Metropolitan Nicholas (, born as Boris Dorofeyevich Yarushevich, ; 12 January 1892 – 13 December 1961), was the

Metropolitan of Kiev Metropolitan of Kyiv is an Episcopal polity, episcopal title that has been created with varying suffixes at multiple times in different Christian churches, though always maintaining the name of the Metropolis (religious jurisdiction), metropolita ...

in the

Patriarchate of Moscow The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC; ;), also officially known as the Moscow Patriarchate (), is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Christian church. It has 194 dioceses inside Russia. The primate of the ROC is the patriarch of Moscow and all R ...

Biography

Metropolitan Nicholas was born in Kovno (now

Kaunas Kaunas (; ) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius, the fourth largest List of cities in the Baltic states by population, city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaun ...

, Lithuania), where his father, Archpriest Dorofey Filofeyevich Yarushevich, was rector of Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. He was educated at

St Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

University, and graduated in 1914 from the

Saint Petersburg Theological Academy The Saint Petersburg Theological Academy () is a higher education institution of the Russian Orthodox Church, located in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The academy prepares theologians, clergymen, singers and icon writers for the Eastern Orthodox Chu ...

. Soon after he was ordained, he was sent to the front during the war with Germany, but was recalled in 1915 after falling seriously ill. In 1918, he was appointed rector of the Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral in Petrograd (St Petersburg). On March 25, 1922 he was consecrated Bishop of Peterhof, vicar of the Petrograd dioscese, but he was almost immediately arrested for refusing to recognise the so-called

Renovationism Renovationism (; from 'renovation, renewal')—also called the Renovated Church () or, by metonymy, the Living Church ()—officially named Orthodox Russian Church (), and later Orthodox Church in the USSR (), was the schism in the Russian Ortho ...

. He was released in 1927, when he supported the declaration of Metropolitan Sergius, who controversially pledged loyalty of the Church to the Soviet authorities without concurrence of numerous senior members of the Orthodox, including Metropolitan Joseph (Petrovykh), head of the Leningrad (St Petersburg) diocese, who was deposed and later executed. Nicholas was temporarily in charge of the diocese from September 1927 to February 1928. He was made Archbishop of Peterhof in 1935, and in 1936-1940 was additionally in charge of the

Novgorod Veliky Novgorod ( ; , ; ), also known simply as Novgorod (), is the largest city and administrative centre of Novgorod Oblast, Russia. It is one of the oldest cities in Russia, being first mentioned in the 9th century. The city lies along the V ...

and

Pskov Pskov ( rus, Псков, a=Ru-Псков.oga, p=psˈkof; see also Names of Pskov in different languages, names in other languages) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city in northwestern Russia and the administrative center of Pskov O ...

dioceses. Nicholas was one of just four bishops in the USSR who survived the

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

, and was so trusted by the Soviet authorities that in 1940, after the Red Army had overrun Eastern Poland, under the terms of the

Pact Pact, The Pact or PACT may refer to: Entertainment * The Pact (novel), ''The Pact'' (novel), by Jodi Picoult, 1998 * The Pact (2002 film), ''The Pact'' (2002 film), adaptation of Picoult's ''The Pact (novel)#Film adaptation, The Pact'' * The Pac ...

between

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

and

Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

, he was appointed Metropolitan of

Volhynia Volhynia or Volynia ( ; see #Names and etymology, below) is a historic region in Central and Eastern Europe, between southeastern Poland, southwestern Belarus, and northwestern Ukraine. The borders of the region are not clearly defined, but in ...

and

Lutsk Lutsk (, ; see #Names and etymology, below for other names) is a city on the Styr River in northwestern Ukraine. It is the administrative center of Volyn Oblast and the administrative center of Lutsk Raion within the oblast. Lutsk has a populati ...

and Exarch of the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus. He was elevated to the rank of Metropolitan on 9 March 1941. After the

German invasion of the Soviet Union Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several of its European Axis allies starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. More than 3.8 million Axis troops invaded the western Soviet Union along a ...

