Metropolitan Laurus, head of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR), died in the American city of Jordanville, the Synod of Bishops said.
A funeral service for Metropolitan Laurus was held at the Holy Trinity Monastery, a source at the American office of ROCOR told Itar-Tass.
The metropolitan died in his residence located on the monastery premises.
Metropolitan Laurus of Eastern America and New York Diocese, First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outsi
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de of Russia, Ruling Bishop of the Syracuse-Holy Trinity Diocese and Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Alexy II signed the Act of Canonical Communion, which ended the split of the Russian Orthodox Church, at the Savior Cathedral in Moscow on May 17, 2007.
Vasily Skurla, as Metropolitan Laurus was in the secular world, was born on 1 January 1928, in the village of Ladomirovo (aka Vladomirovo in its Russianised form) in Czechoslovakia. He grew up in a staunchly Orthodox family despite the surrounding influence of the Roman Catholic Church and the historic past of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1939, aged 11 years, Vasily joined the St Job of Pochaev Brotherhood which had a monastery in Ladomirovo and remained with them throughout the WW2. In 1946 he migrated together with the Brotherhood to Jordanville in upstate New York, USA.
In 1948 he was tonsured to the monastic life and renamed Laurus. The following year he was ordained deacon, and in 1954 to the priesthood. By 1966 Fr Laurus was elevated to the rank of archimandrite and was a lecturer at the Holy Trinity Seminary, attached to the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville. Fr Laurus was consecrated Bishop of Manhattan on 13 August 1967 and appointed Secretary of the Synod of Bishops. After the death of Archbishop Averky Taushev in 1976, Bishop Laurus was appointed bishop, and later archbishop, of Syracuse and Holy Trinity Monastery. In October 2001, upon the retirement of Metropolitan Vitaly Ustinov, Archbishop Laurus was elected by the Synod of Bishops, to be the fifth Metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and its Primate. Today, Metropolitan Laurus continues to be the Superior of the Holy Trinity Monastery, in addition to his other pontifical duties.
Metropolitan Laurus, head of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR), died in the American city of Jordanville, the Synod of Bishops said.
