From Atheist to Metropolitan: Andrei Bloom Meets Jesus

From his start in life, you would not have expected Andrei Borisovich Bloom to have ended up Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, founder of the Russian Orthodox diocese for Great Britain and Ireland.

Born in 1914 to members of the Imperial Diplomatic Corps, he was uprooted by the Russian Revolution and forced to relocate in Paris. The relative peace of Paris left him feeling that life was aimless and meaningless. He told himself that, “I would give myself a year to see whether life had a meaning, and if I discovered it had none I would not live beyond the year.” [1]

A leader in one…