List of Clergy
1924 – 1929 Archimandrite Antonin (Pokrovsky)
1930 – 1931 Archpriest Gregory Prozoroff
1931 – 1937 Archpriest Alexander Kiziun
1938 – 1940 Hieromonk Antony (Vasiliev)
1940 – 1948 Archimandrite Aggey (Mazur)
1949 – 1952 Archpriest Leonid Kaspersky
1952 – 1962 Mitred Archpriest Peter Kurzemnek
1962 – 1963 Archpriest Prokopiy Powers
1963 – 1970 Archpriest Oleg Boldireff
1970 – 1978 Bishop Joasaph (Antoniuk)
1973 – 1976 Archpriest John Karateyev
1978 – 1984 Hegumen Cyril (Bulashevich)
1979 – 1985 Hieromonk Panteleimon (Belko)
1985 – 1987 Priest Victor Sokolov
1992 – 1999 (rector), 1999 – 2012 (second priest) Very Reverend Andrey Somow
1996 – 1999 (second priest) Very Reverend Stephen Basil Slipko
2000 – 2009 Reverend Mac Luckie
1999 – now (rector) Very Reverend Michael Fourik
2018 – now (deacon) Deacon Michael Ivanov
1924 – 1929 Archimandrite Antonin (Pokrovsky)
Aleksei Fedorovich Pokrovsky was born into the family of a Deacon in the village Bogoslovskoye, on 17 March 1869. He graduated from the Or’ol Theological Seminary and was ordained Deacon by Bishop Mikhail of Or’ol on August 6, 1893. He served as Deacon for three years before being ordained Priest in St. Nicholas Church in Panikovczy by Bishop Nikanor of Or’ol in 1897. Fr. Aleksei served several parishes of the Diocese of Or’ol and then was appointed Chaplain of the Russian Navy, and later transferred as a Chaplain into the military school of Aviation. During WWI he served as a Chaplain in many different military units at the Front line and in the Rear. He received numerous military and civil awards for his faithful services. On May 10, 1919 Fr. Aleksei was elevated to the rank of an Archpriest by Archbishop Nikandr of Vyatka. On February 29, 1920 he was assigned to the White Army’s military hospital which was evacuated from Novorossiysk to the Island of Cyprus.
In 1921, Fr. Aleksei was appointed to the Russian Orthodox Convent in Palestine by Archbishop Anastassy. On December 5, 1921 he was tonsured Monk by His Holiness Damian, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and received the monastic name Antonin. At the same time, on direct request of Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow, he was elevated to the rank of Archimandrite.
In 1924, Archimandrite Antonin was received by Metropolitan Platon into the American Metropolia, and sent to Vancouver with the assignment to serve the needs of the Orthodox Christian community there. He came here, established the parish and served at Holy Resurrection for over 5 years. On October 12, 1930 he was consecrated Bishop of Sitka and Alaska and later became
Archbishop of San Francisco. In 1934, after the All‑American Council in Cleveland, Archbishop Antonin made known that he had decided to return to the Moscow Patriarchate. He fell asleep in the Lord on April 19, 1939 in San Francisco, California.
Read more at Canadian Orthodox History Project
1930 – 1931 Archpriest Gregory Prozoroff
No information is available on Fr. Grigory Prozorov’s early life. After his rather short service at Holy Resurrection Church in Vancouver he moved south to the US. In the 1940s, Fr. Grigoriy became Rector of Holy Virgin Mary Russian Orthodox Greek-Catholic Church in Los Angeles and Dean of what is now known as the Pacific South West Deanery.
1931 – 1937 Archpriest Alexander Kiziun
Alexander Kiziun was born on September 27, 1892. No other information is available on his early life. He was ordained to the Holy Diaconate by Bishop Alexander (Nemolovski) in Montreal on September 25, 1916 and to the Priesthood in Buffalo, NY in December 1916.
He served several Orthodox parishes in Saskatchewan and Alberta before arriving in Vancouver in December of 1931.
He was appointed Rector of Holy Resurrection Church in 1932.
In August 1937, Fr. Alexander left the parish and with his own labor and financial help from supporters, built the Holy Trinity Church at Campbell Avenue and was received into the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.
