The memoirs of Father Kiprian (Kern) on Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitskii) are well known and have long been valued as a vivid and authoritative witness to his life and thought. The recollections of Father Gregory Lomako, presented here, are no less remarkable distinguished by their literary quality, breadth of perspective, and depth of analysis. Yet, unlike Father Kiprian’s work, they have remained largely unknown.
The present publication seeks to bring these memoirs into wider circulation. Their preservation and initial publication are owed to the efforts of Father Ilya Solovyov in Moscow, who prepared the text and supplied it with detailed scholarly notes. [1] Церковно-исторический вестник, 24-25 (2017-2018). Through the assistance of Professor Antoine Nivier in Strasbourg, a copy of this edition became available to Father Ilya for further study, and Father Ilya generously granted permission for its use.
An additional copy, held at the Bakhmeteff Archive of Columbia University, was obtained by Nicolas Mabin of London, a collaborator and friend of ROCOR Studies. On the basis of these materials, Dr. Walker R. Thompson in Heidelberg, Germany has prepared the present English translation for ROCOR Studies. Many thanks to both of them!
Protodeacon Andrei Psarev, June 27, 2026
Lord, bless!
It is the thirteenth year since I left my native parts. The vividness and recentness of the experience are gone. Much is likely forgotten or, if it has not been forgotten altogether, is diminished, the force of its direct experience diluted. While I still have my strength about me, while I am still alive, I shall attempt to write down all that happened during these endless years (only 29, yet for a human life, that is quite a lot) of my peregrinations. Within the past few days, I received the message from Nice that P. S. Miasnikov (a Russian Army lieutenant, and in recent years a cantor at the Russian Cathedral in Nice) had suddenly died. That evening, he had still been sitting there, writing, talking with those around him. He said his prayers, lay down in bed – and passed away at 4 a.m. I took the information of his death as an advance notice and reminder. Shall I manage to finish what I have begun? May the Lord help me!
* * *
Ekaterinodar, February, 1920. The defeat of General Denikin’s armies. An unremitting flow [of people] from the North to Novorossiisk and the South Caucasus. Most were headed to Novorossiisk: to the sea, steamships, the distant, unknown lands abroad, where the oppressive terror of impending Bolshevik rule would be gone. Bishops huddled together in the diocesan house. The house is small: it is the former metochion of Lebiazhii Monastery. [2] St. Nicholas Monastery in Lebiazhii Ostrov near Briukhovetksaia and Pereiaslovskaia Stanitsy [lit.”stations”; a type of Cossack settlement and administrative unit in Southern Russia] It had obviously obtained the ability to stretch out, so many people fit inside. It was here that Metropolitan Pitirim [3]Metropolitan Pitirim (Oknov 1858, Riga — 1920, Yekaterinodar). From 1896 he served as Bishop of Tula; from 1906 as Bishop of Kursk; and from 1914 as Exarch of Georgia. Beginning in 1915, he headed … Continue reading and Bishop Feodor (a vicar bishop of Kharkov Diocese) died. Among those living there were Archbishop (later Metropolitan) Evlogii, Bp. Mitrofan, Bp. Gavriil, and Bp. Damian. Also residing there was Metropolitan Antonii, who was the administrator of the Diocese of the Kuban at that time. Yes, at the time. Everything collapsed and went hurtling toward the sea. MetropolitanAntonii was receiving the refugee priests (the most wretched of them all), consoling them such as he was able; holding audiences with the atamans of the stanitsy and the church wardens and giving orders to some soldiers who were always thronging his antechamber; and hearing reports about the objectives of the Supreme Church Administration and Diocesan Council. It was blatantly clear to everyone that Denikin-era Ekaterinodar was living out its last days. However, as the most junior member of the Supreme Church Administration, I had to travel both to conduct an inspection of the Black Sea Diocese (together with Bishop Mikhail of Alexandrov, Vicar to Abp. Agafador of Stavropol) and to pick up wax that had been purchased during the war by the Holy Synod’s Committee of Diocesan Candle Factories for the Needs of the Russian Church. The inspection came down to sorting out disputes and discontent between Bishop Sergii (Petrov) of the Black Sea Diocese and Archpriest Vladimir Lvov, the rector of Novorossiisk Cathedral (né Gofman, the godson of [Procurator] Vladimir K. Sabler). Siding with Bp. Sergii was Archpriest P. Belovidov, the former rector of Sukhumi Cathedral, who had now joined his bishop in Novorossiisk. Our “inspection” did not yield any results, nor could it have. A week after the “inspection”, Bp. Sergii and Archpriest