Archbishop Apollinarii (Koshevoi), 1874-1933
Andrei Vasil’evich Koshevoi was born in Valok, Russia, in the Poltava guberniia, on October 16, 1874. He grew up in a pious family of Russian Orthodox believers, went through the traditional theological education, graduating the Romenskoe dukhovnoe uchilishche in 1888, and Poltavskaia dukhovnaia seminariia in 1894. Early on, Koshevoi chose his path, and in 1898 he was tonsured a monk by his spiritual mentor Archbishop Antonii (Khrapovitskii), being given the name Apollinarii, and subsequently ordained. He then continued his education at the famous Kievskaia dukhovnaia akademiia, graduating in 1905.
In 1917, Apollinarii (Koshevoi) was consecrated Bishop of Belgorod, spending the preceding years teaching at theological institutions and carrying administrative functions. Archbishop Apollinarii arrived in Serbia in 1920, as a result of the Russian revolution, and was sent to Jerusalem in 1922 to oversee the activities of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission. Two years later, he arrived in the New York, being assigned as vicar bishop to Metropolitan Platon (Rozhdestvenskii). His time in the U.S. coincided with difficult jurisdictional controversies, and he played an important role in the formation of Russian Orthodox parishes in the United States. From 1929-1933, he was Archbishop of North America and Canada, and died in New York in 1933.
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