Kursk, and then exile

He was born George Voznesensky in Kursk in 1903. He was a boy at the time of the revolution of 1917 in Russia, and his family left with the emigration for Harbin, in Manchuria — a Russian city built on Chinese soil, which for a generation held one of the largest communities of Russians outside Russia.

He was educated there, tonsured a monk, and ordained. He stayed for three decades, through the Japanese occupation and then the Communist one, serving a congregation that grew smaller each year as those who could leave did. Most of the clergy went. He remained.

First Hierarch

He left China in 1962 and went first to Australia. Two years later, in 1964, he was elected First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, and held that office until his repose in 1985.

He is remembered above all for the letters he addressed to the bishops of the world in defence of the Orthodox confession — written at a time when saying such things cost something, and made him few friends among those he wrote to.

His relics

He reposed on 21 November 1985. When his grave was opened thirteen years later, in 1998, his relics were found incorrupt. He is venerated today as Saint Philaret the New Confessor, and this parish is named for him.