, he was appointed Metropolitan of

Kiev Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

and Galicia. Later, as the German troops advanced, he was evacuated to Moscow. On 2 November 1942, Metropolitan Nicholas became the first Russian priest in more than 20 years to be given an official position, when he was a member of the Extraordinary State Commission for the Establishment and Investigation of the Atrocities of the German Fascist Invaders and their Accomplices. In this capacity, he took part in 'investigating' the

Katyn massacre The Katyn massacre was a series of mass killings under Communist regimes, mass executions of nearly 22,000 Polish people, Polish military officer, military and police officers, border guards, and intelligentsia prisoners of war carried out by t ...

, in which thousands of Polish officers had been murdered on Stalin's orders. He went along with the commission's verdict that it was a German atrocity. In the early hours of September 5, 1943, together with Metropolitan Sergius and Metropolitan

Alexius Alexius is the Latinized form of the given name Alexios (, polytonic , "defender", cf. Alexander), especially common in the Byzantine Empire. The female form is Alexia () and its variants such as Alessia (the masculine form of which is Alessio) ...

, Nicholas had a meeting with Joseph Stalin, where the latter proposed to reestablish the Moscow Patriarchate and elect the

Patriarch The highest-ranking bishops in Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Roman Catholic Church (above major archbishop and primate), the Hussite Church, Church of the East, and some Independent Catholic Churches are termed patriarchs (and ...

. On September 8, 1943, when the Moscow Patriarchate was reestablished, Nicholas became a permanent member of the

Holy Synod In several of the autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Churches and Eastern Catholic Churches, the patriarch or head bishop is elected by a group of bishops called the Holy Synod. For instance, the Holy Synod is a ruling body of the Georgian Orthodox ...

. In 1944 he was appointed Metropolitan of

Krutitsy Krutitsy Metochion (), full name: Krutitsy Patriarchal Metochion () is an operating ecclesiastical estate of Russian Orthodox Church, located in Tagansky District of Moscow, Russia, 3 kilometers south-east from the Kremlin. The name ''Krutitsy' ...

. In 1946, when the External Church Relations Department was established within the Patriarchate, Metropolitan Nicholas became its chairman. He and the Patriarch Alexei were now the two leading personalities in the Russian Orthodox Church. According to the historian Philip Walters: According to Christopher Andrew and

Vasili Mitrokhin Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin (; March 3, 1922 – January 23, 2004) was an archivist for the Soviet Union's foreign intelligence service, the First Chief Directorate of the KGB, who defected to the United Kingdom in 1992. Mitrokhin first offer ...

, both Patriarch Alexius and Metropolitan Nicholas, "were highly valued by the

KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...

as agents of influence."Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, ''The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB'', (1999). Page 486. Metropolitan Nicholas met Stalin again in April 1945. That year he visited Great Britain and France. In August, he persuaded the Orthodox churches in France to recognise the authority of the Moscow Patriarch, though they split with Moscow later. In 1950 he became a member of the

World Peace Council The World Peace Council (WPC) is an international organization created in 1949 by the Cominform and propped up by the Soviet Union. Throughout the Cold War, WPC engaged in propaganda efforts on behalf of the Soviet Union, whereby it criticize ...

, occupying a staunchly pro-Soviet position.Time (magazine)
/ref> Nicholas held Joseph Stalin in high esteem, but he came into conflict with Stalin's successor

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...

when Communist Party policy took an anti-religious turn in 1959. He was dismissed from the position of the Chairman of the External Church Relations Department on June 21, 1960; on September 19, he was relieved of his other posts and vanished from public view. He died on December 13, 1961.

References

1892 births 1961 deaths Clergy from Kaunas People from Kovensky Uyezd Archbishops and Metropolitans of Novgorod Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Eastern Orthodox Christians from Lithuania Metropolitans of Kiev and all Rus' (Patriarchate of Moscow) {{Primates of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Saint Petersburg Theological Academy alumni