Nicholas

Metropolitan Nicholas (, born as Boris Dorofeyevich Yarushevich, ; 12 January 1892 – 13 December 1961), was the Metropolitan of Kiev in the Patriarchate of Moscow.

Biography Metropolitan Nicholas was born in Kovno (now Kaunas, Lithuania), where his father, Archpriest Dorofey Filofeyevich Yarushevich, was rector of Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. He was educated at St Petersburg University, and graduated in 1914 from the Saint Petersburg Theological Academy. Soon after he was ordained, he was sent to the front during the war with Germany, but was recalled in 1915 after falling seriously ill. In 1918, he was appointed rector of the Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral in Petrograd (St Petersburg). On March 25, 1922 he was consecrated Bishop of Peterhof, vicar of the Petrograd dioscese,

He was released in 1927, when he supported the declaration of Metropolitan Sergius, who controversially pledged loyalty of the Church to the Soviet authorities without concurrence of numerous senior members of the Orthodox, including Metropolitan Joseph (Petrovykh), head of the Leningrad (St Petersburg) diocese, who was deposed and later executed. Nicholas was temporarily in charge of the diocese from September 1927 to February 1928. He was made Archbishop of Peterhof in 1935, and in 1936-1940 was additionally in charge of the Novgorod and Pskov dioceses. |

According to Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, both Patriarch Alexius and Metropolitan Nicholas, "were highly valued by the KGB as agents of influence."

Metropolitan Nicholas met Stalin again in April 1945. That year he visited Great Britain and France. In August, he persuaded the Orthodox churches in France to recognise the authority of the Moscow Patriarch, though they split with Moscow later. In 1950 he became a member of the World Peace Council, occupying a staunchly pro-Soviet position.

Nicholas held Joseph Stalin in high esteem, but he came into conflict with Stalin's successor Nikita Khrushchev when Communist Party policy took an anti-religious turn in 1959. He was dismissed from the position of the Chairman of the External Church Relations Department on June 21, 1960; on September 19, he was relieved of his other posts and vanished from public view. He died on December 13, 1961.