He would paint mountains, hermits’ cells, and the sky
“We went to the monastery from the side opposite the entrance, went
up the slope, and from there we saw the monastery. It was sunset, and
it seemed to all of us that we were seeing the real Jerusalem… We
were sure that’s what it was. And Fr. Daniel sang the sticheron,
‘Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered… Shine, shine, O New
Jerusalem’” recalls one of Fr. Daniel Sysoev’s friends about a
pilgrimage to New Jerusalem Monastery. “It was autumn. We were
standing before New Jerusalem, and Fr. Daniel was singing about it,
and we contemplated this beauty.”
In his childhood, the future priest would paint unknown countries,
where there were mountains, waterfalls, hermits’ cells, and villages
with people below. There were cross processions going throughout the
streets, and in every village there were several churches.
“The main thing was space, the sky. He always drew it, with some
incredible sparkle,” recalls Fr. Daniel’s mother Anna. As a
preschooler he knew about the book Byzantine Legends about the saints almost by heart.
During the Paschal services, Fr. Daniel radiated so much joy that
he overwhelmed all his parishioners. But even on the most ordinary
days, he was always smiling and laughing. According to many of his
friends, he didn’t like to be alone; he could easily become the life
of any company, and there were always guests at his place. People who
knew him closely recall Fr. Daniel’s childlike simplicity.
“Fr. Daniel would be crossing the street, reading the Bible”
A moleben before a missionary class, February 2008. Photo: Ekaterina Zagulyaeva
“The first time I saw Fr. Daniel on the street, he was arguing with
sectarian agitators, and it struck me that he knew the Bible
practically by heart. The way he used the Bible, it was clear he read
it constantly,” said Miloserdie.ru journalist Iliya Agafonov.
“Working on some material, you could call him at any time and ask what
the Holy Fathers or Russian spiritual authorities said on this or
that question. He would immediately give an answer.”
Fr. Daniel was characterized by incredible erudition already in
seminary. One day the inspector started scolding him for communing
“too often.” “On the basis of the canons, sayings of the Holy
Fathers, and liturgical texts and priestly prayers, which were
generally unknown to us then, Daniel easily proved that man is called
to commune at every service,” recalls Fr. Alexei Lymarev.
In the same way, as a seminarian he knew the liturgical typikon and
strove to observe it exactly. “We had certain relaxations, that he
really wanted to correct. For example, when he would read the canon,
he always read it on six troparia, as in the typikon, not on four,”
said Archpriest Mikhail Schepetkov. “We even called him the ‘Walking
Typikon.’”
Fr. Daniel reread the Bible his whole life. “I’d be heading for the
metro and I’d see Fr. Daniel crossing the street, reading the Bible,
sometimes bumping into passersby,” said Elena Krylova, a friend of
the Sysoev family.
“Listen how beautiful the Paschal stichera are!”
The bloody cross of Fr. Daniel. Photo: pitanov.livejournal.com
“We often build Christ around our lives, but for him Christ was the
center, and he built everything on Him,” recalls Archpriest Igor
Fomin.
“He
was a man completely immersed in faith. As they said about the Old
Testament righteous ones that they ‘walked before God’—you could
basically say that about Fr. Daniel,” shares Iliya Agafanov. “He was
always standing before God in his words and deeds.”
He expected the same boundless faith from others. Elena Krylova, a
friend of Fr. Daniel’s family, gave birth to a premature baby, and the
baby was in the ICU. Matushka Julia called her: “Hold on, we’re
coming to baptize your son!” “Batiushka brought a bottle of holy
water with him, very cold because it was freezing outside,” recalls
Elena. “I was very scared, because my baby had pneumonia, and pouring
ice-cold water on him could make him worse. ‘What, don’t you believe
in God?’ Fr. Daniel sternly asked me. I couldn’t argue, and they
baptized my child, and he immediately started getting better.”
Any conversation with Fr. Daniel, however it started, would turn
into a conversation about God, about the need to serve Him and to
become like Him, his friends recall.
And he could talk on theological topics in any situation: while
walking to the metro, while sorting potatoes in the kitchen, or
balancing on one foot in a rolled-up pants leg, washing the other one
in the sink.
He could stop a classmate in the seminary hallway and say: “Listen,
listen, how beautiful the Paschal stichera are!” and start singing
the Byzantine melody.
He didn’t want tolerance
Missionary course, February 2008. Photo: Ekaterina Zagulyaeva
“There were no authorities for him. He could publicly argue with
anyone, fearing nothing, even a professor, if he believed he was
mistaken about something,” recalls Archpriest Dionysiy Pozdnyaev.
Seminarian Daniel Sysoev could even get himself involved in a
discussion during a lecture, which would sometimes get him in trouble.
