Nicholas Zernov

Nicolas Michaelovich Zernov ( 9 October 1898 [O.S. 21 September] - 25 August 1980) (Cyrillic: Николай Михайлович Зернов) 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 (1963). He worked continuously for the unity of Christians, and from 1935 to 1947 was secretary of the ecumenical Fellowship of Saint Alban and Saint Sergius, which he helped to found in 1928.

Nicolai Michaelovitch Zernov was born in Russia on 9 October 1898 in Moscow. He had a sister, Maria, and was the son of a doctor. He himself began medical studies in Moscow in 1917, but after the Russian revolution and civil war his family fled to the Caucasus. In 1920 they were taken by some British people 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. Nicolas 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, and first editor of their periodical, Vestnik.

In 1927 he married Militza Lavrova (1899-1994), who was a doctor.

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 Culture. 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.

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