He was bred up a New York City Irish-American Catholic, and I think at one point in the ’60s became Orthodox (and maybe ordained in the Orthodox Church) before “reverting” to (Ukrainian) Catholicism. I think that he was a student fro a time at St. Vladimir’s Seminary (according to the late Fr Eugene Vansuch, who once mentioned to me having known him as a student there).

• Fr Lev Gillet, ‘a Monk of the Eastern Church’, was a crypto-Catholic (a footnote in Fr S’s translation of Fr Cyril Korolevsky’s massive, useful history of Greek Catholicism, his biography of Metropolitan Andrew [Sheptytsky], the Polish count turned Ukrainian Catholic supremo, for whom Fr C was secretary).
• Metropolitan Nikodim was indeed a Catholic and Soviet double agent.
• As of 2000 there were some Russian priests using Catholic antimensia.
• Met. Kallistos to him: It’s not enough to have the Orthodox faith; one must be under the Orthodox hierarchy. Fr S: WHICH ONE? MK: Shut up!

Father Serge was a gigantic six-foot-four leprechaun who always said what he meant to all people (probably how he got exiled to Ireland, where he found his true calling), but always with a hearty laugh and a twinkle in his eye. He loved God, he loved his Church, and he loved serving the people, who loved him in return. A scholar as well as a pastor, he did much to help restore the authentic Tradition of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

Labels: Eastern Orthodoxy, Russia, the Catholic faith