Ivan Stragorodsky was born on January 11, 1867 (old calendar) in the province of Nigegorode into a family of priests where one is a priest from father to son.

At the seminary from 1880 to 1886, he entered the Theological Academy of Saint Petersburg. Theological science and liturgical prayer are his sole concerns. Ordained a priest under the name of Serge, he was interested in the problems of Western thought and produced his license thesis: "the relationship between faith and works" where he exposed the Roman and Protestant theses in the face of orthodoxy. Throughout his ecclesiastical career, he will seek to live in university spaces.

He left for Japan in 1890, returned to Saint Petersburg in 1893, where he taught Sacred Scripture at the Academy, of which he was to become Rector in 1901. In 1905, he was promoted to Archbishop of the Church of Finland. and was actively involved in the preparatory commission for the Council of the Russian Church, of which he became president in 1912.

This "pan-Russian" Council, which began in 1917 under the socialist regime, ended the same year under the communist regime, which triggered violent religious persecution.

Patriarch Tikhon elected by the Council, the first patriarch of the Russian Church since the arbitrary suppression of this body by Peter the Great, died in 1925. His successor, Peter, sent to Siberia by the Soviets was prevented and appointed three metropolitans for the replace including Serge himself. Two of them having been arrested, Metropolitan Sergius became the “replacement for the locum tenens of the patriarch”.

Serge manages in 1927 to legalize the Church. In a letter to the bishops and the faithful he explains his conduct which can be summarized as follows:

There is nothing in common from a metaphysical point of view between the Church and the Soviet regime. The church cannot disappear or change, but “at the heart of materialism” it must continue to preach the existence of God, His providence and the life hereafter as the goal of man. However, it is preferable that the two, the Church and the government, maintain loyal and legitimate relations. The Church can collaborate with the government on the social and economic plane in view of the interest of the peoples of Soviet Russia.

The legalization of the Church is strongly attacked by the great part of the episcopate. The bishops argue that this act is anti-conciliar, having been carried out personally by Metropolitan Sergius and that, moreover, it involves the Church in a dependence on the State (1)

In 1934, twenty bishops managed to meet in Moscow. Unable to hold elections, they gave Metropolitan Serge the title of “Beatitude” as head of the Russian Church.

In 1936, faithful to his interest in universal problems, he understood the Western aspiration towards Orthodoxy and promulgated the famous "Decree of 1936" opening the door to "Western Orthodoxy".

Towards the end of the 1939-45 war, he obtained Stalin's permission to convene the Council which, on September 12, 1943, unanimously elected him Patriarch of all the Russias.

On May 15, 1949, Patriarch Serge was born in Heaven.

(1) Usual dependence, however, since Peter the Great. The Council of 1917 had clearly taken a position in favor of a law of religious tolerance and advocated the promulgation of a law separating Church and State.

Note. a) In 1905, during the first revolution, Professor Kartachoff (eminent professor of history at the Institut Saint Serge in Paris after 1925) having exclaimed: "with the fall of Holy Russia, the Church will sink !, Serge replies: “The Church is eternal! »

b) An American reporter asking him "what is your program?" he answers: “the Holy Spirit”

PS For this information and the relations between Patriarch Sergius and the Western Orthodox Church, see “The Quest for Truth by Irénée Winnaert”. by Vincent Bourne, Edition Labor and Fides. Geneva – April 1966 p 285 to 305

Ivan Stragorodsky was born on January 11, 1867 (old calendar) in the province of Nigegorode into a family of priests where one is a priest from father to son.

At the seminary from 1880 to 1886, he entered the Theological Academy of Saint Petersburg. Theological science and liturgical prayer are his sole concerns. Ordained a priest under the name of Serge, he was interested in the problems of Western thought and produced his license thesis: "the relationship between faith and works" where he exposed the Roman and Protestant theses in the face of orthodoxy. Throughout his ecclesiastical career, he will seek to live in university spaces.

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