The Russian Orthodox Presence in Australia: The History of a Church told from recently opened archives and previously unpublished sources

443 Pages·2016·2.17 MB·English

by  Protopopov M.A.

THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX PRESENCE IN AUSTRALIA:
The History of a Church
told from recently opened archives and previously unpublished sources.

Submitted by
MICHAEL ALEX PROTOPOPOV
B. Theol., B. Ed., Gr Dip Ed Admin., M. Phil., T.P.T.C.

A thesis submitted in total fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

School of Philosophy and Theology
Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Australian Catholic University
Research Services
Locked Bag 4115
Fitzroy, Victoria 3065
Australia

31 January 2005
A History of the Russian Orthodox Presence in Australia.

ABSTRACT

The Russian Orthodox community is a relatively small and little known group in Australian
society, however, the history of the Russian presence in Australia goes back to 1809. As the
Russian community includes a number of groups, both Christian and non-Christian, it would
not be feasible to undertake a complete review of all aspects of the community and
consequently, this work limits itself in scope to the Russian Orthodox community.

The thesis broadly chronicles the development of the Russian community as it struggles to
become a viable partner in Australia’s multicultural society. Many never before published
documents have been researched and hitherto closed archives in Russia have been accessed.
To facilitate this research the author travelled to Russia, the United States and a number of
European centres to study the archives of pre-Soviet Russian communities. Furthermore, the
archives and publications of the Australian and New Zealand Diocese of the Russian
Orthodox Church have been used extensively.

The thesis notes the development of Australian-Russian relations as contacts with Imperial
Russian naval and scientific ships visiting the colonies increase during the 1800’s and traces
this relationship into the twentieth century. With the appearance of a Russian community in
the nineteenth century, attempts were made to establish the Russian Orthodox Church on
Australian soil. However, this did not eventuate until the arrival of a number of groups of
Russian refugees after the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War (1918-1922). As a
consequence of Australia’s “Populate or Perish” policy following the Second World War, the
numbers of Russian and other Orthodox Slavic displaced persons arriving in this country
grew to such an extent that the Russian Church was able to establish a diocese in Australia,
and later in New Zealand. The thesis then divides the history of the Russian Orthodox
presence into chapters dealing with the administrative epochs of each of the ruling bishops.
This has proven to be a suitable matrix for study as each period has its own distinct
personalities and issues.

The successes, tribulations and challengers of the Church in Australia are chronicled up to the
end of the twentieth century. However, a further chapter deals with the issue of the Church’s
prospects in Australia and its relevance to future generations of Russian Orthodox people.

As the history of the Russians in this country has received little attention in the past, this
work gives a broad spectrum of the issues, people and events associated with the Russian
community and society at large, whilst opening up new opportunities for further research.

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A History of the Russian Orthodox Presence in Australia.

DECLARATION

This is to certify that

(i) the thesis comprises only my original work
(ii) due acknowledgement has been made in the text
to all other materials used
(iii) the material has not been submitted, either in whole
or in part for any academic award at this or any other
tertiary educational institution
(iv) the thesis is less than 200,000 words in length, exclusive
of appendicies and bibliographies, as agreed upon with
the Research Department.

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A History of the Russian Orthodox Presence in Australia.

CONTENTS

THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX PRESENCE IN AUSTRALIA:............................................................................................1
ABSTRACT...........................................................................................................................................................................2
DECLARATION...................................................................................................................................................................3
CONTENTS...........................................................................................................................................................................4
INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................................................................................5
1 A RUSSIAN PRESENCE (1807)....................................................................................................................................7
2 REVOLUTION: AGITATORS, IMPOSTORS AND REFUGEES (1905 - 1920)..........................................................23
3 SETTLEMENT – BRISBANE (1923)............................................................................................................................38
4 SETTLEMENT – SYDNEY (1924)...............................................................................................................................61
5 SETTLEMENT – MELBOURNE (1900- 1948).............................................................................................................68
6 ECCLESIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE CHURCH IN THE RUSSIAN MIGRANT EXPERIENCE.......73
7 A DIOCESE IS BORN....................................................................................................................................................85
8 A TIME OF GROWTH.................................................................................................................................................173
9 TURMOIL AND REVOLT..........................................................................................................................................241
10 A NEED FOR HEALING...........................................................................................................................................253
11 SOME THOUGHTS ON THE STATE OF RUSSIAN MONASTICISM IN AUSTRALIA.....................................287
12 CONSOLIDATION AND STABILITY.....................................................................................................................297
13 COARSE AND WICKED TIMES..............................................................................................................................332
14 INTO THE 21ST CENTURY......................................................................................................................................344
15 CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE FUTURE.................................................................................................................356
APPENDIX A....................................................................................................................................................................370
APPENDIX B....................................................................................................................................................................371
BIBLIOGRAPHY..............................................................................................................................................................423
ARCHIVAL MATERIAL..................................................................................................................................................431

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A History of the Russian Orthodox Presence in Australia.

