Materials contributing to the biography of His Holiness Pimen (Sergey Mikhailovich Izvekov), Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia. About the place of birth and baptism.

Abstract

The article introduces newly found documents clarifying the existing information on the birthplace of Sergey Mikhailovich Izvekov (riassophore monk Platon, monk Pimen) who became the 14th Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Pimen. The biographies published after his death assert that the official data of the Soviet period stating that the future Patriarch was born in the town of Bogorodsk, Moscow region, is not confirmed by other documented facts naming the village of Kobylino in the Kaluga region, his father’s homeland, as his place of birth. The entry in the parish registers of the Holy Trinity Church of Glukhovo, a suburb of Bogorodsk, where the newborn Sergey was christened, sheds light on the first page of the future Patriarch’s biography and allows to make some assumptions as to the causes of the existing differences in the biographical data. The original documents confirming Bogorodsk as Sergey Izvekov’s homeland were found in Moscow State archives in the course of information sourcing for the Patriarch Pimen memorial museum. The museum is due to open at St. Pimen the Great (Holy Trinity) Church in Novy Vorotniki, Moscow. It was there that the future Patriarch served as choirmaster in his youth and where he eventually returned to celebrate annually in Divine Service on September 9, 1958-1983, his Patron Saint’s Day.