The Moscow Patriarchate announced his death Tuesday but did not give a cause. He had been in poor health for some time.
Posted on 08/07/2003 7:39:27 AM PDT by RussianConservative
Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, the Russian Orthodox Church's oldest and most respected bishop, died Monday in London after leading the church in Britain for more than 50 years. He was 89.
The Moscow Patriarchate announced his death Tuesday but did not give a cause. He had been in poor health for some time.
One of the last direct heirs to Russia's spiritual revival of the early 20th century, Metropolitan Anthony was unique among church hierarchs in that he had enormous spiritual influence both in Russia and in Orthodox communities around the world; both among the church's liberal and conservative members, who similarly hunted for every new videotape of his highly personal sermons.
He built a relatively small but vibrant multinational diocese in Britain that attempted to do away with Orthodoxy's ethnic boundaries and was seen by many, including Patriarch Alexy II, as a prototype of a possible united Orthodox Church in Europe.
Metropolitan Anthony was born Andrei Bloom in Lausanne, Switzerland, to the family of a Russian diplomat of Scottish descent. He spent his childhood in Persia, where his father was posted, and after the 1917 Revolution joined hundreds of thousands of Russian emigres in Europe.
In 1923, his nonreligious family settled in Paris, where, at the age of 14, Andrei experienced a conversion: He said he physically felt Christ's presence while he was reading the Gospels, originally to prove to himself that Christianity was nonsense. A personal "meeting with God" eventually became the central theme of his sermons and books.
After completing his studies in biology and medicine at the Sorbonne, Bloom became a doctor and secretly took monastic vows before joining the French army in 1939. During the Nazi occupation of France, he was a member of the Resistance in Paris, where he treated wounded underground fighters. He continued to practice medicine until 1948, when he was ordained into the priesthood and sent to London, where the Moscow Patriarchate at the time had only a tiny community, which became the basis of his missionary work.
He was consecrated a bishop in 1957. In 1962, the diocese of Sourozh -- the Moscow Patriarchate's diocese in Britain -- was set up. In 1966, Archbishop Anthony was elevated to the highest rank of metropolitan and became the exarch, or representative, of the patriarch of Moscow for Western Europe, a post he held until 1974.
In Britain, Metropolitan Anthony earned wide respect far beyond the country's small Orthodox community. He took an active part in dialogue with the Anglican Church and other Christian communities worldwide, and received honorary doctorates from Cambridge University and the University of Aberdeen.
In Russia, he made a great impact on the oppressed Christian community through his BBC broadcasts and during his visits in the 1970s and 1980s, when in addition to preaching publicly he semi-legally preached to hundreds of people who gathered in private apartments for his sermons, which were followed by question-and-answer sessions. Books based on his sermons were circulated in samizdat among intellectuals until they could be openly published in the 1990s.
"In Russia, Metropolitan Anthony is mostly known for his radio broadcasts on faith and church," Metropolitan Kirill, head of external relations for the Moscow Patriarchate, said in a statement posted on its web site. " When it was impossible to prophesy the truth of Christ for the entire nation, Metropolitan Anthony was able to do it and was doing it.
"His voice of a preacher reached the Soviet Union and many people first heard about Christ from the Metropolitan Anthony. This missionary work, I think, is the most considerable part of his heritage."
After the liberation of the church in Russia, some bishops proposed nominating Metropolitan Anthony when elections for patriarch were held in 1990.
But Metropolitan Anthony declined, citing his age. "If this had only happened 10 years earlier, I would have agreed," a relative quoted him as saying.
During the past decade, he did not travel to Russia but corresponded with many church members, stated his opinion on controversial issues of church life in letters to the patriarch and the councils of bishops, and continued to preach his message of Christian love and freedom -- sometimes unwelcome in the post-Communist Russian Church -- through books and tapes.
His cathedral in Kensington became a site of pilgrimage for Russian Orthodox Church intellectuals, although his church was at the same time rocked by the influx of new Russian emigres, who clashed with the earlier wave of Russian emigres and Orthodox believers of other nationalities who had made up his congregation.
Earlier this year, Patriarch Alexy II asked Metropolitan Anthony in an open letter to Europe's Orthodox bishops of Russian tradition to lead a unification of Orthodox Christians in Europe.
His repeated resignations citing age and poor health had been declined by the Moscow Patriarchate until last week, when the Holy Synod finally relieved him of his official duties.
The news of Metropolitan Anthony's death shook the church, and memorial services were held Tuesday in his London cathedral and in many churches in Moscow and around Russia. The grief spilled over the Internet, where some people have already posted prayers to Metropolitan Anthony as to a saint.
"He used to help us," Vladimir Peregoyedov wrote on an Internet forum dedicated to the metropolitan. "Now we have lost even a theoretical possibility of receiving his advice if necessary. But his sermons, books and the life that he completed remain. He has not left us and will be our intercessor before the Lord."
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