Вестник Екатеринбургской духовной семинарии (Apr 2022)
Archpriest Sergiy Ivanovich Chetverikov in the Russian Student Christian Movement and on the Island of Valaam (1927–1940)
Abstract
Having considerable ecclesiastical and pedagogical experience, archpriest S. I. Chetverikov was actively involved in work with Russian youth abroad from the very moment of evacuation from Russia. In 1928, he took Metropolitan Evlogii’s offer to accept the duties of spiritual leader (but not confessor!) of the Russian Student Christian Movement, that had extended its activities not only to the vast diocese of Metropolitan Evlogii, but also to new borderlands — Estonia, Finland and Latvia, within which historical Russian monasteries were preserved. Fr. Sergiy’s mentorship helped Russian Christian youth to stay in contact with their native soil, and acquainted them with the traditional way of life of the Russian peasantry. During the years of his spiritual leadership in the Movement (1928–1941), Fr. Sergiy was actually its main ideologue, largely influencing the choice of places and topics of conferences and congresses. Supported by the Movement, he could afford not only moving around Europe but also visiting Romania, Estonia and Finland for long business trips, which gave him opportunity to write serious scientific studies; among them was a solid essay on the life and work of Elder Paisius Velichkovsky, started yet in the Library of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg, which was published in Romanian translation and immediately became an event in Romanian science. Visits of S. I. Chetverikov to the Valaam Monastery were reflected in the series of unpublished essays “The Finnish Thebaid” (given in the appendix), as well as in correspondence with L. A. Zander; many important information about Fr. Sergiy is preserved in the text of his Will. Memories about Fr. Sergiy also contain noteworthy stories about his fruitful life.
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