Nicholas Zernov

Nicolas Michaelovich Zernov ( - 25 August 1980) was a Christian Russian émigré who settled in Britain, and taught theology at Oxford University. He wrote many books about the Orthodox Church, and about Christianity in Russia, of which the best known is The Russian Religious Renaissance of the Twentieth Century. He worked continuously for the unity of Christians, and was one of the founders of the ecumenical Fellowship of Saint Alban and Saint Sergius in 1928. He was also secretary of the fellowship from 1935 to 1947.

Biography Nicolai Michaelovitch Zernov was born in Russia on 9 October 1898 in Moscow. He had two sisters: Sophia and Maria and one brother Vladimir. They were the children of a Moscow doctor who developed Essentuki in the Caucasus as a model thermal resort in the very beginning of the 20th century. He himself began medical studies in Moscow in 1917, but after the Russian revolution and civil war his family fled to the Caucasus, arriving in Georgia in 1920. In early 1921 they were taken by British diplomats from Georgia to Istanbul. They made their way to Serbia, and Nicolas graduated in theology at Belgrade University in 1925.

In 1926 the family reached Paris. Zernov was a founder of the Brotherhood of St Seraphim of Sarov, and in Paris from 1926 to 1929 was secretary of the Russian Student Christian Movement. He was also the first editor of their periodical, Vestnik Russkogo Studencheskogo Dvizheniya.

In 1927 he married Militza Vladimirovna Lavrova (Милице Лавровой, 1899-1994). She was a doctor and a dental surgeon, practising in a London hospital.

In 1927 and 1928 Zernov organized in Britain two Anglo-Russian Student Conferences, which established strong contacts between English-speaking Christians and Orthodox Christians who had fled Russia after the Russian Revolution of 1917, and in 1928 he became a founder of the Anglican-Orthodox ecumenical group, the Fellowship of Saint Alban and Saint Sergius. After taking his D. Phil degree at Oxford University in 1932 he served as secretary of the Fellowship from 1935 to 1947. He was an associate of A. M. Allchin, Georges Florovsky and other prominent figures in Anglican-Orthodox relations in the 20th century.

In 1947 Zernov gave up his secretaryship of the Fellowship and began teaching in Oxford University, as Spalding Lecturer in Eastern Orthodox Studies. For two short periods he left Oxford, to serve as Principal of the Catholicate College Pathanamthitta in Kerala, India (1953-1954) and as Visiting Professor of Ecumenical Theology, Drew University, New Jersey, USA (1956). From 1959 he was warden of St. Gregory and St. Macrina House, Oxford.

With his parents, sisters and brother he wrote a memoir, Volume 1 "На переломе. Три поколения одной московской семьи (семейная хроника Зёрновых 1812-1921)" and volume 2 "За рубежом. Белград-Париж-Оксфорд. Хроника семьи Зёрновых, 1921-1972" : (1973). In 1979 he and his wife published The Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius: a historical memoir, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Fellowship.

He died in Oxford on 25 August 1980. He bequeathed his library to the Library of Foreign Literature in Moscow. His wife died on February 4th,1994.