INTRODUCTION

The Russian Orthodox Church has been indispensable to the establishment of a visible
Russian community in Australia. The very first visits of Imperial Russian naval and
scientific ships at the dawn of the nineteenth century were military and scientific endeavours
during which religious services were performed on board. These shipboard Orthodox
services were noted by the local inhabitants and reported by the newspapers of Sydney,
Melbourne and Hobart. The spiritual needs of Russians in Australia were also recognised by
the first Imperial Russian Consul to the Australian Colonies at the end of the nineteenth
century. Efforts were made to establish a parish in Melbourne until the Russian Revolution
overwhelmed the Empire. The Orthodox of Australia were seemingly forgotten.

However, the Russian Civil War (1918-1922) and the subsequent dispersal of millions of
Russians throughout the world, saw Australia become a haven for, at first a few, followed by
thousands more, dispossessed and displaced refugees. These people brought with them their
faith. The Russian Orthodox Church became a symbol of the Motherland which they had
lost. As the waves of Russian migrants arrived in this country they built or rented churches
around which their community grew. Consequently, the local parish has remained the centre
of Russian activity in the broader Australian community. Many social and community
organisations can trace their genesis to the church and the parish. This is what has made the
community a unified organism, retaining a sense of heritage and purpose.

While many organisations and parishes have attempted to record the events of their existence,
to date there has been no systematised record of the establishment and development of the
Russian Orthodox Church in this country. This is the task now at hand.

Most of the archival materials used in this work have, in the main, remained unpublished to
date. The documents of the Holy Governing Synod from the Russian National Historical
Archives in St Petersburg, were not available to scholars until the fall of the Communist
regime, nor were the archives of the External Foreign Politics of Imperial Russia, currently
housed in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow. Never before published materials from
the archives of the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia in
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A History of the Russian Orthodox Presence in Australia.

New York, and materials from the archives of the Australian and New Zealand Diocese and
the German Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad have been made available for
this work. The biographies of the priests which appear in the appendix have been taken from
all the above mentioned archival sources and are a composite of all the available information
about these clerics. It seems proper to record not only the acts, but also the living memory, of
those people who formed the Russian Church in Australia. Wherever possible, names have
been given according to their proper Russian usage, namely, Christian name, patronymic and
surname. No disrespect is intended if names of clergy are not always prefixed with an
ecclesiastical title.

Other valuable sources have been the private letters, documents and face to face interviews,
which have given life to the sometimes dull record of places and events. A great debt of
gratitude is owed to those who have provided their personal papers and reminiscences.

A number of texts have been useful in the researching of people and events. The literature
used has been treated in the original languages of publication; principally Russian, German
and English.

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A History of the Russian Orthodox Presence in Australia.

1

A RUSSIAN PRESENCE
(1807)

Early in the nineteenth century it became evident that Russia was interested in the developing
Australian colonies. In 1807, the sloop Neva, under the command of Captain Leonty
(Ludwig) von Hagemeister, was the first Russian ship to enter Port Jackson, now Sydney. In
the ensuing years, visits by other Russian ships became more and more frequent. In 1814, the
Suvorov, under the command of Captain Michael Lazarev, spent 22 days in New South Wales
waters. Indeed, it was the Suvorov that brought to the Colony the first news of the defeat of
Napoleon,1 And in 1820, the warships Otkryitie and Blagonamerennyi entered into Sydney
Cove.2 The place for mooring Russian ships soon became known as Russian Point; a name
retained until 1855 when Governor William Denison decided to fortify the Point against any
possible Russia,n or French, invasion. That same year it was decided to build an official
residence to be called Admiralty House on the high cliffs above the moorings; and it was
considered more appropriate to call the area by its aboriginal name “Kirribilli”.3