P. Belovidov departed (“were evacuated”) for Serbia. Archpriest V. Lvov stayed where he was in Novorossiisk. Several days after this trip, I had to travel again to fetch the wax that had arrived from England. This wax had been purchased during the war by Archpriest G. Leonchukov (died in Paris as Bishop Ioann Leonchukov of Khersones, prior of St. Sergius Metochion), the President of the aforementioned Holy Synod’s Committee of Diocesan Candle Factories for the Needs of the Russian Church. Since Archpriest G. Leonchukov was from Odessa and Metropolitan Platon had been the bishop of Odessa after the Moscow Council, this precious shipment (30,000 puds of wax, 13,000 puds of incense, and “Metr. Platon’s possessions”), had been sent from Liverpool to the address of the Holy Synod in Odessa. At the time, Odessa was occupied by the Bolsheviks. In Sevastopol, where the (American) steamship stopped, nobody knew about any Holy Synod, but they said that there was something of that nature in Ekaterinodar. The steamship arrived in Novorossiisk. Count Vasilii V. Musin-Pushkin, who was at the time residing in Novorossiisk, informed the Supreme Church Administration of it. I was sent to search for this steamship. This was in late February 1920. I was not to see Ekaterinodar again.
Novorossiisk was teeming. I was staying with Deacon Evlampiev of Novorossiisk Cathedral, sometimes spending time with the T[ar]letskiis, with whom I was acquainted from St. Petersburg. In the night from March 12–13 (O.S.), I slept over with them. The day before, I had been with MetropolitanAntonii, who had come there from Ekaterinodar. There, I encountered T. A. Ametistov my fellow classmate from the Theological Academy. [4]Tikhon Alexandrovich Ametistov (1884, Saint Petersburg — 1941, Paris), church and public figure. A graduate of the Saint Petersburg Theological Academy (1905), he subsequently entered military … Continue reading
* * *
April 12/25, 1953
March, 1920. Novorossiisk. My God, how long ago it all was! I remember that March 18 was a clear sunlit day. A mass of people on [Admiral] Serebriakov Street. A huge bay full of ships. Beyond the pier were the gray colossi of the English Iron Duke and the French Waldeck-Rousseau. Next to them, a little to the north, was an Italian cruise ship. The Greek destroyer Ierax was also there. On the morning of the same day, I had been visiting Metr. Antonii, who had been getting ready to depart on the Greek steamship Elevsis. The elder Metropolitan, who had not wanted to leave Russia, had been persuaded by us saying: “You shall plant a cross at St. Sophia in Constantinople.” [5]After November 1918, when Constantinople (Istanbul) was occupied by Allied forces (French troops entered on 12 November and British troops on 13 November 1918), some Greek and, more broadly, Orthodox … Continue readingThe ceremony of the planting of the cross had incited the Metropolitan to agree to depart. At the Metropolitan’s, I encountered T. A. Ametistov, who was energetic and full of joie de vivre. Come evening, Metr. Antonii was meant to get on the steamship destined for Constantinople and Athens rather than Crimea, but we kept on attending to the affairs of the Supreme Church Administration, of which I was a member. I recall that I signed two decrees: one awarding the epigonation to Archpriest N. Kartashov, my fellow-minister from Ekaterinodar, and one appointing His Eminence Germogen of Aksai to the See of Ekaterinoslav. Archpriest N. Kartashov remained in Ekaterinodar, while I – as president of the Committee for the Evacuation of the Clergy – arranged a place for Bp. Germogen and his son on a steamship sailing for Thessaloniki, from whence the ship’s passengers were supposed to set off for Serbia, at the time in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Whereas we in Novorossiisk were busy signing decrees! It was a strange state where time could not be felt at all.
I had breakfast that day with the Terletskiis (he was the director of the Novorossiisk branch of the State Bank), whom I knew from Saint Petersburg. We took no thought of the morrow. And suddenly there was a call from Metr. Antonii saying that an evacuation had been declared and the Greek steamship Elevsis was being boarded, and asking me what I thought we ought to do. I replied to him suggesting that we remain in Novorossiisk, in the hope of returning to my family in Ekaterinodar. The Terletskii family, from whose home I took the call, likewise decided against evacuation. Our tranquility had been perturbed. I went out onto the street and was struck by how empty it was. I looked out toward the bay: it was completely empty, though it had just recently been full of ships. The only ships left were two docked next to the cement factories and, at the coastwise pier, the Elevsis, a magnificent beauty, where Metr. Antonii was already on board. The Iron Duke, the Waldeck-Rousseau, and the “Italian” were “looking on.”
