Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh (Russian: Митропролит Антоний Сурожский, secular name Andrei Borisovich Bloom, Russian: Андрей Борисович Блум; 19 June 1914 – 4 August 2003) was best known as a writer and broadcaster on prayer and the Christian life. He was a monk and Metropolitan bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church. He was founder and for many years bishop - then archbishop, then metropolitan - of the Diocese of Sourozh, the Patriarchate of Moscow's diocese for Great Britain and Ireland (the name 'Sourozh' is that of the historical episcopal see in Sudak in the Crimea). As a bishop he became well known as a pastor, preacher, spiritual director and writer on prayer and the Christian life.

Andrei Bloom was born on 19 June 1914, in Lausanne, Switzerland, to Xenia and Boris Edvardovich Bloom. On his mother's side, he was the nephew of the composer Alexander Scriabin.

He spent his early childhood in Russia and Iran. During the Russian Revolution the family had to leave Iran, and by 1923 they were settled in Paris, where he was educated. He graduated in physics, chemistry and biology, and took his doctorate in medicine at the University of Paris.

By his own words, he met Christ, when he was a teenager:

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