1820 also saw the arrival of the famous Russian explorer and sea captain Baron Thaddeus
von Bellingshausen and his Antarctic research ships Vostok and Mirnyi, under the command
of Michael Lazarev.4 Upon his return from Antarctica, von Bellingshausen again visited
Sydney where he decided to spend the winter as the guest of Governor Macquarie, collecting
information about the emerging colony which he later published in Russia under the title,
“Short Notes on the Colony of New South Wales”. Citing this publication, the journal
“Commonwealth of Australia and the South-West Pacific 1901-1951” (No 28) notes an
interesting fact, namely that “gold was first discovered in Australia in 1819 near the

1
N. Melnikov, “Второй русский корабль в Австралии,” Australiada, No 3, (1995), pp. 2-5.
2
N. Melnikov, “Первые русские в Австралии,” Australiada, No 1, (Oct. 1994), p. 2-3.
3
E. Govor, “На мысу русских,” Australiada, No 5 (1995), pp. 1-6. Kirribilli Point became the location for the
official residence of Australia’s Prime Ministers
4
ibid., p.3.
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A History of the Russian Orthodox Presence in Australia.

township of Hartley in the Colony of New South Wales by Schmidt,”5 by a Russian naturalist
attached to the expedition of Captain Lazarev.

dn the night of 27 March 1820, Sydney residents were intrigued to see the Vostok decorated
with lanterns and festoons. The crew appeared on deck in full parade uniform and the ship’s
chaplain, a Fr Dionysius, commenced the Paschal services of the Orthodox Church. Easter
was greeted in traditional Russian style. After Divine Services a lavish meal was prepared,
with Easter kulich bread and painted eggs. Official guests were invited from the colony to
join the ship’s company and the merriment continued all day. This is the first recorded
occasion of an Orthodox service to be held in any of the Australian Colonies.6

It should be noted that the Anglo, Austro-Hungarian and Russian alliance against Napoleon
did much to cement relations between England and Russia during the first two decades of the
nineteenth century. However, when Russian troops took Paris in 1813 and occupied it in
1814, England looked on Russia with foreboding. The thought of Russia expanding its
influence throughout the world and competing with British imperialistic interests began to
take hold. Further visits by Russian ships in 1823, the Rurik and Apollon, and a year later by
Ladoga and Kreiser under the command of Captain Andrei Lazarev, caused some concern
amongst the colony’s authorities and this was reported to London.7

There is an interesting note in the journal “Australiada” (No 2), which comments that during
the visit to Hobart of the warship Ladoga the captain was surprised to meet some people who
spoke Russian. It turned out that this was the family of a Russian soldier, John Potasky8, who
once served in the army of Catherine the Great. Later, whilst living in London, Potasky was
deported to the colonies for some misdemeanour whilst in an English port. After completing
his seven year sentence, he decided to remain and settle in Tasmania.9 Another Russian
sailor, a bosun’s mate on the Suvorov, by the name of De Silver, also decided to find his
fortune in the Australian Colonies. In 1814, he jumped ship in Sydney and is the earliest
traceable Russian immigrant to Australia.

5
B. Diakonov “По Австралии,,” Unification, No 22 (78), 30 May 1952, p. 5.
6
N. Melnikov, “Первая русская Пасха у берегов Австралии,” Australiada, No 11, (1997), p. 1.
7
N. Melnikov “Первые русские в Австралии,” Australiada, No 1, (Oct. 1994), p. 2-3.
8
E. Govor “Первые русские в Австралии,” Australiada, No 7, (1996), pp. 3-7.
9
N. Melnikov “Первые эмигранты,” Australiada, No 2, (1995), p. 6.
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A History of the Russian Orthodox Presence in Australia.

Further Russian naval visits to Australia’s shores by the Elena in 1825 and 1829, Krotki in
1829 and Amerika in 1831 and 1835, created some alarm in the Colonies. In 1841, the New
South Wales Government decided to establish a fortification at Pinchgut (now Fort Denison)
in Port Jackson, to enable the Colony to repel any possible invasion.10 This was soon
followed by fortifications at Queenscliff, Portsea and Mud Island in Victoria’s Port Philip
Bay. As the paranoia of possible Russian invasion spread, further fortifications were
established on the Tamar River near Launceston and along the banks of the Derwent River at
Sandy Bay and Hobart. With the discovery of gold in the 1840’s and 1850’s and the
hostilities of the Crimean War (1853-1856) between England and Russia, the fear of Russian
invasion of the Colonies became an obsession. On 9 December 1858 a Royal Commission on
the defence of New South Wales over which Major-General Edward Macarthur presided,
went so far in its report as to actually name Russia as a potential aggressor.11

