Anthony of Sourozh

Metropolitan Anthony (Anthony) of Sourozh ( Russian Антоний Сурожский , civic Андрей Борисович Блум , Andrei Borisovich Blum , also in the English spelling Bloom * June 6 ^jul. / 19th June  1914 ^greg. In Lausanne , † 4. August 2003 in London ) was Bishop of the Diocese of Surosh of the Russian Orthodox Church in the United Kingdom and Ireland .

He was born in Lausanne , Switzerland . He spent his early childhood in Russia and Persia ; his father Boris Blum was a member of the diplomatic corps of the Russian Empire . His mother was the sister of the composer Alexander Scriabin . During the October Revolution , the family had to leave Persia and settled in Paris , where the future metropolitan received his education, graduated in physics , chemistry and biology , and finally obtained a doctorate in medicine from the University of Paris .

Before he went to the front as a surgeon in the French army in 1939, he secretly took the monastic vows of the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1943 he was ordained a monk and was given the name Anthony. During the German occupation of France he worked as a doctor and took part in the French resistance . After the war he continued to work as a doctor until he was ordained a priest in 1948 and sent to England as a clergyman to the Brotherhood of St. Alban and St. Sergius . In 1950 he was appointed Vicar of the Russian Congregation in London , in 1957 Bishop and in 1962 Archbishop of the Russian Orthodox Church in Great Britain and Ireland ( Diocese of Surosh). In 1963 he was appointed Exarch of the Moscow Patriarchate in Western Europe and in 1966 he was raised to the rank of Metropolitan. At his own request, he gave up the exarchate in 1974 in order to be able to devote himself entirely to his pastoral tasks in the growing community of his diocese and to all those who came to him for advice and help.

Tomb of Metropolitan Anthony

Metropolitan Anthony received an honorary doctorate from the University of Aberdeen ("for his services to the preaching of the word of God and the renewal of spiritual life in the country"), the Moscow Spiritual Academy , Cambridge University and the Kiev Spiritual Academy . His first books on prayer and the spiritual life ( Living Prayer: Instructions , Herder 1976) appeared in England; today his works are published in large numbers in Russia, both as books and in magazines. Metropolitan Anthony has had a reputation for holiness for a long time .

Works

• Living prayer (1966)
• Beginning to pray (1970)
• God and man (1971)
• Meditations on a theme: a spiritual journey (1972)
• Courage to pray (1973)
• The essence of prayer (1986)
• Encounter (2005)
• The Living Body of Christ (2007)
• Coming Closer to Christ: on Confession (2009)

Web links

• Russian Orthodox Diocese of Sourozh
• Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh (Russian)
• Metropolitan Anthony von Sourozh: photos, video, audio and text
• Enlightening lectures by Metropolitan Anthony von Sourozh in German translation