I went to the people with whom I was staying, and heard them insistently suggesting that I leave. “It will be better both for us and for you, Father.” There was nothing that could be done. I took my suitcase and went out onto the street. There, things got frightful. There were no authorities. In one place, some volunteers were trying to string up an Oriental man, but the rope kept snapping. Elsewhere, a gang of ragamuffins were setting upon an officer cornered against a wall and holding a revolver in his outstretched hand. Around the corner, Col. Turkul was recruiting local youths to swell the ranks of his battalions. [6]Colonel (later Major General) Anton Vasilievich Turkul (1892–1957) was one of the most prominent commanders of the Drozdovsky Division of the White Army. A veteran of the First World War, the … Continue reading I passed by all of these scenes carrying my suitcase, heading toward the bay in the hope of getting on some steamship or another after all, even if I had no grounds whatsoever for this hope. At the station, shells were already exploding: from the Whites, or the Reds? I went up to the bay shore. In the huge, by now totally empty bay, there was only the white beauty of the Elevsis next to the coastwise pier, and beyond the pier, its escort, the Greek destroyer Ierax. The distance from the pier to the ship was 150 fathoms [lit. ‘sazhens’, a unit of measurement –transl.]: at once both near and unattainably far. There was no little skiff, or rowboat, or dinghy that could get me to the steamship. And yet there it was, so very close, within view, all white with a yellow smokestack and two masts tilting backward. I imbibed the sight of it thinking about how I could get there. Suddenly, from the left, a little ways behind me, I heard the patter of oars: someone was pulling up to the bank on a boat. I turned around. A fisherman, about 45 years in age, was towing a boat up onto the shore. I raced up to him. “Please, dear Sir, won’t you take me out to yon steamship? You see, the white one with the yellow smokestack. It’s not far. I’ll pay you…” After he had towed his boat all the way out, he slung his oars over his shoulder and, with his back to me, said to me in his succulent Black Sea patois: “Oi, our boys is on the way with Budionnyi. 50,000 sabers. Oi, when they’s come they’ll show you ‘ow to get there ‘n all…” [7]Semyon Budyonny (1883–1973), Soviet cavalry commander and one of the first Marshals of the Soviet Union, closely associated with the Red Cavalry during the Russian Civil War. In émigré and … Continue reading And, without speaking another word, he walked off toward the town. I remained standing there in my solitude, utterly crestfallen after such an expressive foretelling of what was to come, in total perplexity. What was I to do? At that moment, I noticed that three young lads, boys about 10–12 years in age, were floating my way on some kind of box-shaped trough – one could not in the slightest have called the construction a boat – along the coastwise pier, to the end of the pier and back, gripping the pier with their hands and thereby imparting motion to their frigate. If they can get to the end of the pier and back, they can get to the steamship, I thought, if only they had something like an oar. In the next moment, I was already at the water’s edge, near these seafarers. “Lads, won’t you take me out to that steamship with the yellow mast?” “Sure, 30,000.” “Fine, I’ll pay you.” “We’ll have the money upfront,” the crew told me. I handed them 30,000 roubles in Don bonds, chucked my suitcase into the trough and jumped in myself. “You just keep pouring the water out, ‘cause it’s a-leaking right ‘ere,” the captain of the ship told me, arming himself with a piece of a board that took the place of both a rudder and an oar, and using it to push off the pier. “Right ‘ere” water was indeed leaking in from all around. We had barely sailed out a fathom before water started to pour in numerous little fountains and streams out of all the cracks that had previously been above the waterline but sunk down under the weight of me and my suitcase. I started ladling it out using an empty sardine can, but that did little to help the matter. “Keep pourin’ it out, ‘cause we’ll drown!”, one of the shipmen shouted to me. And I could indeed see that the water was coming in; the soles of my feet were already in water, up to my ankles.
