Metropolitan Surozhsky Anthony Biography

Biography of childhood, wanderings, the youth of the Metropolitan of Surozhsky Anthony in the world, before joining the monk: Andrey Borisovich Bloom, was born in Switzerland, in Lausanne. His maternal grandfather belonged to Russian diplomatic circles; He served as a consul in different places. With the future grandmother of Metropolitan Anthony, a native of Trieste Italy, my grandfather met when he was there on duty of public service.

He taught her Russian language. After they connected themselves to marriage, the grandfather brought her to Russia.

Their daughter, Ksenia Nikolaevna Skryabina, the sister of the famous composer A. Scriabin, Andrei Anthony’s mother, met her future husband, Boris Eduardovich Bloom, during the holidays, when she went to Erzerum, where her father served at that time. Boris Eduardovich worked there as a translator. After a serious feeling arose between them, they got married.

According to Andrei, his family stayed in Lausanne for about two months, and then moved to Russia, to Moscow. About a year, in connection with the appointment of B. Bloom to the east, the family moved to Persia. There, the future bishop spent his childhood. For some time he had a Russian nanny, but basically his grandmother and mother were engaged in his upbringing. Andrei's childhood fell on a restless time.

In view of the First World War, the revolutionary chaos and political transformations in Russia, the family had to face the difficulties of wandering life. In the year, Andrei’s mother, he and his grandmother left the Persian dwelling, while his father was forced to stay. On the difficulties associated with endless crossings, then riding, then in carts, the dangers of a meeting with the robbers were imposed.

In the year, all together reached the west. Having sophisticated many European roads and ending, as a result, in France, the family finally found the opportunity to settle. It happened in the year. There were many difficulties associated with the features of emigrant life. All this was aggravated by unemployment. The employment of the mother was facilitated by her knowledge of foreign languages, ownership of the skills of a stenographer.

In France, Andrei had to live separately with relatives. The school where it was arranged was located behind the outskirts of Paris, in such a dysfunctional area that even the local police did not dare to enter from evening twilight, because "they cut it there." At the school, Andrei, like many others, had to endure mockery and beatings from students. We can say that at that time the educational school served for him by a school of patience, survival, courage.

Many years later, when once, having read the subway, he was distracted and glanced at a sign with the name of the station, and it turned out that it was the station, not far from which his school was once located, from the surging memories he fainted. It should be noted that the current difficulties and the forces of living far from Russia did not deprive Andrei loved ones for her.

Over time, this love was transmitted to him. The first steps on the path of Christian, monastic and pastoral life for a long time Andrei’s attitude to the church, as he later noted, was more than indifferent. One of the closest reasons for serious rejection was the experience of communicating with Catholics. When, due to a lack of existence, the mother decided to take advantage of their proposal for a scholarship for Russian children and brought Andrei to them to the “brisials”, he went through an interview and received an affirmative answer, but here he was set by a rigid condition: he should accept Catholicism.

Having regarded this condition as an attempt to sell, Andrei was indignant and expressed not a childishly firm protest. Then he still did not understand the significant difference between the Western and Eastern churches and, as a result, extended his indignation to the “church in general”. Andrei’s appeal to Christ occurred only at the age of 14. Once he witnessed the preaching of Father Sergius Bulgakov.

The sermon stirred him up, but he was in no hurry to trust the preacher and, upon returning home, asked his mother the Gospel to confirm distrust and make sure his own rightness. However, the opposite happened: an attentive, thoughtful reading of Scripture changed his attitude to faith. Gradually, Andrei joined Christian work, to diligent prayer. In the year, he, having received a pastoral blessing, began to serve in the temple at the Trekhovitsky Compound the only church in Paris at that time, which belonged to the Moscow Patriarchate.

It should be noted that since then, Andrei did not violate fidelity and did not break the canonical communication with the Russian Patriarchal Church. After graduating from school, he entered the natural, and then to the Medical Department of the Sorbonne. Student life did not prevent him from making plans to connect his life with a monastic feat. He graduated from the Sorbonne in the year, before the war itself, and soon went to the front as a surgeon.