He fell asleep in the Lord on June 3, 1953, and was buried at the Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver.
1938 – 1940 Hieromonk Antony (Vasiliev)
Priest-monk Antony was born Andrei Alexandrovich Vasiliyev in Mogilev in 1869. He studied at the Moscow Institute of Archeology and specialized in the field of Russian sacral art. In 1920, he and his family emigrated to Bulgaria, and later to France.
After the death of his wife, Mr. Vasiliyev moved to Canada in 1936.
He was tonsured a monk, received the monastic name Antony and soon after was ordained a priest.
He was assigned to Holy Resurrection Church in Vancouver in 1938 and served here as Rector for two years.
Then Hieromonk Antony petitioned the Moscow Patriarchate to accept him into the ranks of their clergy in Canada and was received by the Exarchate in July of 1944.
On November 5, 1947, then Archimandrite Antony was consecrated as Bishop of Montreal and later transferred to California to the position of Bishop of San Francisco. He served there until 1952, when he was allowed to return to the USSR.
In his latter days, Vladyka Antony lived in the Patriarch’s Dormition Monastery in Odessa, Ukraine.
He fell asleep in the Lord on December 18, 1953.
Read more at Canadian Orthodox History Project
1940 – 1948 Archimandrite Aggey (Mazur)
No information available on Fr. Aggey Mazur’s early life. Hieromonk Aggey came to Canada in 1928 from Pochayev Monastery. He was received into the Canadian Archdiocese by Archbishop Arseny and was attached to the Monastery in Sifton, Manitoba. He left Sifton and moved to Alberta, where he served several rural parishes. In March 1940, he came to Vancouver and was appointed Rector of Holy Resurrection Church. In 1948 Archimandrite Aggey switched his allegiance to the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and made an attempt to take with him the whole parish. He didn’t succeed and left the parish, taking with him to St. Nicholas Vancouver a minority group of his supporters.
1949 – 1952 Archpriest Leonid Kaspersky
Leonid Kaspersky was born in the Village of Ugrin, Slonimsk, in Russia, on August 16, 1907. He graduated from the Theological Seminary in Vilno. Studied at Historical and at the Theological Faculties of the University of Warsaw, Poland, earning the Master of the Holy Diaconate, on September 9, 1929, and to the Priesthood, on September 12, 1929. Fr. Leonid was awarded a Golden Cross in 1938 and elevated to the rank Archpriest in 1944. He emigrated to Canada from Germany where he had served WWII the Orthodox faithful in DP camps. He arrived in Vancouver in February 1949 and was appointed rector at Holy Resurrection Church. He was transferred to the USA by Archbishop John (Shakhovskoy), in February 1952 and served at Christ the Savi Church in San Francisco, California until 1981, when he retired from the active duties. He was then attached to the Holy Trinity Cathedral and Holy Virgin Protection Church at the Home of Mercy, as Pastor Emeritus, effective June 30, 1983. Returned to Retired Status, effective March 1, 1986. Fell asleep in the Lord in San Francisco in 1993.
1952 – 1962 Mitred Archpriest Peter Kurzemnek
FR. PETER KURZEMNEK was born in 1891 into an Orthodox Christian family in a village in Latvia. He went to church school, and then to the Riga Seminary, graduated in 1913 at stayed for four years with the law faculty. He became a high-ranking government official in the Latvian Republic and left Riga in 1944 with the German army. In 1948 he was ordained to priesthood and started serving Orthodox prisoners in the VALKA camp near Nuremberg.
In May 1950 the Kurzemneks arrived in the USA. Fr. Peter was received in the Metropolia and served in several churches as second priest. Soon Metropolitan Leonty appointed him rector of a parish in Alberta, and in 1952 he transferred him to the Holy Resurrection Church in Vancouver.
In 1954 matushka Yelizaveta died, but in the same year the beautiful new church was built and dedicated. The Metropolitan elevated Fr. Peter to the rank of archpriest and awarded a “palitsa” to him.