We had already pushed out about 50 fathoms from the pier. I tossed the sardine can aside, doffed my beaver hat and set about using it to ladle out the water. Things picked up: the amount of water was no longer increasing, and there were only about 30 fathoms to go until the steamship. Soon enough, our boat bumped up against a gangway that had been lowered down into the water. I grabbed my suitcase and leapt off onto the face of the ramp. Our ‘frigate’ rose up forthwith, the water ceased pouring in, and the boys, reassured that they would make it back in one piece, saw me off, cursing in approval, and set out back toward the shoreline. I had begun to walk up slowly onto the deck when I heard someone lividly blurting out desperate curses in Russian and Greek from above. The watchman didn’t want to let me onto the ship. “Oxo! Apedo!” – “off, away!”, he was shouting, blanketing these barely expressive Greek interjections with succulent Russian exclamations, rendered all the more expressive by his Greek accent. I had nowhere to go. My shipmates were already at the shore, and I kept walking up. Hearing the desperate wails of the watchman, good old Kostaki, who would become a great friend of mine over the course of the voyage, Captain Yannis himself turned up on the deck. Comprehending what was afoot and seeing me already walking up onto the deck, he greeted my kindly and pointed out Metropolitan Antonii’s cabin.
“Ah, Fr. Gregory! Well, how good! Then we shall head off to Constantinople together,” the Metropolitan, utterly kind as ever, said upon meeting me. “Leonid Aleksandrovich[8]Senko-Popovskii, former Governor of the Black Sea Province, subsequently mayor of Novorossiisk, and member of the Stavropol Local Church Council [in May 1919].
is here with us, so we’ll all be together during the journey.” The Metropolitan’s faithful cell-attendant Fedia (now Archimandrite Feodosii[9]Archimandrite Feodosii (Fyodor Melnik, 1891–1957) was one of the closest disciples of Metropolitan Antonii (Khrapovitskii). Born into a peasant family in Podolia, he entered the Kyiv Caves Lavra as … Continue reading) was with him, as was the student Boria Zapolʹskii, a spoiled mommy’s boy who had been thrusted on the Metropolitan at the last minute in Novorossiisk by his aunties and mommy. Spoiled little Boria’s character traits started to make themselves known soon enough.
The sun was already setting. The Greek Consul Marinakis, who had also been on the “Elevsis”, for some reason went out once more onto the shore and back, and we started getting ready to set sail. We raised anchor, the “Elevsis” rounded the pier and, passing by the “onlookers”, set out northeastwards – we were going to Yalta. We were all standing on deck. Next to me was standing Leonid A. Senko-Popovskii. I saw tears in his magnificent eyes. “Why are you crying, Leonid Aleksandrovich?”, I asked him. “What do you mean, why?”, he replied. “For we are leaving our native land, quite likely forever.” The significance of these words did not fully sink in at the time.
The sun had vanished and the stars had come out, twinkling, in the sky. The brightly lit Greek destroyer Ierax, our escort to Yalta, sped by us. We gathered in Vladyka Antonii’s cabin and had tea, and then dispersed to our own cabins. I did not feel any longing or sadness. I believed that we were going on a pleasant journey and that soon – a week or two later – I would again be at home with those closest to me and would never forsake them… how wrong these inklings and emotions of mine were!