But before, he gave the monastic vows that his confessor accepted, although he was not tonsured due to a lack of time. The tutorial on the monk took place only in the year.Actually, then he received the name Anthony. During the occupation, Anthony participated in French resistance, then again ended up in the army, healed the wounded and sick. Demobilized, he found his mother and grandmother and brought them to Paris.

It is noteworthy that when carrying out medical activities, Anthony did not forget about the need for lively sympathy and compassion for his patients, which, unfortunately, he could not say about some of the doctors who were who had coarsed from the horror of war personally. It is worthy of the comments that empathy and sensitivity to a person, the ability to see in him not just a citizen, but his neighbor, the desire to contemplate the image and likeness of the Creator in him, contributed to his father Anthony throughout pastoral activities.

In the year, he was ordained a hierodeacon, and soon-dedicated to the rank of hieromonk, after which he accepted the spiritual leadership of members of the Orthodox-English community of St. Albania and St. Sergius. As Metropolitan Anthony himself later recalled, a meeting with Archimandrite Leo Gille, which occurred at the Orthodox-English congress, contributed to this turn in fate.

Then, having talked with Anthony, Archimandrite advised him to leave the profession of a doctor, become a priest and continue serving God in England. Since the year, Father Anthony served as the abbot of the Church of the Holy Apostle Philip and St. Sergius in London. In the year, he was dedicated to the igumen’s san, and in the year in the rank of Archimandrite.

In the year, Father Anthony was placed in Bishop of Sergievsky. In the year, he is dedicated to the rank of archbishop, to the Surozhsky diocese newly approved on the British Islands. From the year, on the construction of the Metropolitan to the rank of Metropolitan, Anthony Surozhsky served as the Patriarchal Exarch in Western Europe, after which he was relieved of this position of his own free will.

Meanwhile, he continued to feed his flock. It should be noted that during the period of his leadership, a clearly organized structure of parishes was formed in the diocese, with well -established educational work. By that time, Metropolitan Anthony was introduced by deserved respect among Christians of different countries of the world and his hot sermon spread everywhere: through numerous lectures and publications translated into all kinds of languages; through broadcasting and television.

In the year, the Council of the Moscow Theological Academy Metropolitan Anthony was awarded the degree of a doctor of theology, for the totality of pastoral and theological works. In addition, at different times, he was awarded the title of honorary doctor of Aberdinsky in the last months of the life of Vladyka, due to the deterioration of health, he rarely appeared in public.

He died on August 4. The Chine of the funeral service was made by Metropolitan Minsk and Slutsky Filaret. The general directions of the sermons and scientific and theological works of the Metropolitan of the Surozhsky Anthony, despite the existence of a large number of works published under the authorship of Metropolitan Anthony, many of these works in reality are not the fruit of his writing activity.

Most of the published work is the reproduction of the entries of oral sermons and conversations, uttered under different circumstances, in various audiences. The metropolitan has not always devoted his speeches to a predetermined topic. Quite often, the objects of his sermon were issues that interested specific listeners in a particular situation, at a particular moment. And these were the most diverse issues.

In part, this is precisely what explains the breadth of the spectrum covered by his teachings by topics. The general characteristics of the Metropolitan instructions are marked by several pronounced features. Firstly, a significant part of his works is compiled by a clear and accessible language, and can be taken directly by the widest circle of people. Secondly, the theological context of “Works” is stated in close unity with spiritual and moral exhortations.

Thirdly, many of his works are aimed not only at strengthening the faith of man in God, but also to the faith of man in himself, as in the image and likeness of God. Fourth, much attention is paid to explaining the meaning and necessity of a liturgical life. Finally, the idea of ​​the significance and mission of the Church is revealed to him in such a way that every listener, each reader saw in the church not only a collection of believers, but also saw himself, realizes his personal role.

Literature about the author.