In 1962 the rector of St. Nicholas Church in Portland, Oregon, died suddenly. Fr. Peter went to the funeral and stayed on as rector until his retirement in September 1970. In June 1968 he was awarded the mitre. The Metropolitan Iriney twice offered to make him Bishop of Canada, but Fr. Peter considered himself too old for that demanding post. He retired to Vancouver and continued as second priest until grave illness made him bedridden. He died on April 16, 1978.
1962 – 1963 Archpriest Prokopiy Powers
Prokopiy Povarnicin was born in Tourak, a remote village in southwest Siberia in 1883. He studied Theology at a Missionary School where he also mastered the Kalmik language as a pre‑requisition to become a missionary among people of the Kalmuck nation.
He was ordained to the Priesthood in 1915, and served at the Protection of the Holy Virgin Church in Demino.
After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, Fr. Prokopiy flew to China and served the Russian emigrants in Shanghai until 1929, when he took the opportunity to come the Free World.
He was assigned to Afognak, on Kodiak Island, in Alaska. He served in other places in Alaska, and then moved south, serving parishes in Madison and Royalton, Illinois; Kenosha, Wisconsin; Phoenix, Arizona; Calistoga and Bryte, California.
He was living in semi-retirement in Catistoga, California before temporarily being assigned to Holy Resurrection Church in Vancouver in 1962.
He spent his later years in Sts. Cosmas and Damian Adult Home on Staten Island in New York. Fr. Prokopiy fell asleep in the Lord on May 31,1986 in St. Vincent Hospital in New York. He was 103 years old.
1963 – 1970 Archpriest Oleg Boldireff
FR.OLEG
BOLDIREFF born in Russia in 1911, Oleg was at a very young age separated from his parents in the turmoil of the wars and revolution.
He was educated in Egypt, Turkey, Bulgaria, Paris (St Sergius Institute) and England (St Andrew’s, Canterbury). Having married Natalia Maliantovich in 1935 in Paris, he was in the same year ordained to the diaconate and then to Priesthood by Metropolitan Yevlogy.
For a few years he led a parish, then war came again. He was mobilized into the French Army, captured by the Germans and imprisoned in a POW camp. After the war he traveled all over France, visiting camps and prisons in order to serve the spiritual needs of the Russian people held there.
Fr. Oleg and his family immigrated to Canada in 1948. He was assigned to Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral in Montreal and served there until 1963, during which time he was also dean of Quebec and Ontario and instrumental in opening parishes in Quebec City, Val d’Or, Ottawa and Rawdon.
From 1963 to 1970 he served as rector of Holy Resurrection in Vancouver.
Following a few years of service in the USA in the early 70s, he was appointed rector of St Nicholas Church in Ottawa in 1974, where he served until his retirement in 1987.
He fell asleep in the Lord in November 1997, survived by his wife, five married sons, sixteen grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Read more at Canadian Orthodox History Project
1970 – 1978 Bishop Joasaph (Antoniuk)
Bishop Joasaph, in the world – Stephan Antoniuk, was born on December 16 (28), 1897 in the city of Kobrin (Grodno region, currently in Byelorussia). After finishing elementary and high school in his hometown, he entered the Pedagogical College in Kiev and graduated during the World War.
The Revolution forced the Antoniuk family to flee to the Orient, first to Siberia and then to China. In Harbin young Stephan’s priestly vocation made itself felt with full force; he entered the Seminary. He read and sang at the service in St. Nicholas Cathedral and helped wherever he was needed. He became a reader, then a deacon, and finally on 7 April 1923, he was ordained to the priesthood.
The next seven years, which Fr. Stephan spent with his family in China, were marked by his inspired service to God and His people. In those years the family grew, with the birth of a daughter, baptized Olga. On 19 August 1930, Fr. Stephan Antoniuk and his family arrived from China in the USA, on the initiative of the St. Nicholas Orthodox Community in Stratford, Connecticut.
The first years after the founding of St. Nicholas Church in Stratford were very difficult for Fr. Stephan and his family. Services were in a house set up as a church. Despite all these difficulties, services were held in this “house church” regularly up until 1942 when the newly built church was consecrated. It was grand and beautified Stratford. Fr. Stephan traveled to many cities throughout the United States, and he managed over several years to gather a substantial sum of money to cover construction expenses. For his zealous, long years of pastoral service, Fr. Stephan was raised to the dignity of Archpriest and over the years given all priestly awards, including the mitre. He also accepted the position of Dean of Connecticut.
