Metropolitan Platon (Rozhdestvensky) was the only hierarch to have served two separate terms as head of the Orthodox Church in America. Between these two periods of service in North America, he rose to prominence and top leadership positions in the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church, and he was even among the leading candidates in the patriarchal election of 1917.
Porphyry Feodorovich Rozhdestvensky was born on February 11/23, 1866, the son of a priest in the Kursk Province of Russia. After graduating from the Kursk Seminary in 1886, he married. He was ordained to the priesthood on January 6, 1887, and served as a village priest in the Kursk Diocese. His wife gave birth to a daughter, but died in 1891.
Deciding to further his education, Father Porphyry enrolled in the Kyiv Theological Academy, from which he graduated in 1895. He received monastic tonsure and took the name Platon in 1894 while still a student. Upon graduation, he became a teaching assistant at the academy. The following year, he began working as an instructor while continuing his studies, receiving a Master of Theology degree from the academy in 1898. That year, he was raised to the rank of archimandrite and, in quick succession, was appointed assistant inspector, then inspector (dean of students) and professor of the Academy. In 1902, he was appointed rector of the academy and simultaneously superior of the Kyiv Brotherhood Monastery.
On June 3, 1902, Archimandrite Platon was consecrated Bishop of Chigirin, auxiliary of the Kyiv Diocese. In 1906, he became editor of a journal called Church and People. Due to his popularity among the people of Kyiv, especially as a preacher and orator, he was elected to the Second State Duma on February 12, 1907.
On June 8, 1907, he was raised to the rank of archbishop and appointed to the See of the Aleutians and North America. Building upon the visionary course and missionary initiatives of his predecessor, Saint Tikhon, Archbishop Platon skillfully guided the continuously growing North American Church for the next seven years. Many new parishes were established in the North American Diocese during his first episcopate on this continent. The seminary established by Saint Tikhon in Minneapolis was relocated to Tenafly, NJ and renamed in honor of Archbishop Platon’s patron saint. In 1909, he was recalled to Russia to serve on the Most Holy Governing Synod.
On March 20, 1914, His Eminence was appointed Archbishop of Kishinev (today Chisinau, the capital of Moldova) and Khotyn. On December 5, 1915, he was transferred to the see of Kartalin and Kakheti, becoming the last Exarch of Georgia from the Russian Church before the restoration of the autocephaly of the ancient Georgian Patriarchate in 1917. Having a particular interest in missionary work, he was appointed chairman of the Council to Strengthen and Spread the Faith (the missions department of the Holy Synod) on June 17, 1917. On August 13, 1917, just before the opening of the All-Russian Church Council in Moscow, he was raised to the rank of metropolitan with the title Metropolitan of Tiflis (Tbilisi, Georgia) and Baku (in Azerbaijan), Exarch of the Caucasus, notwithstanding that in March 1917, without their exarch’s prior knowledge or approval, a group of bishops had declared the autocephaly of the Georgian Church restored. In the midst of the upheaval and uncertainty of the 20th century, the Russian Church would not come to recognize this autocephaly for decades.
As the All-Russian Council opened, Metropolitan Platon was among the senior ranking hierarchs of the Russian Church, and was likewise one of the most dynamic participants in the Council. When the Council decided to restore the Patriarchate of the Russian Church, Metropolitan Platon became a leading candidate for the Patriarchal See. Although he was not elected to be one of the three candidates for final selection of the Patriarch by lot, Metropolitan Platon received a significant number of votes in each of the four ballots in the patriarchal electoral process. The election of the Patriarch took place just as the Bolsheviks took power in Russia. With armed conflict and bloodshed taking place, the Council appointed a special delegation, headed by Metropolitan Platon, to negotiate with the revolutionary military leaders in the Kremlin in an effort to end bloodshed and establish peace. Metropolitan Platon’s heart-wrenching account before the Council of his encounter with the revolutionaries was so moving that it was even suggested that his name also be included in the final list of patriarchal candidates, but as the list had already been finalized by decision of the Council, this was impossible. When Patriarch Tikhon was elected, Metropolitan Platon, as one of the senior hierarchs, liturgically enthroned the new patriarch. In December 1917, the All-Russian Council elected Metropolitan Platon to be a member of the Holy Synod, and he subsequently was named to lead a delegation representing Patriarch Tikhon at the All-Ukrainian Church Council in Kyiv in January 1918, where the Ukrainian Church’s movement toward autocephaly was averted. On February 22, 1918, after election by the diocese of Kherson and Odessa, he was appointed its ruling hierarch.
