Saint Ambrosii of Belaya Krinitsa - Biography of Saint Ambrosii

Biography of Saint Ambrosii

Ambrosii was born Andreas Popovic in 1791 in Maistra, at that time part of the Ottoman Empire. He was of Greek origin.

In 1811, the future Metropolitan Ambrosii, then still Andreas, was married, and shortly after he was ordained as a priest by Metropolitan Matthew. In 1814 he lost his wife, who had given him a son, named George after his grandfather. In 1817 he was elected Igumen (abbot) of the Monastery of the Holy Trinity on the island of Halki. Patriarch Constantine had him locum tenens of the patriarchal Greek Church in 1827. As is clear from a document dated 9 September 1835, he was ordained as a bishop of Sarajevo in Bosnia by Patriarch Gregory, assisted by four other bishops. He remained in his position for five years before being removed by the Ottoman authorities.

In Vienna, the Minister of Interior, Conte Kolovrat, and Archduke Ludwig prepared the way for permission to be given by Ferdinand in 1844, to invite a foreign bishop to establish his headquarters in Belaya Krinitsa to serve the needs of the Old Believers in the domains of the Empire. There existed for generations communities of Old Believers in Turkey who were European refugees from the persecutions in Russia, and it was a natural place to search for a bishop in order to establish an independent full Church Hierarchy. Osip Semenovich Goncharov, Ataman of the Nekrasov Cossacks, established contact between bishop Ambrosii and two Russian monks, Pavel and Alimpii, who were searching for an orthodox bishop willing to join the Old Believers.

A Serb, Costantino Efimovic, acted as an interpreter between bishop Ambrosii and two above-mentioned monks from Russia, Pavel and Alimpii. Pavel and Alimpii examined the orthodox beliefs of Ambrosii. Bishop Ambrosii presented documents from the Patriarch of Constantinople which confirmed Ambrosii's canonical status. Bishop Ambrosii and his son then took time to investigate the status of the Russian Orthodox Old canonry and what he was asked, before giving its consent on 15 April 1846.