In 1963 Fr. Stephan was struck by a great tragedy: his wife, Matushka Elikonida, died. Fr. Stephan accepted monastic tonsure and took the name Joasaph in honor of the Holy Russian Hierarch, Joasaph of Belgorod. Raised to the dignity of Archimandrite, Fr. Joasaph continued to serve the St. Nicholas church until 1968, when by the decision of the Great Sobor of Bishops of the North American Metropolia (after 1970 – the Orthodox Church in America) he was called to hierarchical service as a Bishop, with the assignment of Auxiliary in the Diocese of Canada. His consecration took place at the Holy Virgin Protection Cathedral in New York, on the feast of Annunciation, April 7th, 1968. Afterwards the new Bishop traveled to his first place of residence in Canada
– Edmonton, Alberta.
Over the next two years “Vladyka” Joasaph gave spiritual sustenance to the many Orthodox churches in Alberta, at the same time serving as rector of Holy Assumption Church in Shandro. In 1970 he became the rector of the Holy Resurrection Church in Vancouver, remaining at the same time Auxiliary Bishop for Western Canada.
Bishop Joasaph served at Holy Resurrection Church for 8 1/2 years, enjoying great spiritual authority among all the parishioners. The Bishop loved his flock and was to everyone without partiality a genuine pastor and spiritual faithful, and the parishioners responded to him with the same love. Bishop Joasaph was not concerned with him and served at the altar of God until the end oh his earthly life. At the fall session of the Synod of Bishops in 1978, the Bishop began to feel ill and left the sessions to visit hit daughter in Stratford. On the train he got worse and was taken to hospital. There Bishop Joasaph died on October 18th, 1978. The Funeral Service at the St. Nicholas Church in Stratford was celebrated by Bishop Herman, joined by Bishop Gregory of Sitka and Alaska, as well as by many priests from the eastern U.S. The following came from Holy Resurrection Church in Vancouver to accompany Bishop Joasaph to his final resting place: the rector Hegumen Cyril (Bulashevich), the parish Council president I. A. Rozvaliaeff, Olga P. Fetisoff and Anna P. Mironoff.
John Karateyev 1973 – 1976
FR. JOHN KARATEYEV was born in 1885 in the village of Sinyukhin Brod in the Ukraine into a landowner family. John dreamed about becoming a priest since he was an altar boy, but first he was to pass the ordeal of war and revolution. He was married with four sons and two daughters when the family managed to escape to Canada in 1928.
The Karateyevs settled in Loyalist, Alberta. In 1939 Bishop Joasaph of Edmonton blessed him to prepare for the priesthood, and in 1942 ordained him first deacon and then priest. The Lord strengthened him and extended his life for priestly service. Fr. John served in northern Alberta in 1942-1951, in Sacramento, California in 1951-1956, in Alberta again in 1957-1962. Matushka Irina died in 1957. In 1962-1972 he was rector of St. Peter and Paul Church in Phoenix, Arizona. Fr. John retired and went to live with his children in Vancouver. He was 87.
In Vancouver he continued the Lord’s work, attending Holy Resurrection Church and often substituting for Bishop Joasaph. He also worked to create a parish in Victoria. He fell asleep in the Lord on Aug.15, 1976.
1978 – 1984 Hegumen Cyril (Bulashevich)
FR.
CYRIL BULASHEVICH was born on June 3, 1925 in the city of Priepole, Yugoslavia. His father Sergei Bulashevich was Commander in the Russian Imperial Navy, with the Baltic and Black Sea Fleets. After the revolution he evacuated to Yugoslavia. Fr. Cyril completed high school in Yugoslavia, and at the end of the Second World War, he landed in a camp for displaced persons in Germany. His mother and sister were taken to Germany earlier to work. His father vanished without a trace. His mother and sister returned to Yugoslavia, but Cyril remained at the camp, where he served in a church and was ordained a reader. In 1951 he was tonsured a monk and then ordained to the Deaconate by Archbishop Palladius.
