Anthony (Sevryuk)

Metropolitan Anthony (, secular name Anton Yuryevich Sevryuk, ; born 12 October 1984), is a prelate of the Russian Orthodox Church. Since June 2022, he has held the titles of Metropolitan of Volokolamsk and Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate.

Early life Sevryuk was baptised at the age of 11. From 1991 to 1995 he studied at Secondary School Number 19 in his home city of Tver. In 1995, he entered the Tver Lyceum.

In his youth, Sevryuk volunteered as an altar server at Holy Resurrection Cathedral in Tver.

On 7 October 2015 in same place he was tonsured mantle monk (little schema) by Kirill, this time with the name of Anthony, after Anthony of Rome. after the Holy Synod of the ROC decided to appoint him and to appoint John (Roshchin) as primate of the Russian Orthodox Diocese of Vienna and Austria. As a result, Anthony became the Metropolitan bishop of the Russian Orthodox Diocese of Chersonesus and Patriarchal exarch in Western Europe, and the locum tenens of the Patriarchal parishes in Italy.

Views on ecumenism Having spent most of his pastoral career in predominantly Roman Catholic areas, Anthony has stated that it is important for the two churches to have good relations, especially in sites where both Orthodox and Catholic faithful worship. At the Roman Catholic Basilica di San Nicola, a shrine to St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Bari, he would lead Divine Liturgy on Thursdays. He has thanked the Catholic Church in Italy for its tolerant view of the Orthodox population there, and for occasionally allowing Orthodox to pray in Catholic shrines dedicated to saints that both churches venerate. He did however say it is important that Orthodox worshippers do not pray together with Catholics or attend Mass, as the two churches are not in full communion with one another, and still have theological differences.