Andrew Ukhtomsky

Archbishop Andrei Ukhtomsky was a Russian hierarch of princely birth, a missionary and preacher, later archbishop and spiritual leader of the "Andreevist" current of the True Orthodox Church, who died in 1937 at Yaroslavl. Born at Vosloma in the Rybinsk district of the Yaroslavl governorate, he chose the monastic life and missionary work young, in the Caucasus, at Kazan and in Abkhazia. He was the brother of the well-⁠known physiologist Alexei Ukhtomsky.

Family and school

Born Prince Alexander Alexeyevich Ukhtomsky, he came from an old princely family descended from Rurik. His father, Alexei Nikolaevich, formerly in the navy, was chairman of the district zemstvo board. His mother, Antonina Fyodorovna, was in his memory "an ideally good woman", who did not want her eldest son to become a priest but supported him once he chose the service of God. His brother was the physiologist and academician Alexei Alexeyevich Ukhtomsky, a prominent figure of the Edinoverie.

In 1887 he finished five classes of the classical gymnasium at Rybinsk and, at his father's wish, entered the cadet corps at Nizhny Novgorod. He met Archpriest John of Kronstadt "on a Volga steamer when his mother was taking her sons home on holiday"; Fr John talked long with Alexander and Alexei, and afterward both took the same decision. In 1891, after the cadet corps, he entered the Moscow Theological Academy, graduating in 1895 as candidate of theology with a thesis "On the Wrath of God". His brother followed, graduating in 1898 with a thesis "The Cosmological Proof of the Existence of God". On 9 November 1895, at his own request to serve in the church educational system, he was appointed teacher of Russian at the ecclesiastical school in Kazan.

Monk and missionary

On 2 December 1895 he was tonsured a monk by Archbishop Vladimir of Kazan with the name Andrei, on 5 December ordained hierodeacon and on 6 December hieromonk. "At twenty-⁠two I was a hieromonk," he later recalled. "I went to serve the spirit, the liberation of the human spirit from all obstacles to its freedom and development." Of his choice of monasticism he said that he could have been a priest in the Holy Cross brotherhood in the Chernigov governorate founded by N. N. Neplyuev, but for the priesthood he would have had to marry, and he had been frightened by the ideal of a girl and a woman he had formed for himself, Saint Nino, enlightener of Georgia; by her he judged all others, and all received a rather poor mark.

On 5 September 1897 he was moved to be inspector of the Alexander missionary seminary at Ardon in the Caucasus, where he was a member of the school council which governed the schools of North Ossetia. He received a pectoral cross from the Holy Synod and the rank of cathedral hieromonk of the Donskoy monastery in Moscow. On 4 August 1899 he was named supervisor of the missionary courses at the Kazan Academy, and on 18 August he was raised to archimandrite at the Transfiguration monastery in Kazan by Archbishop Arsenius Bryantsev.

He was an active supporter of abstinence from alcohol and an implacable fighter against drunkenness, through which he drew close to the temperance people of Kazan. On 10 February 1901 he was elected to the committee of the Kazan Temperance Society, on whose basis the first monarchist organization of Kazan, the local branch of the "Russian Assembly", later arose. He was elected chairman of the building committee for the church of the Image of the Saviour Not Made by Hands in the Podluzhnaya district of Kazan. It seems that he too, in 1901, drew the attention of the Kazan people to the need to honour and preserve the memory of the locum tenens of the patriarchal throne in 1612 to 1613, Metropolitan Ephraim of Kazan, who anointed the first tsar of the House of Romanov, Michael Fyodorovich, whose shrine was at the Transfiguration monastery. In the early 1900s he published much in the society's journal, "Deyatel", with articles and sermons, among them "How Every Christian Can Labour to Build the Kingdom of God on Earth", "Forgotten Thoughts from Orthodox Teaching" and "Tsar and People, Orthodox Rus, at Sarov". In 1905 he founded the Society of Christian Mutual Aid, to protect the Orthodox from foreign bondage.

Thought before the revolution

His articles show his Slavophile convictions and his hope of a renewal of the church and state life of Russia through the return of tsar and people to traditional Orthodox values. In July 1903 he took part in the celebrations of the glorification of Saint Seraphim at Sarov, where he received a pectoral cross with ornaments from the emperor's cabinet. Though critical of the absolutist character of post-⁠Petrine autocracy and of the synodal order, foreign to the old Russian way, he had at first great respect for the emperor, hoping for the restoration of the "symphony" of spiritual and secular power, but after some decades this enchantment turned to disillusion. During the events of 1905 to 1907 he openly supported the monarchist organizations of Kazan. Anatoly Krasnov-⁠Levitin wrote of him that he was an ardent and seeking man, who at first was fascinated by theosophy and spiritism, publishing in mystical journals articles signed "Prince-⁠Monk", after 1905 drew close to the revolutionary movement, spoke sharply against Rasputin and remained at the same time a fervent man of prayer and a devotee of church renewal.

Bishop at Kazan and Sukhumi

On 16 September 1907 Emperor Nicholas II confirmed the creation, at the expense of the Kazan diocese, of a see for a third vicar bishop, with the name Mamadysh, to direct the missionary courses. On 17 October 1907 Archimandrite Andrei was consecrated Bishop of Mamadysh, the first vicar for missionary work and for non-⁠Russian parishes at Kazan. He directed the skete of the Three Hierarchs for baptized Tatars, the Protection community and the Brotherhood of Saint Gurias, was editor of the missionary journal "Sotrudnik" and received the Order of Saint Vladimir third class (1909) and second class (1915).

On 7 August 1911 the emperor named him Bishop of Sukhumi. There he continued missionary work, asked the authorities not to let Muslim mullahs mix among the Abkhaz, tried to reconcile Abkhaz and Georgians, revived the church archaeological commission and from January 1912 began to publish the first missionary church periodical of the diocese, "Sotrudnik of the Transcaucasian Mission". A 1913 guide to the town of Sukhumi said that his "energy and tireless labour" would give Christianity its leading place, that he had restored ancient Christian monuments and that he travelled to the most forgotten corners of the diocese.

Last years

The sources available say little of his final years: after the revolution he became archbishop and spiritual leader of the "Andreevist" current of the True Orthodox Church, and he departed this life on 4 September 1937 at Yaroslavl.