“A man gathered in Moscow”: the torments of Apostate Archimandrite Sergius in letters to Metropolitan Evlogy (1925–1926)

Abstract. This article publishes for the first time the letters of Archimandrite Sergiy (Dabich), a prominent figure in the Russian clergy abroad, a highly educated priest sent by the Russian Church in 1914 to minister to a community of compatriots in Greece, where he witnessed the momentous events of the early 20th Century: the First World War and the Russian Revolution. Finding himself in Paris after the collapse of the Russian Empire, he succumbed to the propaganda of the so-called Eastern Rite Catholics and converted from Orthodoxy to Catholicism. Soon regretting his decision, he negotiated with his former spiritual head, Metropolitan Evlogy (Georgievsky), about the possibility of returning back to the Orthodox Church. The negotiations took place against the backdrop of the dramatic situation in which the Russian Church found itself as a result of the revolution and the Civil War, both in emigration and in Russia, which was reflected in the texts of the letters. The negotiations were not completed, as the archimandrite-apostate fell into depression and died in San Remo.

Keywords: Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Russian Church Abroad, emigration, Mount Athos.