ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE

Exarchate of Parishes of Russian
Tradition in Western Europe

Bishop Basil of Amphipolis was born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1938, but grew up from the age of three in the United States of America. He was introduced to Russian Orthodoxy in 1957 by Father Michael Gelsinger, Professor of Classics at the University of Buffalo, New York, who also had a small, English-language parish in Buffalo.

He married his wife, Rachel, in 1962, after service in the US Army. They had three children: Jacob, born 1970, Michael 1972, and Mary 1976. While working on a doctorate in Classics, he came to Britain in 1966 to work with Professor Constantine Trypanis, Professor of Byzantine and Modern Greek at Oxford University. He received his doctorate from the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1969. He was ordained deacon by Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh in 1969, and priest in 1973, serving the Russian Parish of the Annunciation in Oxford. In 1980, he became Editor of Sourozh, the Diocesan Journal.

Following Rachel's death in 1991, he was consecrated Bishop of Sergievo in 1993 to assist Metropolitan Anthony in the running of the Diocese. After the death of Metropolitan Anthony in August 2003, he was appointed by the Holy Synod to administer the Diocese of Sourozh. On 9 May 2006, Patriarch Alexis II issued a decree in which he was relieved of his duties as administrator of the Diocese of Sourozh, and sent into retirement.