Alexander Ivanovich Deubner (15 August 1899 – 15 May 1946) was a Catholic priest after Orthodox one and again priest of the

Russian Catholic Church , native_name_lang = ru , image = Moscow,_Catholic_Church_in_Presnya.jpg , imagewidth = 200px , alt = , caption = Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception , abbreviation = , ty ...

of the

Byzantine Rite The Byzantine Rite, also known as the Greek Rite or the Rite of Constantinople, identifies the wide range of cultural, liturgical, and canonical practices that developed in the Eastern Christianity, Eastern Christian Church of Constantinople. Th ...

, member of Russian apostolate and member of

Russian diaspora The Russian diaspora is the global community of ethnic Russians. The Russian-speaking (''Russophone'') diaspora are the people for whom Russian language is the native language, regardless of whether they are ethnic Russians or not. History ...

Biography

Deubner was born in Ilensko-Tobolsk village,

Tobolsk Governorate Tobolsk Governorate (russian: Тобольская губерния) was an administrative division (a '' guberniya'') of the Russian Empire, Russian Republic and RSFSR located in the Ural Mountains and Siberia. It existed from 1796 to 1920; its ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

, into a family of Catholic priests of the Byzantine rite, Ivan Deubner, his father having converted to Catholicism in 1903. Alexander in 1913 lived in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, and then he was brought up in a Catholic

Assumptionists The Assumptionists, officialy named the Congregation of the Augustinians of the Assumption ( la, Congregatio Augustinianorum ab Assumptione) abbreviated AA,is a Catholic clerical religious congregation of Pontifical Right for men (priests and b ...

Order, first in

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...

, then in

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

, and later he took his monastic vows in the Order with the name Spyridon. Ordained a priest in Constantinople in 1926 by Bishop

Michael Mirov Archbishop Michael Mirov (1859 in Topuzlare, Ottoman Empire – 17 August 1923 in Istanbul, Ottoman Empire) was a Bishop in the Bulgarian Greek Catholic Church. He was born into the Bulgarian Orthodox Church in the today Bulgarian village of Zorn ...

, Exarch of the

Bulgarian Greek Catholic Church The Bulgarian Greek Catholic Church ( bg, Църква на съединените с Рим българи; la, Ecclesiae Graecae Catholico Bulgarica), sometimes called, in reference to its Byzantine Rite, the Bulgarian Byzantine Catholic ...

he was sent to work with Russian immigrants in the south of

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, under the leadership of the priest Lev Gillet, OSB, serving in the House for Russian children in

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...

. In 1928 Alexander Deubner and Gillet abandoned Catholicism and went to the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Metropolitan

Eulogius (Georgievsky) Eulogius (russian: Евло́гий, born Vasily Semyonovich Georgiyevsky, russian: Васи́лий Семёнович Гео́ргиевский; April 10, 1868 – April 8, 1946 in Paris) was an Orthodox Christian bishop, who led element ...

of the Western European Exarchate of Russian Orthodox parishes, but shortly after, at the request of his (Catholic) father suffering exile within Russia, Alexander returned to

Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

, working in the Commission "Pro Russia" and being secretary of Bishop

Michel d'Herbigny Michel-Joseph Bourguignon d'Herbigny (; 8 May 1880 – 23 December 1957) was a French Jesuit scholar and Roman Catholic bishop. He was president of the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, and of the Pontifical Commission for Russia. He was se ...

. In 1932 he left the ministry for 'not very honourable' reasons and went to

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

where he was denounced as a Soviet spy, but in 1933 he returned to

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, and shortly went to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. From 1935 he was living in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

and in 1943 he was arrested by the Nazi regime and taken to Berlin, where he worked as a translator at the beginning of 1945, returning to Prague on 12 July 1945 where he was arrested and taken to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. He was held in

Butyrka prison Butyrskaya prison ( rus, Бутырская тюрьма, r= Butýrskaya tyurmá), usually known simply as Butyrka ( rus, Бутырка, p=bʊˈtɨrkə), is a prison in the Tverskoy District of central Moscow, Russia. In Imperial Russia it ...

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

and was sentenced to 10 years but he died in the

Gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...

on 5 May 1946.

Other

Alexander's sister Nadezhda became a Catholic nun in the

Order. Deubner was the nephew of

Clara Zetkin Clara Zetkin (; ; ''née'' Eißner ; 5 July 1857 – 20 June 1933) was a German Marxist theorist, communist activist, and advocate for women's rights. Until 1917, she was active in the Social Democratic Party of Germany. She then joined the ...

of the

Communist Party of Germany The Communist Party of Germany (german: Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, , KPD ) was a major political party in the Weimar Republic between 1918 and 1933, an underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and a minor party in West German ...

References

External links

Catholic.ru
{{DEFAULTSORT:Deubner, Alexander 1899 births 1946 deaths Converts to Eastern Catholicism from Eastern Orthodoxy Former Russian Orthodox Christians Russian Eastern Catholics