TURKEVICH, LEONTY

TURKEVICH, LEONTY, metropolitan (8 August 1876–14 May 1965). Theologically trained at the Kiev Theological Seminary and its Theological Academy, from which he graduated in 1900, he taught in ecclesiastical schools and seminaries in Kursk and Ekaterinoslav. He was ordained a priest in 1905 and succeeded his father as priest of the church in Kremenetz. In October 1906 he was made rector of the recently established Orthodox seminary in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In 1912 the seminary was relocated to Tenafly, New Jersey. From 1914 to 1930 he edited the Russian-American Orthodox Messenger. In 1917 to 1918 he was a representative to the All-Russian Council in Moscow where he introduced the motion that resulted in the election of Patriarch Tikhon (q.v.). Drawing on his experience at the Sobor, he became one of the chief planners behind the autonomy of the American Church. He was widowed in 1925, and in 1933 became bishop of Chicago. In 1950 he was elevated to metropolitan of the “Metropolia,” i.e., the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Diocese of North America, which became the Orthodox Church in America (q.v.).