will all be closely united with each other - then everything will be possible for the order, which has already managed to secretly do a lot for the good of mankind.” This speech made not only a strong impression, but also excitement in the box. The majority of the brothers, who saw in this speech the dangerous plans of Illuminism, accepted his speech with a coldness that surprised Pierre. The Grand Master began to object to Pierre. Pierre began to develop his thoughts with greater and greater fervor. There has not been such a stormy meeting for a long time. Parties formed: some accused Pierre, condemning him as an Illuminati; others supported him. Pierre was struck for the first time at this meeting by the infinite variety of human minds, which makes it so that no truth is presented in the same way to two people. Even those of the members who seemed to be on his side understood him in their own way, with restrictions, changes that he could not agree to, since Pierre’s main need was precisely to convey his thought to another exactly as he himself understood her. At the end of the meeting, the great master, with hostility and irony, made a remark to Bezukhoy about his ardor and that it was not only the love of virtue, but also the passion for struggle that guided him in the dispute. Pierre did not answer him and briefly asked whether his proposal would be accepted. He was told that no, and Pierre, without waiting for the usual formalities, left the box and went home. The melancholy that he was so afraid of came over Pierre again. For three days after delivering his speech in the box, he lay at home on the sofa, not receiving anyone and not going anywhere. At this time, he received a letter from his wife, who begged him for a date, wrote about her sadness for him and about her desire to devote her whole life to him. At the end of the letter, she informed him that one of these days she would come to St. Petersburg from abroad. Following the letter, one of the Masonic brothers, less respected by him, burst into Pierre's solitude and, bringing the conversation to Pierre's marital relations, in the form of fraternal advice, expressed to him the idea that his severity towards his wife was unfair, and that Pierre was deviating from the first rules of a Freemason , not forgiving the repentant. At the same time, his mother-in-law, the wife of Prince Vasily, sent for him, begging him to visit her for at least a few minutes to negotiate a very important matter. Pierre saw that there was a conspiracy against him, that they wanted to unite him with his wife, and this was not even unpleasant to him in the state in which he was. He didn’t care: Pierre didn’t consider anything in life to be a matter of great importance, and under the influence of the melancholy that now took possession of him, he did not value either his freedom or his persistence in punishing his wife.