Former Associate Priest at OCA Representation Church in Moscow Consecrated to Episcopacy

Protopresbyter Robert Kondratick, Chancellor of the Orthodox Church in America, and Protopresbyter Daniel Hubiak, former Rector of the OCA’s Representation Church of the Great Martyr Catherine in Moscow, participated in the consecration to the episcopacy of Archimandrite Hilarion [Alfeyev] in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, Moscow, on Monday, January 14, 2002.

Bishop Hilarion, who served as an associate priest at the Church of the Great Martyr Catherine from January 1996 until December 2001, has been appointed head of the Diocese of Kerch.

Born in Moscow in 1966, Bishop Hilarion studied music composition at the Tchaikovsky State Conservatory. After completing his studies, he entered military service, after which he became a novice at the Orthodox Monastery in Vilnius, Lithuania. In 1987 he took monastic tonsure and was ordained to the Holy Diaconate and Holy Priesthood.

In 1990, he was appointed Dean of Annunciation Cathedral in Kaunas, Lithuania. The following year, he graduated from the Moscow Theological Academy with a Candidate of Theology degree. From 1991 until 1993, he taught homiletics, Scripture, dogmatic theology and Greek at the Academy. He also taught courses at Moscow’s Saint Tikhon Theological Institute and Saint John the Theologian Russian Orthodox University.

In 1993, he completed graduate studies at the Moscow Theological Academy, after which he pursued further studies at Oxford University, where he studied with His Grace, Bishop Kallistos [Ware]. In 1995 he was awarded a Doctorate of Philosophy.

From 1995 through 2001, he worked in the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department of External Church Relations, serving as Secretary for Inter-Christian Relations from August 1997 until December 2001. In 1999, he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Theology from the Saint Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute, Paris, France.