The appearance of any Russian Fleet in the Pacific Ocean caused alarm throughout the
Colonies, becoming ridiculous when rumours spread that the Russians had invaded the Port
of Melbourne. Melbourne was again put on a war footing when in 1863 the corvette Bogatir
visited the city on a friendly visit. The visit went off without incident, except that it was
reported that a Russian Orthodox priest, Fr Ieronymus, conducted the ceremony of the
blessing of the waters on Epiphany Day (6/18 January) at Port Philip.12

Such hysteria arose because of the delicate balance of power in Europe after the Napoleonic
War. Throughout the 19th century Britain was building an empire and Russia was perceived,
on a number of occasions, to be standing in its way. In particular, one area of conflict was
in the area of the Black Sea where the Russian and Ottoman empires had been struggling to
control the lands around the waterway since the time of Catherine the Great. Many sensed
that Russia was growing in strength whilst Turkey was in decline, and it was only a matter
of time before Russia put her claim to the territory south of the Black Sea and the all-
important exit to the west, ancient Constantinople and the Borsphorus... Control of the
Balkans and the ‘Turkish Straits’ was one element in the delicate balance of power in
Europe. Russia’s attempt to exert control over it threw off that balance and caused violent
readjustment.13

10
J. Whitelaw, “Artillery and Australia,” Sabretache, Vol.XLII, (March 2001), p. 6.
11
C. Lack, Russian Ambitions in the Pacific. Brisbane: Royal Historical Society of Queensland, 1968. p. 8.
12
H. L. N. Simmons, Orthodox in Australia. (Boston: Hellenic College Press, 1986), p. 4.
13
A. L. Rhinelander, Prince Michael Vorontsov - Viceroy to the Tsar. London: McGill-Queen’s University
Press, 1990. p. 189.
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A History of the Russian Orthodox Presence in Australia.

With the commencement of hostilities between Russia and Turkey along the Danube in
November 1853, a strategy designed to liberate Constantinople from the Turks and return it
to the Orthodox Greeks, Britain and France brought their fleets into the theatre of war without
any declaration of intention. The London papers reported that this was “to prevent the naval
forces of the Tsar from attacking those of the Sultan, or making any hostile descent upon
Turkish territory.”14 Indeed, the British press instigated a campaign of vilification against
Russia as a prelude to sending troops to invade its territory. Under the heading “The War
against the Barbarians,” The Illustrated London News declared that public opinion was
firmly against Russia’s alleged aggression against Turkey, and spoke of “the black guilt
which will enshroud that of [Tsar] Nicholas... He is the most selfish of war-makers that
modern times ever saw.”15 The rhetoric of war was followed up by a joint declaration by the
British and French on 14 March 1854, and the first troops sailed to invade Russian Crimea on
6 April of the same year.

Australia may have been far from the battlefield but the ideals of Empire and Motherland
were deeply ingrained in the psyche of the ruling colonial classes. The fact that the
Motherland had gone to fight the Russians was evidence in itself that Russia must be bad, and
the Britain was defending the right.16 However, there were also voices of dissent:
the British public is not unanimous in its opposition to the pretensions of the Emperor of
Russia... We have learnt from the columns of the American newspapers, that the Tsar has
a few friends in that country. In England, the chief allies of the Tsar appear to be the
Society of Friends... The most noted friend of the Tsar is an Irishman named Mitchel [who
had lived in both America and Australia] - a convicted traitor and felon - who hates the
British Government... and calls upon all Irishmen to fight against England, which he
affects to consider the enemy of human liberty.17

During the Crimean War, for the first time, newspaper correspondents were able to provide
the public with eyewitness accounts of the scenes of conflict.18 The standards, objects and
methods employed by the journalists in this, the first war to be covered in the modern sense,
made the newspaper a formidable weapon in the arsenals of the combatants.

14
The Illustrated London News, “Departure of the Russian Ambassador,” 4 Feb. 1854, No. 667, p. 90.
15
The Illustrated London News, “The War against the Barbarians,” 11 Feb. 1854, No. 668, p. 1.
16
The Argus, “Crimea Appeal,” 13 Jun. 1854, p. 4.
17
The Illustrated London News, “The Friends of Russia,” 6 May 1854, No. 681, p. 1.
18
This marks a shift to the contemporary perception of war, where the whole conflict was observed, rather than
the subsequent concentration on the heroism, incompetences and romantic fantasies of the "the gentleman's art."
The Crimean conflict became truly the "first newspaper war." See Lambert A. The Crimea War, Dover NH: A.
Sutton, 1994. p. 2.
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