Metropolitan Laurus, first hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia
Photo: Yury Martyanov
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Metropolitan Laurus of the Overseas Russian Church Dead at 80
Head of the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia Metropolitan Laurus died yesterday. He was instrumental in ending the 80-year schism between the Russian Orthodox churches inside and outside of Russia and died on one of the fast days known as the Celebration of Orthodoxy. “In the 21st century, the tragic division of the 20th century has been overcome. I would place him in line with Antony Khrapovitsky, first head of the Overseas Church, who gathered the scattered flock and united the priests,” said Bishop Mark of Egoryevsk, deputy head of the Moscow Patriarchy's department of external relations.
Metropolitan Laurus (Lavr) was born Vasily Shkurla on January 1, 1928, in Ladomirovo, Slovakia. He joined the Monastery of St. Job of Pochaev in that city at the age of 11. In 1946, he and the rest of the monastery were evacuated to Jordanville, New York, where the Monastery of the Holy Trinity was established. That monastery became the center of Russian Orthodoxy abroad.
Laurus was elected head of the ROCOR in October 2001 and began the process of reunification with the Moscow Patriarchy that was completed last year. The schism occurred in 1927, when the overseas part of the Russian Orthodox Church refused to subordinate itself to the Bolsheviks. The ROCOR was uninterested in the Moscow Patriarchy's calls for reunification after the fall of communism until Laurus replaced First Hierarch Vitaly (Ustinov) as head of the church.
Although many in the Orthodox world beyond Russia called the canonical act reunifying the churches signed between Laurus and Patriarch Alexiy II in the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin “premature,” Laurus was loved by his congregation and respected by his clergy.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 17, 2008
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