But that didn’t stop him from starting theological disputes again and
again.
Later, there were thousands of meetings, broadcasts, debates, and
round tables in his life. He took part in discussions with Muslims,
sectarians, and neopagans. In his youth, according to his wife, he
“boiled with zeal for God,” though he later learned to debate more
calmly. But he always remained offputtingly straightforward.
“He didn’t want tolerance; he didn’t want Christ to be put on the
same level as Mohammed, Buddha, or Jehovah, and for people to pray to
them,” recalls Fr. Alexei, Fr. Daniel’s father.
Many things concerning heterodoxy, sins, or delusions aren’t
acceptable to say out loud. But Fr. Daniel always finished his thought
out loud. Speaking, for example, at a scientific conference, he could
say that science could be “the servant of theology.”
Thanks to his recklessness, Fr. Daniel earned himself somewhat
scandalous fame. One Muslim journalist even appealed to the
Prosecutor, demanding to bring a case against him for inciting
interreligious and interethnic enmity.
Throughout his life, Fr. Daniel baptized more than eighty Muslims,
including several Wahhabis, and two people who were planning to become
Shahids; and more than 500 Protestants.
It was normal for him to wear a cassock at all times
Fr. Daniel talking with a Jehovah’s Witness in Kyrgyzstan, June 2008. Photo: Ekaterina Zagulyaeva
Fr. Daniel was always a missionary. He didn’t turn into ordinary “citizen Sysoev” in the evening or on weekends.
“We lived near each other, and we drove home together after the
services several times,” recalls Archpriest Vladimir Shmaly. “He’d
show me: ‘There’s a beer stand I go to to have some beer with the
guys and talk about Christ.’”
“I asked him: ‘Fr. Daniel, listen, is it normal that you ride the
metro in a cassock and walk down the street in a cassock? That means
anyone can approach you!’ ‘Yes, anyone.’ I think he never took his
cassock off. He believed it was important—to always be in a cassock,
because a priest is a soldier of Christ.”
One day Fr. Daniel managed to save a woman who was planning to
commit suicide. She started talking with him on the street precisely
because of his priestly clothing.
“Even hooligans in the metro, who pestered him about how he was
dressed, he answered in such a way that it turned into a homily about
faith and God,” says Evgeny Kudashov, a Sysoev family friend.
Fr. Daniel could, without hesitation, organize a moleben in a
public place meant for completely different purposes: in an airport,
on the ruins of a Crusader fortress, etc.
With the blessing of the hierarchy, he served molebens in the Tatar
language, and would go preach at Sabantuy celebrations.1
In the Seliger youth camp, he missionized among the Chechen
participants, and in Moscow, he would take “excursions” to places
where migrant workers lived crowded together.
“Don’t be afraid, I’ll intercede for you to be glorified as martyrs”
The Church of the Apostle Thomas, several hours after the murder of Fr. Daniel, November 20, 2009. Photo: Deacon Andrei Radkevich
In 2007, Fr. Daniel organized a missionary course at the Church of
the Apostle Thomas, and urged other priests to do the same at their
parishes. Before attending sectarian meetings, he instructed
missionaries like this: “Split up one by one. Carefully listen to the
preaching and ask your neighbors clarifying questions. Point out the
contradictions between what the pastor says and the Bible. Your task
is to point out the discrepancies without scaring them off.”
“Fr. Daniel saw missionaries as the military detachment of the
Church, armed with knowledge of the Word of God,” recalls Ekaterina
Zatulyaeva, a correspondent for Neskuchny Sad magazine. She went with
Fr. Daniel’s group to Kyrgyzstan in 2008.
“We had to go to a certain mountain Muslim village, known for its
radical tendencies. Our task was to secretly baptize a dying woman—it
was her own desire.
“Before taking off, Fr. Daniel joyfully admonished us all: ‘Don’t
worry at all if they kill you there—I’ll intercede for you to be
glorified as martyrs,’” Ekaterina says.
Seraphim Maamdi, an Orthodox Kurd, recalls how Fr. Daniel proposed
that he organized a trip to Iraqi Kurdistan (the center of Yezidism, a
religion based on Zoroastrianism) to preach about Christ. “I said
that … a martyr’s crown would be provided for me, since the
radicalism of the people of Iraq is known to the whole world.
“But Fr. Daniel said there was nothing to be afraid of—they
threatened to behead him fourteen times, and are we really going to
retreat out of fear?” he said.
“Our sole and eternal homeland is Heaven”
Fr. Daniel’s funeral, November 23, 2009. Photo: Deacon Andrei Radkevich
“The best death for a Christian is, of course, martyrdom for Christ
the Savior. This is best death possible for a man in principle,” Fr.
