Rodzianko

Vladimir Rodzianko, a prominent Orthodox priest, is known in the Soviet Union, Europe, and the United States. His notoriety begins with a prominent family line that extends back to the birth of the Russian nation. After his family fled the Bolshevik revolution, his career evolved from emigre priest to Russian-language broadcaster for the BBC and finally as a ruling bishop in America. By recounting Rodzianko's life, a parallel story emerges-the story of the Russian Orthodox Church from the 1917 Revolution to the Christian Millennium there in 1988. This story concludes in June 1990 with the election of a new Russian Orthodox patriarch in the era of glasnost. Moreover, this is a biography of a priest, Russian emigre, and broadcaster who confronts the reality of the Orthodox church under communism, a situation so problematic that it has created martyrs and traitors inside the USSR and has deeply divided Christians in the West.