In Memoriam: The Very Rev Dimitry Konstantinow

WEST HYANNISPORT, MA [OCA Communications] — The Very Rev. Dimitry Konstantinow, one of the oldest retired priests of the Orthodox Church in America, fell asleep in the Lord on Monday, August 14, 2006 at the age of 98.

He was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on March 21, 1908. In 1927, he received a degree from the Ushinsky Pedagogical Technicum in Leningrad, USSR, after which he pursued theological studies at a time when the communist regime had closed all theological schools in the Soviet Union. He also earned a graduate degree in journalism from the Leningrad Editing and Publishing Institute, and in 1933 he pursued post-graduate studies at the Leningrad Research Institute of Bibiology.

From 1933 until 1941, he was employed as a research worker and teacher at secondary schools in Leningrad, during which he wrote a number of books.
Until the beginning of the 1930s, he openly engaged in Church activities, but with the intensification of religious persecution, he continued his work underground until 1941.

During World War II, he served as an officer in the Soviet army. After his marriage in 1944, he was ordained to the diaconate and priesthood after leaving the Soviet Union and served in various parishes in Germany until 1949.

In 1950, he was received into the the Orthodox Church in America [at the time known as the “Metropolia”] and served parishes in Buenos Aires, Argentina, until 1960. He was elevated to the rank of archpriest in 1955.
While in Buenos Aires, he edited and published a newspaper, “Novoye Slovo.”
In addition to his pastoral duties, he conducted research at the Institute for the Study of the USSR in Munich.

Father Dimitry arrived in the US in 1960 and became a naturalized citizen five years later. He served various parishes until 1972, when he was appointed rector of the Chapel of Our Lady of Kazan, West Hyannisport [Cape Cod], MA. While he retired from active ministry in 1984, he continued to serve the chapel.

Father Dimitry was prominent among the rather small number of scholars whose research dealt with the persecution of religion under communist regimes, and his personal experiences a lay person, student of theology, and participant in underground religious groups in the USSR during some of the Orthodox Church in Russia’s darkest days gave him unique insights that proved to be invaluable in his research and writing. He wrote 10 books and over 400 articles on a wide variety of religious subjects. His most important work was “Gonimaya Tserkov” [“The Persecuted Church”], published in 1967 in Russian and translated into German and English. His writings embraced topics that, given the time, were nothing less than remarkable, including the history of the Orthodox Church in Russia after World War II, accounts of religious resistance to and persecution by the communist regime, and a call to Orthodox youth to defend the Orthodox Church in the USSR. For many years he also was a contributor to New York’s daily Russian newspaper, “Novoye Russkoye Slovo.”

Funeral services were held at the Russian Orthodox Church of the Epiphany, Roslindale, MA, followed by interment in Beechwood Cemetery, Centerville, MA.

May Father Dimitry’s memory be eternal!