SiR UK* NEWS

 

* Synod in Resistance Churches in the UK

 

 

REPOSE OF NONNA VSEVOLODOVNA AMPENOVA

 

ON THE FEAST of St John of Cronstadt (Friday, 20th December / 2nd January), the Liturgy was celebrated at the Convent of the Annunciation in London.  The sister of the late Abbess Elisabeth, who lives on the same street as the Convent, attended, and, as if foreknowing her imminent death, purposefully came to confession and Holy Communion, for the first time ever walking with a frame.   Three days later she reposed at her home on Brondesbury Park.  Nonna was 94, and had been one of four daughters born to Vsevolod and Valeria Ampenoff.  The family was a traditional, Church-centred, Russian Orthodox family, and her father had been the starosta (church warden) of the Russian Church in London.  Before leaving Russia, the family had been blessed by the Patriarch St Tikhon the Confessor.  While in London, they had given hospitality in their home to the Blessed and Ever-Memorable Metropolitan Antony (Khrapovitsky), and of course had known Metropolitan Anastassy and Saints John of Shanghai and Philaret of New York.  She recalled the consecration of Bishop Nicolas (Karpov) of London, and the services he held in the old Russian podvorie Chapel of All Saints in Baron’s Court.  On the last day of his life, 28th September / 11th October, 1932, as he was dying in Serbia, where he had gone for a Synod meeting, Bishop Nicolas, the first Orthodox hierarch consecrated for a see in Britain since the Great Schism, handwrote a letter to his “most beloved flock in London,” in which he specifically mentions Princess Mescherskaya, the Galtizines and the Ampenoffs.  His letter is short and the writing shakey, due to the young hierarch’s failing state.  It was treasured by Nonna Vsevolodovna for many years, and was donated by her to our Brotherhood some time ago.  She was in so many ways a true representative of all that was best in Holy Russia.  And, as was mentioned in the address at her funeral, it was her deep and informed understanding of the traditions of the Church and her sensitivity to the spiritual betrayal incurred by the premature rapprochement with the Moscow Patriarchate, which helped many to see the absolute necessity of becoming what are now known as “ROCOR Refugees,” and it was she who, placing Orthodoxy before nationalism, was emphatic that we place ourselves under the omophorion of Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropus and Fili, as a true pastor within that Tradition that she had known since her childhood in Imperial Russia.  Her funeral was held at the Convent after the Divine Liturgy on the feast of St Basil the Great, 1st / 14th January, and afterwards she was laid to rest near her sister, Abbess Elisabeth, and her old nanny, in Gunnersbury Cemetery.  May her rest be with the Saints and with those great Confessors of the Russian Church whom she knew, loved and revered throughout her long life.  Eternal Memory!     

 

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