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[Cover of Spanish edition of Eastern Christendom: a Study of the Origin and Development of the Eastern Orthodox Church (Christianismo Oriental) by Nicholas Zernov]

NICOLAS ZERNOV was a medical student in Moscow when Lenin’s triumph in 1917 prompted his family to flee to the Caucasus. From there they continued to Serbia where he took a theological degree at the University of Belgrade. Next they moved to Paris, where he founded the Brotherhood of St Seraphim of Sarov and served as secretary of the Russian Student Christian Movement. 

Acting in his capacity as secretary, he visited the British Student Christian Movement, was impressed with the group’s spirituality, and proposed an Anglo-Russian Student conference. This took place in early 1927. Meeting again 28 December 1927 through 2 January 1928, the group founded an Anglican-Orthodox ecumenical group, the Fellowship of Saint Alban and Saint Sergius. St. Alban, England’s first martyr, represents the English tradition and St. Sergius of Rostov, a great Orthodox reformer and miracle worker, the Russians. 

The Fellowship has worked continuously ever since to unite Christians. This is done not through negotiations, but through sharing prayer together as the groups alternate celebration of the Eucharist in each other’s presence. Discussions take place in an atmosphere designed to develop mutual trust and understanding. Members bring their families to meetings, their children play together, and all share meals. Words near the close of Zernov’s book Eastern Christendom encapsulate his vision:

The West offers its readiness to experiment, its keenness in the search for truth, and in the defence of individual freedom; the East has its trust in the guidance of the Holy Spirit, its uninterrupted tradition of teaching and worship and its faithfulness to the corporate wisdom of past generations. . . . Only together can they solve the problems of contemporary mankind. No balanced system of Christian doctrine, no effective action is possible without the reintegration of Christendom.

After Zernov took a doctorate at Oxford, he led the Fellowship of Saint Alban and Saint Sergius for over a decade, from 1935 to 1947. He also wrote many books introducing Orthodoxy and some of its historic figures to the West, as well as others calling for reunion of the divided and sectarian Christian faith. His circle of friends included C. S. Lewis. Beginning in 1947 he held positions in institutes of higher education in Britain, India, and the United States.

In 1927 Zernov had married Militza Lavrova, a dental surgeon. They published a memoir in 1973. The year before his death, he published another, a historical memoir of The Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius. Nicolas Zernov died on this day, 25 August 1980. 

Despite Zernov’s hope of unification, most Orthodox reject reunion of the world’s separated churches, saying Christian sects must instead return to the centuries-old Orthodox tradition. This uncompromising attitude is almost as true of the hundreds of thousands of Orthodox exiles living in Great Britain as it is of the millions in the rest of the world.

—Dan Graves

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The stories of several Russian emigrés are told in "The 'Philosophy Steamer'" from Christian History #146, Christ and Culture in Russia