Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh (19 June 1914 - 4 August 2003), Metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church. He was founder and for many years bishop, archbishop then metropolitan of the diocese of Sourozh, the Russian Orthodox Moscow Patriarchate's diocese for Great Britain and Ireland. (The name 'Sourozh' was transferred from the historical episcopal see in the city now named Sudak in the Crimea).
[edit] Biography
The future Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh (Russian: Антоний, Митрополит Сурожский, Antonij, Mitropolit Surožskij) was born Andrei Borisovich Bloom on June 19, 1914, in Lausanne, Switzerland, to Xenia and Boris Edwardovich Bloom. On his mother's side, he was the nephew of the composer Alexander Scriabin.
He spent his early childhood in Russia and Persia. During the Russian Revolution the family had to leave Persia, and in 1923 they settled in Paris where the future metropolitan was educated, graduating in physics, chemistry and biology, and taking his doctorate in medicine, at the University of Paris.
In 1939, before leaving for the front as a surgeon in the French army, he secretly professed monastic vows in the Russian Orthodox Church. He was tonsured and received the name of Anthony in 1943. During the occupation of France by the Germans he worked as a doctor and took part in the French Resistance. After the war he continued practising as a physician until 1948, when he was ordained to the priesthood and sent to England to serve as Orthodox Chaplain of the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius. He was appointed vicar of the Russian patriarchal parish in London in 1950, consecrated as Bishop in 1957 and Archbishop in 1962, in charge of the Russian Orthodox Church in Great Britain and Ireland. In 1963 he was appointed Exarch of the Moscow Patriarchate in Western Europe, and in 1966 was raised to the rank of Metropolitan. By mutual agreement he was released in 1974 from the function of Exarch, in order to devote himself more fully to the pastoral needs of the growing flock of his diocese and all who came to him seeking advice and help.
Metropolitan Anthony received honorary doctorates from the University of Aberdeen ('for preaching the Word of God and renewing the spiritual life of this country'); from the Moscow Theological Academy for his theological, pastoral and preaching work; from the University of Cambridge; and from the Kiev Theological Academy. His books on prayer and the spiritual life Living Prayer, Meditations on a Theme and God and Man were published in England, and his texts are now widely published in Russia, both as books and in periodicals.
Metropolitan Anthony's grave is in the Brompton Cemetery in London and is visited often by both Orthodox and non-Orthododox alike. A biography of him, 'This Holy Man' by Gillian Crow was published in 2005.