* * *
The next day, early in the morning, we were in Yalta. I could not take my eyes off the truly “unseen beauty”. After disembarking onto the shore, I wandered a little about the streets of this charming town. I recall the name of a villa, the “Gialita”[10]https://www.prlib.ru/en/node/391977, which was engraved in my memory from some previous experiences. Getting back onto the ship, I saw that the number of passengers had gone up: about 30 more people had been brought on board. Among them were General Bobrikov, the brother of the former Governor General of Finland, with his son, a Hussar officer, and the latter’s wife. The armed forces were also “evacuating”. Come evening, we sailed on, setting a course for the Bosphorus. We were going to Constantinople. The days were lovely: bright, sunlit, and springlike. The deep blue sea, utterly quiet and tranquil, and the bright, cloudless azure sky. There were but few first-class passengers; there was plenty of room on the deck. Our voyage could have been glad and enjoyable, yet we were leaving our homeland, traveling into the unknown, and we – Metropolitan Antonii and I – had not a penny to our name. I still had around 25 Don bonds, whereas the Metropolitan did not have even a farthing. We had first-class cabins (pretty bad and uncomfortable, as was almost always the case on Greek steamships), but we had to arrange for our own board: either by going to the wardroom and eating at the buffet for a fixed price, or by our own means and from our own edible conserves. The former was not possible for us. The buffet prices were measured in French gold francs, utterly out of our reach. Only the second way remained for us, which was also of little consolation: we had no edible conserves with us, if one did not count a small bag of bread crackers, a pound of sugar, and a little pack of tea. We were supposed to disembark in Constantinople, and the trip to Tsargrad was only just over a twenty-four hours, so we were not particularly concerned: our “conserves” would suffice! And so we gathered in the Metropolitan’s cabin, drank tea and gobbled bread crackers. When we entered the Bosphorus and were passing by Leander’s Tower, we shook out the final cracker crumbs from the bag and ate the last sugar cube. This did not trouble us at all: in three hours, we’d be disembarking and would somehow get appointed at the metochia of the Athonite monasteries. Alas! our suppositions were proven to be unfeasible: out of fear that there might be typhoid fever aboard the ship – which subsequently turned out to be absolutely justified: there were several hundred Greeks in the hold of the ship who had been laboring at Kuban tobacco plantations, and among them were some typhoid patients – they did not let us down onto the shore. We stayed anchored for two days at the roadstead by Leander’s Tower and were then sent to Moda, a tiny town on the shores of the Sea of Marmara not far from Kadıköy, for disinfection or quarantine. We stayed there for five days, and when it ultimately became clear that nobody would be letting us down onto the shore, the Captain raised anchor on the sixth day and we set off on a direct route to Athens.
While we were anchored at Leander’s Tower, the Metropolitan managed to send a note to Fr. Sofronii, the head of the metochion of the monastery of St. Andrew the Protoclete on Mt. Athos via Greek and Turkish boatmen who, as soon as we dropped anchor, surrounded our Elevsis from all around, offering us ekmek (bread) and incir (dried figs), various conserves and olives. They would also carry out errands: delivering letters to addresses in Constantinople, or dropping them into a mailbox. They gladly accepted our Don (“Russian”) bonds. I bought several little tins of sardines (250 roubles per tin) and bread. Our fellow voyager, the spoiled youth Boris Zapolʹskii, bought himself some figs and Turkish delight, which ate alone on the spot, in concordance with his personality.
The kindly, gentle, and mild elder Fr. Safronii [sic!], after receiving Metropolitan Antonii’s note, came to the steamship straightaway and brought us some monastic treats: tea, sugar and oranges. It was he who informed Archbishop Anastassy[11]Metropolitan Anastassy [Anastasii] (Gribanovsky; 1873–1965) was one of the leading hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. Consecrated Bishop of Serpukhov in 1906, he participated in the … Continue reading (formerly of Chișinău and Hotin) of Metropolitan Antonii’s arrival from Novorossiisk.
Archbishop Anastassy had been evacuated before us from Odessa and was living at the Russian Embassy building in Constantinople. The day after we arrived, Archbishop Anastassy came to see us, accompanied by Archpriest G. Spasskii.[12]Protopresbyter Georgii Spasskii was a prominent Russian Orthodox naval chaplain. From 1917 to 1918 he served as chief chaplain of the Black Sea Fleet, and during the Civil War assisted Bishop … Continue reading
Vladyka Anasatasii and Fr. Sofronii promised to visit us again, but, as I already said, we had been taken away to Mada for disinfection [sic!], and that was too far for a trip on the [vessel] Kalka – and this time around we did not see either Archbishop Anastassy or Fr. Sofronii anymore.
