Kioroglo Leonid biography

The priest Leonid Kishkovsky mournful news came to the curtail to curtail. The Orthodox priest, the father Leonid Kishkovsky, who served in America, died, as they say, after a serious and prolonged illness in the city of Glen-Kove New York on August 3. Almost until the very last days, already sitting in a wheelchair or using electronic communications, the priest served and preached in his small church of the Kazan icon of the Mother of God in the town of Cliff.

His parish was a kind of center of the Russian community-Russian emigrants gathered into the temple from all over the north-west. The parishioners of Father Leonid for many years regularly donated money to treat seriously ill Russian children together with the Rusfond. Famous and beloved by many priests-missionaries Georgy Kochetkov and Alexander Borisov, they were criticized at the conference of this frenzied criticism from the Orthodox fundamentalists, were criticized that there were too few Church Slavonic language in their services, and the sermons were too attached to modern realities and answered questions that were directly worried about the firms.

Father Leonid said then that it is harshly condemning priests for trying to clarify the flock of the gospel word and make the liturgy understandable is “spiritual Bolshevism”. With all due respect to the canonical worship in the Church Slavonic language, Father Leonid himself in his Cliff served both in English and in Russian. Among his parishioners were long -standing emigrants, for whom the Russian language has become more difficult for English for many years, and Church Slavonic is incomprehensible at all.

There were recent emigrants, who spoke mainly in Russian. It was advisable to serve in such a way that intelligence and consolation would receive everything so that the miracle of the Eucharist would be involved in the knowledge of the Church Slavonic language. The unity of the Church Father Leonid did not see that everyone thoughtlessly follow the ancient canon, but to understand each other and pray together.

Such humanity of the church met the aspirations of many Orthodox people. He was a prominent figure in the Orthodox Church in America of PCC and considered the All -American Orthodox Councils an important part of his life.

These cathedrals, regular meetings of Orthodox people of various kinds, are remarkable in that not only bishops and priests, but also parishioners participate in them. Discussions on theological, canonical and even economic issue are hot, decisions are made by general open voting, but it was in this difficult church democracy, in equal rights of parishes, regardless of the laity, Father Leonid and saw the key to true church council, achieved not by coercion, but with difficulty consent.

Father Leonid said that the idea of ​​such democratic church cathedrals belonged to the primitive Patriarch Tikhon, whose authority in the Orthodox world is difficult to overestimate. Relations with the birthplace of the charity activity of Leonid's father also consisted not only in the help of seriously ill children in Russia, but also in maintaining ties with his homeland for themselves and their parishioners.

The priest’s extremely scrupulous in monetary matters asked whether to honestly say to the victims of the receivers that their efforts were saved by Russian children, if the parishioners gathered a third of the required amount of money. But in fact, the fact that the Father Leonid Fund “Russian Dar of Life” invested a third of money in the treatment of each child in need of a cardiological operation, surprisingly motivated the readers of Rusfond.

If an article was published, which said that compatriots in America have already collected a third of the necessary amount - donations grew ten times, treated ten. The fact that somewhere behind the ocean people think of us, empathize with us, care about our children, instilled hope to the sacrifice of Rusfond, even the belief that with general efforts we can cope with all disabilities, achieve the necessary treatment for each child.

With the departure of Leonid’s father, the best world here, in our world, the hope and confidence in the power of human solidarity, nurtured by Father, remain.