Averky (Taushev)

Archbishop Averky (Taushev) was a hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, archbishop of Syracuse and Holy Trinity and abbot of Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, New York. He is venerated by the faithful without synodal canonization.

He was born on 19 October 1906 (old style) at Kazan, into a noble family of Simbirsk province, the only son of Pavel Taushev, a military jurist, and Maria Vladimirovna. In his youth he read widely in his father's library, above all spiritual books. In January 1920 the family left Russia and settled at Varna in Bulgaria. There he finished a Russian high school, met Archbishop Theophan of Poltava, who guided him toward monasticism, and studied theology at the University of Sofia.

On 19 May 1931 he was tonsured a monk by Bishop Joseph of Bitola at Saint Nicholas Monastery in Iza, with the name Averky, after Saint Abercius of Hierapolis. He was ordained a deacon the next day, and a hieromonk in 1932. He served in Subcarpathian Rus (then Czechoslovakia), taught the Law of God and edited the church paper in Uzhhorod; in 1937 he was raised to hegumen. In 1940 he moved to Belgrade, where he taught pastoral theology and homiletics, and in 1945, ahead of the Soviet army, he reached Munich with the Synod of the Church Abroad.

In 1951 he began to teach at Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville, was raised to archimandrite and received episcopal consecration. On 12 May 1960 the community elected him abbot of the monastery and rector of the seminary. He directed the seminary curriculum, took part in producing the periodical Pravoslavnaya Rus and in 1974 hosted the Third All-⁠Diaspora Council at Jordanville. He is also known as a theologian and spiritual writer. He reposed in the Lord on 13 April 1976.