From Mada, we went out early in the morning to meet a bright, sunny day, steering a course toward the Dardanelles. We passed by the Prince Islands, crossed the Propontis, keeping closer to Marmara Island, in order not to pass through the place where, according to the tradition, the Holy Mandylion, the true Icon Not-Made-by-Human-Hands of the Holy Countenance of Christ the Saviour, lay on the seafloor in the wreck of a Genoese ship. There was not a single Greek captain who would sail his ship over this sunken relic. It was quiet and calm when we entered the Dardanelles. The glare of the sun was blinding; our Elevsis was gradually passing through the strait. The shores were deserted, and there were bare hills on both sides. We had not eaten anything since morning, as we did not have anything with us. But, so we thought, our steamship would stop somewhere here in the Dardanelles and we would be able to buy bread, sugar, and sardines there. By now, we knew the price, and had 80,000 roubles in money. At long last, we stopped at Çanakkale, the narrowest point in the strait, where lighthearted gendarmes and policemen, “enlightened seafarers”, had installed themselves, stopping, checking, and keeping an eye on all passing vessels. They stopped us, too. English officers turned up on deck, and the steamship was encircled by Greek and Turkish boatsmen proffering their enticing wares. This is just what we had been expecting. Coming over the the board, I commanded to the nearest dark-skinned Yannis: dio psomi, pente sardinia, ona [sic!] tsakkaron (“two breads, five cans of sardines, one kilo of sugar”). He filled his basket at once with what had been requested, tossed one end of a rope up onto the deck, and I started pulling our food supplies up. I sent two thousand-rouble bonds down to him. To my greatest and bitterest perplexity, the dark-skinned seller did not like my thousand-rouble Don bonds. He energetically kicked up a protest, demanded back what he had let go, while returning the thousand-rouble bonds to me. Our money did not have currency here any longer, and we were left without food supplies – all the way to Piraeus and Athens, about two days away.
The Elevsis departed out into the Aegean Sea. The beauty of the archipelago. The deep blue sea, bright azure sky, bright sunlight. Several hours later, we all started to feel hungry. The day before, we had only drunk tea in the Metropolitan’s cabin — “just snacking”, without bread, and the fresh sea air had caused us to work up an appetite. We no longer had anything: neither sugar, nor tea, nor bread. From all of our “edible” things, all we had was the dried husk of a lemon, which was both little and not nutritious, and in fact not edible at all. At a general counsel, it was resolved to command Fedia to get enough hot water — he had a small coffee pot — for four small cups. Fedia got some hot water from somewhere and we all gathered together in the Metropolitan’s cabin. The cups were set out, we read a prayer, [said] “Master, give the blessing!” — the hierarch gave his blessing only for “drink” — and we sat down at table. A cup of already cold “hot water” was poured for each of us. The Metropolitan placed the lemon husk in his cup, pressed it down with his spoon, gingerly pulled it out and passed it on to me. I did exactly the same thing and passed further along. The last of us pulled out the lemon and gingerly put it down on a clean towelette – “for next time”. In no hurry and good spirits, we drank the hot water. We gave thanks to Christ the Saviour for filling us, as we indeed felt a kind of relief like fullness. So it was that evening, and the next day, and the day after that. Only dear little Fedia was less and less willing each time to go fetch hot water. Clearly, he was not being given any boiling water without money and he had to ask the buffet manager for a tiny bit of hot water (zesto nero) for the Metropolitan. Boria Zapolʹskii would drink the “boiling water” with us, and then go off to the buffer and order lunch. In Piraeus, Metropolitan Antony had had to smooth over these “antics” on the part of dear little Boria.
Finally, on the afternoon of Great Thursday, March 26, our Elevsis dropped anchor at the island after which it is named.
(To Be Continued)
References
| ↵1 | Церковно-исторический вестник, 24-25 (2017-2018). |
|---|---|
| ↵2 | St. Nicholas Monastery in Lebiazhii Ostrov near Briukhovetksaia and Pereiaslovskaia Stanitsy [lit.”stations”; a type of Cossack settlement and administrative unit in Southern Russia] |
| ↵3 | Metropolitan Pitirim (Oknov 1858, Riga — 1920, Yekaterinodar). From 1896 he served as Bishop of Tula; from 1906 as Bishop of Kursk; and from 1914 as Exarch of Georgia. Beginning in 1915, he headed the Diocese of Saint Petersburg, from which he was removed after the February Revolution because of his connections with Grigory Rasputin. He then lived in retirement at the Pyatigorsk Monastery. |