Daniel wrote in his book Instructions for the Immortal, or What to Do If You Still Die.
He didn’t just want to be saved, but he dreamed of martyrdom. “He
said it was wrong to think, ‘If only I could be at least on the edge
of Paradise.’ ‘On the edge’ was too little for him,” says his wife
Julia.
Fr.
Daniel constantly received threats from radical Islamists, Satanists,
and so on. When his friends urged him to be careful, reminding him
about his children, he would answer that the Lord and Most Holy
Theotokos wouldn’t abandon the family of a martyr.
“I asked him one time: ‘Don’t you like it here? The way you behave,
this could all come crashing down at once.’ And he responded: ‘It’s
much more interesting there!’” recalls Archpriest Oleg Stenyaev.
“Our sole and eternal homeland is Heaven. There lives our Father;
there are our fellow citizens—the saints; there the Church finds
eternal rest after a long war with the devil,” Fr. Daniel said in an
interview with Neskuchny Sad magazine.
Preaching on the streets in Moscow, Tuva, and the Caribbean
Planning a missionary trip to Kyrgyzstan. Photo: Ekaterina Zagulyaeva
“Fr. Daniel proved himself not just a preacher, a missionary, but
also an organizer of parish life,” Fr. John Popadinets, the rector of
the Church of the Apostle Thomas told Miloserdie.ru.
“The Church of the Apostle Thomas was built on an empty spot. There
weren’t even any residential buildings next to it. He gathered
people, started serving, and a community developed. He founded a
missionary school and a missionary movement in honor of the Prophet
Daniel.”
The school and movement still exist. Missionaries go out on Sundays to
missionize on the streets, distributing leaflets and trying to speak
with whomever wants to about faith and about God. “Thanks to these
labors, many people have come to the Church,” noted Fr. John.
“When Fr. Daniel died, we decided ourselves to finish the
missionary courses he taught. We just turned on his audio recordings
and studied that way,” Viktor Kupriyanchuk, head of the Moscow branch
of the Prophet Daniel Missionary Movement, told Miloserdie.ru.
They managed to revive the missionary school at the Church of the
Apostle Thomas only in 2011. They give lessons on dogmatics and
apologetics, and there are also special courses on various religions
from a missionary point of view, about how to have discussions with
them. “Fr. George Maximov, Andrei Sokolov, Fr. Oleg Stenyaev, and
others taught us,” Viktor added.
The missionaries don’t only preach on the streets, but also among
the homeless at the Moscow Center for Social Adaptation. Missionary
branches have arisen in Nizhny Novgorod, Voronezh, Vyatka, and Crimea.
The Voronezh activists have gone to preach the Gospel in Tuva, and
several of them even moved there to serve as missionaries. There have
also been trips abroad, including to the Philippines and the island of
Dominica in the Caribbean.
There’s another Orthodox missionary school, part of the Russian
Church’s Synodal Missionary Department, that also considers Fr. Daniel
Sysoev its founder. It’s led by the rector of the Theophany Cathedral
in Elokhov, Archpriest Alexander Ageikin.2
After Fr. Daniel’s death, his wife Julia founded the Матушки и Дети (Priests’ Wives and Kids) charitable foundation, which helps the widows and children of deceased priests.
***
Fr. Daniel Sysoev was born on January 12, 1974, in Moscow, in a
teacher’s family. In 1991, he entered the Moscow Theological Seminary.
On January 22, 1995, he married Julia Brykina. The Sysoev family has
three daughters.
In 1995, Fr. Daniel was ordained a deacon. He held Biblical talks
starting in August 1996. He did distance learning at the Moscow
Theological Academy. In 2001, he was ordained to the priesthood and
appointed a cleric of the Church of the Apostles Peter and Paul in
Yaseveno, Moscow.
He dreamed of building a church in honor of his Heavenly patron the
Prophet Daniel, the community of which was formed earlier from
participants in the Biblical discussions. The stone church is still
under construction, and the wooden Church of the Apostle Thomas
connected to it was built in November 2006.
Fr. Daniel wrote many books, participated in discussions with
sectarians, neopagans, and Muslims, and he was often invited to
various TV shows. He led missionary trips to Tatarstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Για τον π. Δανιήλ Συσόεφ δείτε, παρακαλώ, ελληνικά & αγγλικά εδώ (αφιέρωμα) και εδώ (Χαιρετισμοί προς τιμήν του, στα ελληνικά). 
Για τον π. Δανιήλ Συσόεφ δείτε, παρακαλώ, ελληνικά & αγγλικά εδώ (αφιέρωμα) και εδώ (Χαιρετισμοί προς τιμήν του, στα ελληνικά). 
Και: 