Fr. Cyril decided to go to the United States. In 1952 the Metropolia of North America into the rolls of its clergy received him. He entered the St. Tikhon Seminary and graduated in 1956. He was ordained to the Holy Priesthood by Archbishop Dimitrie and assigned to Alaska, where he spent 25 years serving parishes in Sitka, Juneau and Kenai. He was elevated to the rank of Hegumen.
In the spring of 1976 Fr. Cyril was received into the Canadian Diocese and assigned as priest of the Holy Resurrection Church in Vancouver under Bishop Joasaph. Upon the death of the Bishop in 1978 he became rector and served until 1984, when he was transferred to the St. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Montreal. He retired with the rank of Archimandrite and reposed in the spring of 1999.
1979 – 1985 Hieromonk Panteleimon (Belko)
FR. PANTELEIMON BELKO was born in Connecticut in 1944. He enrolled in St. Tikhon’s seminary, was tonsured a monk on April 13, 1973, and ordained a priest on Aug. 26, 1973 by His Eminence, the late Archbishop Kiprian at St. Tikhon’s Monastery Church in South Canaan, Pennsylvania. In 1977 he was assigned as third priest at Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral in Montreal. In 1980 Fr. Panteleimon was assigned as second priest at Holy Resurrection Church. In October of 1985, at his own request, Fr. Panteleimon was released from the Priesthood. He then lived for a short time in Victoria. In 1987 he returned to Holy Resurrection and remains here to this day as a reader and singer at vespers and all-night vigil services.
1985 – 1987 Priest Victor Sokolov
FR.VICTOR SOKOLOV was born February 21, 1947 into a working-class family in the city of Kalinin (formerly Tver’) on the Volga. From 1970 to 1975 he studied at the Moscow Literary Institute and later worked as a magazine editor. Beginning in 1974, Victor Sokolov became involved in the human rights movement, publishing in samizdat and in the West.
In the spring of 1975 he was baptized in the Orthodox faith by the well-known Moscow priest, Fr. Dmitry Dudko. In June 1975 he married Barbara Wrahtz, an American citizen, and was able to leave the USSR. His articles appeared regularly in the Russian emigrant press; he contributed to Radio Liberty and Voice of America. The Sokolovs have five children.
In 1982 he entered the Masters of Divinity program at the St. Vladimir Theological Seminary. In 1983, he was ordained to the Deaconate; in 1984, to the Priesthood. Fr. Victor was assigned to the Sts. Cosmas and Damian Adult Home on Staten Island in New York.
In 1985-87 Fr. Victor served as rector of Holy Resurrection church. He then was transferred to the USA and is currently serving at Holy Trinity Cathedral in San Francisco.
Archpriest Victor Sokolov served as Dean of Holy Trinity Cathedral from 1991-2006 when he fell asleep in the Lord
Read more on the site of Holy Trinity Cathedral in San Francisco
1988 – 1993 Priest Evan Lowig
Evan
Lowig was born in Australia on October 7, 1954. His father was a mathematician who later became a lecturer and then a Professor at the University of Alberta. The family arrived in Canada in 1957. Evan graduated from a High School in Edmonton, and then studied both at the St. Andrew’s College and at the University of Manitoba, earning degrees in Art and in Divinity. He entered St. Vladimir’s Seminary and graduated with the Master of Divinity degree in 1980. In the same year, he was appointed Professor of Patristic and Church History at St. Herman’s Seminary in Kodiak, Alaska. Evan Lowig was ordained to the holy Diaconate by Bishop Gregory (Afonsky) on November 29, 1981 and to the Priesthood by Metropolitan Theodosius in the Seminary Chapel in New York, on March 13, 1982.
Father Evan was appointed rector of St. Nicholas Church in Narol, Manitoba in 1982. He served also rural parishes in Manitoba until March, 1988. He was appointed Rector of Holy Resurrection Church in Vancouver on April 1, 1988. He was transferred to Edmonton in October, 1993 and later appointed rector of the St. Tikhon’s Family of parishes in rural Alberta.