| ↵4 | Tikhon Alexandrovich Ametistov (1884, Saint Petersburg — 1941, Paris), church and public figure. A graduate of the Saint Petersburg Theological Academy (1905), he subsequently entered military service and participated in both the First World War and the Russian Civil War. In 1920 he served as secretary of the Temporary Supreme Church Administration of South Russia. That same year he emigrated to Serbia via Constantinople, later moving to France in 1922. There he served under Metropolitan Evlogy as secretary of the Diocesan Council of the Western European Metropolitan District and head of the diocesan administration (1923–1941). In practice, he played a role comparable to that of his counterparts: the chief administrators of the ROCOR Synod in Serbia — E. I. Makharoblidze and Yu. P. Grabbe. |
| ↵5 | After November 1918, when Constantinople (Istanbul) was occupied by Allied forces (French troops entered on 12 November and British troops on 13 November 1918), some Greek and, more broadly, Orthodox circles began to wonder whether Hagia Sophia might be returned to the Orthodox Church under a new international regime. These hopes were encouraged by the recent British capture of Jerusalem from the Ottomans in 1917, which many interpreted as a drastic change in the religious and political status of the Holy Places. |
| ↵6 | Colonel (later Major General) Anton Vasilievich Turkul (1892–1957) was one of the most prominent commanders of the Drozdovsky Division of the White Army. A veteran of the First World War, the Drozdovsky “Jassy–Don” march, and the Russian Civil War, he commanded the 1st Drozdovsky Officers’ Regiment in 1919 and later the entire Drozdovsky Division. In emigration he became one of the leaders of the White military community and authored the memoirs Drozdovtsy v ogne (Drozdovsky Men in the Fire), which were literarily edited by Fedor Stepun. In 1923, while in emigration in Bulgaria, Turkul, together with General Vitkovsky, took part in organizing Russian detachments that played a significant role in suppressing the Communist September Uprising. During the Second World War he was associated with anti‑Communist formations: he was involved in creating units linked to the General Vlasov’s Russian Liberation Army and in other military structures that operated on the German side against partisans and Soviet forces. |
| ↵7 | Semyon Budyonny (1883–1973), Soviet cavalry commander and one of the first Marshals of the Soviet Union, closely associated with the Red Cavalry during the Russian Civil War. In émigré and church circles, his name often became symbolic of the anti-Bolshevik military campaigns and the violence accompanying the establishment of Soviet power in southern Russia and Ukraine. |
| ↵8 | Senko-Popovskii, former Governor of the Black Sea Province, subsequently mayor of Novorossiisk, and member of the Stavropol Local Church Council [in May 1919]. |
| ↵9 | Archimandrite Feodosii (Fyodor Melnik, 1891–1957) was one of the closest disciples of Metropolitan Antonii (Khrapovitskii). Born into a peasant family in Podolia, he entered the Kyiv Caves Lavra as a youth, later serving with distinction in the Imperial Russian Army during the First World War, where he was awarded three Crosses of St. George for bravery. Returning to the Lavra after the war, he became Metropolitan Anthonii’s devoted cell attendant in 1919 and remained at his side until the Metropolitan’s repose in 1936. Though lacking formal higher education, he absorbed his spiritual father’s theological vision and ecclesiastical culture, becoming an exemplary monk, liturgist, preacher, and pastor. At the request of the Serbian Patriarch, he was later appointed abbot of the Visoki Dečani Monastery, where he courageously safeguarded the monastery during the Second World War. He reposed in 1957 and was buried in Belgrade at New Cemetery (Novo Groblje) beneath the Iveron Chapel, in the crypt of Metropolitan Anthony. |
| ↵10 | https://www.prlib.ru/en/node/391977 |
| ↵11 | Metropolitan Anastassy [Anastasii] (Gribanovsky; 1873–1965) was one of the leading hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. Consecrated Bishop of Serpukhov in 1906, he participated in the All-Russian Church Council of 1917–1918 and was prohibited by Romanian authority to return to Chișinău. In emigration, he served Russian Orthodox communities in Constantinople and the Holy Land and became one of the principal hierarchs of the Russian Church Abroad. Following the death of Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) in 1936, Anastassy succeeded him as First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. After the Second World War he moved first to Western Europe and then, in 1950, to the United States, where the Synod of Bishops established its headquarters in New York. He retired as First Hierarch in 1964 and died in New York the following year. |
| ↵12 | Protopresbyter Georgii Spasskii was a prominent Russian Orthodox naval chaplain. From 1917 to 1918 he served as chief chaplain of the Black Sea Fleet, and during the Civil War assisted Bishop Benjamin (Fedchenkov), Bishop of the Army and Navy. Following the evacuation from Crimea in 1920, Spasskii accompanied the Russian Squadron to Bizerte, Tunisia, where he was placed in charge of its clergy and ministered to Russian sailors and their families in exile. From 1921 to 1923 he served in the shipboard church aboard the battleship Georgii Pobedonosets and taught at the Russian Naval Cadet Corps in Bizerte. He later served in Paris, where he died of a heart attack in 1934, and was buried at the Russian Cemetery of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois. |
