Metropolitan Laurus

Metropolitan Laurus (Slovak: Metropolita Laurus, secular name Vasil' Michalovič Škurla, Russian: Василий Михайлович Шкурла; January 1, 1928, Ladomirová, Czechoslovakia – March 16, 2008, Jordanville, New York) was First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, the fifth cleric to hold that position. Born in Czechoslovakia, he emigrated to the United States in 1946 after World War II with brothers from his monastery. They joined the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, New York, established in 1928 by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.

Father Laurus was ordained to the priesthood in 1954 and advanced within the church. Late in his life, after the fall of the Soviet Union, he negotiated the fourth ROCOR agreement, which reunited ROCOR to the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate based in Moscow. In 2007 he participated in a joint celebration of the Divine Liturgy with the Patriarch of Moscow at Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow.

Vasil' Michalovič Škurla was born on January 1, 1928, in the Rusyn-inhabited village of Ladomirová (Hungarian: Ladomérvágása), Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia), to Rusyn-Slovak Michal Ivanovič and Elena Michalovna Škurla. His family was Orthodox Christian in an area of the former Sáros County of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that was strongly influenced by Roman Catholicism. He was baptised by archimandrite Vitaly (Maximenko).

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