Metropolitan Leontius (Leonty,

secular name A legal name is the name that identifies a person for legal, administrative and other official purposes. A person's legal birth name generally is the name of the person that was given for the purpose of registration of the birth and which then ap ...

Leonid Ieronimovich Turkevich, russian: Леонид Иеронимович Туркевич; August 8, 1876 in Kremenetz,

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– May 14, 1965) was the Metropolitan of the North American Diocese of the

Russian Orthodox Church , native_name_lang = ru , image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg , imagewidth = , alt = , caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia , abbreviation = ROC , type ...

from 1950 until his death in 1965. He was succeeded by Metropolitan

Irenaeus (Bekish) Metropolitan Ireney (Patron Saint St. Irenaeus of Lyons, secular name John Bekish, born Ivan Dmitriyevich Bekish, russian: Иван Дмитриевич Бекиш, pl, Jan Bekisz; 2 October 1892, Mezhirech, Lublin Province (now Poland) – 18 M ...

. Leonid Ieronimovich Turkevich was ordained to the priesthood in 1905, and succeeded his father as parish priest of Kremenetz. He was transferred, along with his family, to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

in October 1906 and became the

rector Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to: Style or title *Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations *Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...

of the newly established Orthodox

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(St. Platon's) in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Fr. Leonid represented the American diocese of the Russian Church at the All-Russian Church Council of 1917–1918 in Moscow, Russia. Fr. Leonid, whose wife had died in 1925, was consecrated Bishop of Chicago in 1933. He was given the name Leonty during his tonsure as a monastic. Archbishop Leonty was elected Metropolitan of the diocese nearly unanimously during the 8th All-American Sobor, held in December 1950. He succeeded Metropolitan

Theophilus Pashkovsky Theophilus (Pashkovsky), born Feodor (Theodore) Nikolaevich Pashkovsky (russian: Фёдор Николаевич Пашковский) and commonly known as Metropolitan Theophilus (February 6, 1874, in Kyiv – June 27, 1950, in San Francisco), w ...

, who died in June of that year. In July 1988, Metropolitan Leonty's granddaughter, Tamara Turkevich Skvir, donated 50 bound volumes of

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and papers covering the period from 1906—1964 to the

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. The collection also included approximately 2,000

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s as well as other miscellaneous memoranda and historical documents. He had five children. John Turkevich (1907 – 1998) was Eugene Higgins Professor of Chemistry at Princeton. Anthony L. Turkevich (1916 – 2002) was a known American radiochemist. Nicholas L. Turkevich (1918 – 2007) was an international advertising executive.

Notes and references

1876 births 1965 deaths Primates of the Orthodox Church in America Married Eastern Orthodoxy clergy {{Eastern-Orthodoxy-bio-stub