Along with many other hierarchs, clergy, and laity, Metropolitan Platon fled from the advance of Bolshevik armed forces during the Russian Civil War and returned to the US as a refugee in 1919. He was joyfully welcomed by Archbishop Alexander (Nemolovsky) at Saint Nicholas Cathedral in New York City, where just months earlier, having been reported to have perished at the hands of Bolsheviks, Metropolitan Platon had been commemorated among the departed. A few years later, Metropolitan Platon’s daughter and her family were also able to come to America from Bulgaria. Their descendants currently live in Connecticut.
The Church in America was then in crisis as a result of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and Archbishop Alexander of North America was having understandable difficulties in his archpastoral leadership. In order to assist him and to rally prayerful support for the suffering Church in Russia, Metropolitan Platon was informally appointed as Patriarch Tikhon’s special representative in America. Despite Archbishop Alexander’s courageous efforts to lead the American Church under most difficult circumstances, by 1922 he had become overwhelmed by the situation and decided that, for the good of the Church, he would remove himself as ruling hierarch. Before leaving for Europe, he asked Metropolitan Platon to take over as ruling hierarch.
The Third All-American Sobor convened in Pittsburgh November 7-9, 1922 to firmly establish Metropolitan Platon as the canonical Primate of the Church by conciliar decision. This council duly elected him, esteemed and trusted both in Russia and throughout North America, as the canonical ruling Primate of the American Church. At the time of this election, he was the first to be given the title “Metropolitan of All America and Canada.”
Following the Third Sobor, Metropolitan Platon’s leadership position continued to be challenged. On the one hand, the schismatic “Living Church” began its divisive activities; on the other hand, conflicting messages were emanating from Moscow. While in 1923 Patriarch Tikhon had confirmed Metropolitan Platon’s election by the Third Sobor in 1922, a Patriarchal decree appeared in the press in which Metropolitan Platon was supposedly relieved of his position for “counterrevolution directed against the Soviet state.” According to the decree itself, it was to have no validity until announced personally to Metropolitan Platon by the hierarch appointed to succeed him – an inconceivable scenario at that time. The resulting situation was one of chaos and instability.
Therefore, the Church turned once again to her conciliar conscience to deal with this challenging crisis. On April 2-4, 1924, the Fourth All-American Sobor was convened in Detroit, MI. Not wishing to sway the council’s decision by his presence, Metropolitan Platon wisely missed the opening session. His election at the previous Sobor was resoundingly reconfirmed at this session. Due to great respect for his leadership skills, his primacy was deemed essential for the Church’s survival. With increasing difficulties in communication with the Russian Church, as evidenced by the aforementioned conflicting information, and its tenuous situation under totalitarian rule, the Fourth Sobor decided to declare the North American Church to be “temporarily self-governing” until such time as normal and regular relations could be reestablished with the Mother Church in Russia. This would prove to be an important step toward the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in America. In order to maintain freedom of action and an ecclesiastical existence that he deemed appropriate in the North American context, Metropolitan Platon, over the subsequent years of his tenure, rebuffed affiliation with both the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) and the persecuted Moscow Patriarchate, for which he was placed under canonical interdict by the Church of Russia.
Indeed, Metropolitan Platon tenaciously faced countless challenges in leading the Church through a period of disunity and canonical chaos. On April 20, 1934, Metropolitan Platon fell asleep in the Lord at age 68 and was buried at Saint Tikhon’s Monastery. Patriarch Aleksy I of Moscow posthumously lifted the ecclesiastical sanctions against him in 1946.
The century of subjugation of the Georgian Church by the Russian Church is generally considered a dark period in Georgian history. It is therefore noteworthy that during his US visit in 1998, Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II of Georgia expressed interest in – and even reverence for – Metropolitan Platon when he celebrated a spontaneous memorial service at the chapel erected over his grave.